"Be careful, the edges are sharp enough to be used to cut paper. ”

Seeing Ye Qiushuang's grinning appearance, Zhao Tianming had to remind her that she didn't look at the casual appearance of him and the man in the suit just now, in fact, they all knew it in their hearts.

"I want you to say it!" Ye Qiushuang rolled his eyes, but his movements became much gentler.

"This is Li Mo?"

Ye Qiushuang looked at Gu Mo in front of him, his eyes lit up. The ancient ink is delicate and silky, but it feels hard and fine, as if it can still be smelled, and a faint ink fragrance permeates the tip of the nose.

For the first ink in the world, she has naturally heard of it. And what is linked to the name of the world's first ink is the name Li Yanqi, and only the ink he made can be called the first ink in the world.

Li Yanqi, he was not originally surnamed Li, but surnamed Xi, and he was the grandson of the famous ink maker Xi Nai. Later, the ink he made was greatly appreciated by Empress Li of the Southern Tang Dynasty, and even gave his entire family a surname. It can be seen how good Li Yanqi's ink-making ability is, and how much Li Houzhu admires him.

Since then, Xi Yanqi has changed his surname to Li Yanqi, and his ink is also known as Li Yanqi Mo, or Li Mo.

Speaking of which, a big reason why Huimo can have his current fame is also due to Li Yanqi.

China has a long history of using ink, however, the early ink, with natural graphite, is very easy to fall off after writing, inconvenient to preserve. Artificial ink making, which began in the Western Zhou Dynasty, and large-scale ink making has appeared in the Han Dynasty, and by the time of the Tang Dynasty, the ink-making technology was perfected.

And Huimo, which is recorded in writing, is no later than the end of the Tang Dynasty.

At the end of the Tang Dynasty, after years of war, Li Yanqi, who was still surnamed Xi at that time, moved to Shezhou with his father Xi Chao, which is now Huizhou. Xi Chao saw that there were many Huangshan pines in Huizhou, and the quality was excellent, and the water quality in the Xin'an River basin was good, so he returned to his old business here.

This is also known as pine smoke ink. In ancient times, pine wood was used to burn soot as raw materials, so it was called pine smoke ink.

Smoke is the gasification generated by the incomplete combustion of animals and plants, and the smoke is solidified when it is cold to form soot, which is divided into pine soot and oil soot.

Tobacco is an important raw material for ink making, and the tobacco materials used in Chinese ink making can be divided into two categories: pine tobacco and oil smoke, among which the use of pine tobacco has the longest history.

The production of pine smoke ink is made by cutting pine branches, burning smoke, sieving smoke, melting, pestle pounding, tempering, etc., the process is more complex, and its characteristics are that the thick ink is dull, and the quality is fine and easy to grind.

Of course, Songyanmo did not start here, Songyanmo appeared in the Han Dynasty.

In the history of Chinese ink making, the Han Dynasty was an important historical stage that inherited the past and opened up the future.

Before the Han Dynasty, natural ink was mainly used, and artificial ink was very rare. In the Han Dynasty, due to the development of ink-making technology, there was a real sense of pine ink, and the appearance of pine smoke ink was a huge leap in the history of Chinese ink making. Since then, people have bid farewell to the era of using natural ink, laying the foundation for the development of the ink industry in the future.

Li Yanqi saw that the ink made by the local ink workers was quite distinctive, so he humbly sought advice and devoted himself to it. They improved the method of pounding tobacco and glue, and formed a complete set of operating procedures.

The ink made surpassed the famous Yizhou ink at that time in terms of quality, and was praised as "light, smelly, and clear", "rich and greasy, lustrous like lacquer".

Therefore, Li Yanqi was appreciated by Li Yu, the queen of the Southern Tang Dynasty, and was called as an ink official and given the "national surname". As a result, the Xi family changed into the Li family, and the glory became a beautiful talk for the ages.

And Li Mo has also been famous all over the world since then, and his ink is known as "the first product in the world", and there is a saying that "gold is easy to obtain, but Li Mo is hard to find".

Since Li Tingqi was given the official surname by Li Yu, Huizhou's ink workers have re-emphasized the ink making skills, so there have been batches of famous ink workers in the past dynasties. Li Yanqi became the founder of Huimo.

Until contemporary times, there is still a saying that "the world's ink industry is in Huizhou".

"It's like a rhino, it turns out to be like this? Little brother, your eyes are really poisonous, you can pick up a piece of Li Mo, and it's the size of a brick. ”

Qiu Shuang looked at the delicate texture of some places of ancient ink, and it is said that the ink made by Li Tingqi, after fifty or sixty years of storage, is still "as hard as jade, its grain as rhino", and "its strength can be cut into wood".

"I heard that Li Mo was used to copy one and a half parts of the Huayan Sutra, and it was only ground an inch, stored for hundreds of years, and there was still a fragrance when grinding, I don't know if it was true? That piece of ink wouldn't be bigger than this one, right? Is it really so magical?" Ye Qiushuang said as he weighed the ancient ink in his hand.

According to records, Xu Xuan, a philologist of the Northern Song Dynasty, was given a piece of Li Mo when he was a child, and together with his brother Xu Kai and his younger brother, he used it to polish and practice characters, writing 5,000 characters a day, and it took ten years to use it up. Moreover, the polished ink, which has a blade on its edge, is often used by the brothers to cut paper.

There was a big official in the Song Dynasty, accidentally dropped a piece of Li Mo into the pond, he didn't care at the time, the next year, he dropped a piece of gold into the pond, so people went into the water to salvage, unexpectedly, Li Mo was also salvaged together, but a year has passed, the piece of Li Mo that has been soaked in water all the year round, still the light and color remain unchanged, the surface is as new. ”

Zhao Tianming said that the ancient craftsmanship is indeed magical, and many antiquities that have been handed down cannot be copied with the current scientific means, and there are countless such examples.

"That's right, Li Mo was already very precious at that time, Li Yu, the queen of the Southern Tang Dynasty, often used Li Jiamo to reward meritorious heroes, after Song Taizu, all emperors wrote edicts, all used Li Mo, therefore, every year Huizhou to the imperial court to pay tribute to thousands of catties of ink. ”

The man in the suit was very enthusiastic about the introduction, but after a change of words, he then said: "Little brother, I don't know if you are willing to cut your love and give me this piece of ink? ”

Fang Xiaoning was a little in a daze, usually when the master buys antiques, he is to reduce the price to death, and he can't wait to get as low as he wants, and the general antiques are resold soon after they are purchased, and it is rare to see him so eager for an antique.

He knew Li Mo's name, but was it really that precious? Even the master who had always regarded antiques as possessions was so tempted to pull down his face and ask for it.

"I'm sorry, whether this piece of ink is real or not, I'm not going to make a move. Zhao Tianming refused without thinking about it.

Since confirming that this piece of ink is Li Yanqi's ink, Zhao Tianming plans to give it to Zhou Lao, who likes to collect the four treasures of the study the most, and I believe that he will definitely like it when he sees this ink.

Although Zhou Lao didn't help him much, Zhao Tianming naturally felt that kind of support, and he always remembered it in his heart. Now that he has found a favorite of his heart, he naturally wants to repay the favor.

"Little brother, don't you want to hear the price I offer?" The man in the suit saw that he refused so simply, but he didn't give up.