Zhang Ziyu knelt on the ground, crying in pain, as if she wanted to cry out all the grievances in her heart, Shen Wanqing stepped forward, squatted beside her, stretched out her hand to wipe the tears from her face, and comforted softly: "Don't cry." ”

Zhang Ziyu actually fell into Shen Wanqing's arms like a child, Lin Yuan was just about to go over to dissuade her, and Master Li on the side said: "Let her cry, it's been so many years, Miss she ......" Speaking of this, she was in tears, and after a while, she reluctantly said: "Miss, she's too difficult!" ”

When Zhang Ziyu had cried enough, she got up from Shen Wanqing's shoulder and said to Lin Yuan: "My lord, now I will tell you the whole story. ”

Zhang Ziyu's tone returned to calm, just as Lin Yuan had done when she first saw her, and she asked softly, "Lord Lin, do you know what our ancestors of the Zhang family relied on to make their fortunes?" ”

Lin Yuan shook his head silently, and Zhang Ziyu said softly: "My lord must think that our Zhang family is clever and robbing the people on weekdays, so that they have accumulated such a rich family business, right?" ”

These words made Lin Yuan's face hot, he thought like this, Zhang Ziyu understood Lin Yuan's thoughts, so he said: "Our ancestors did not live in Fengtian, but in the area of Zhili, which is very close to Beijing. ”

"In addition, our ancestors have produced several skilled craftsmen, ingenuity, and the glazed ware is fired beautifully and colorfully, so every time a glazed ware is fired, the magnates in the capital will compete to buy it, so our Zhang family has accumulated thousands of family wealth."

Zhang Ziyu said, turned his head and pointed to the glazed ware behind him, and said: "Our Zhang family has always had a habit, that is, after firing a glazed ware, if the shape of the vessel is exquisite, it will inevitably imitate a piece of survival, these are the fine products that our Zhang family has kept in the past two hundred years." ”

Lin Yuan nodded and exclaimed, "Your Zhang family's craftsmanship is really unparalleled in the world. Zhang Ziyu smiled slightly, and said: "Thank you Lord Lin for your false praise, Mencius Youyun: 'The gentleman's Ze, the fifth generation and beheaded', my Zhang family is the same, after several generations, the descendants of the family are greedy for pleasure, no one has studied the method of glass firing, and there is no new breakthrough in the method of glass firing of our Zhang family." ”

"But the hundred-legged insect dies but does not stiffen, our ancestors will teach some firing methods to the loyal servants around them, like Master Li, they are the descendants of loyal servants, with these loyal servants, although our Zhang family has stopped, but it will not decline, after all, there are too few insiders in this world, and there are even fewer people who know the goods, so no one can see that our Zhang family's firing method has not progressed." "As the saying goes, when the water is full, it overflows, and when the moon is full, it loses, and a fatal catastrophe has finally come!" When Zhang Ziyu said this, his face was full of sadness, and he seemed unwilling to recall this past, when Master Li heard this, he suddenly cried and said, "Miss, don't say it again." ”

Zhang Ziyu smiled faintly, picked up a small glass dragonfly, and put it in front of Lin Yuan, Lin Yuan looked at the dragonfly, but the size of a finger, but the lines of the whole body were extremely delicate, especially the pair of wings, which were as thin as a piece of yarn, and couldn't help but exclaim, Zhang Ziyu asked: "Look at this glass dragonfly, it is very exquisite, do you know what it is made of?" ”

Of course, Lin Yuan knew that the chemical composition of the glass was actually similar to that of glass, but the content of different elements was different, and the chemical composition of glass was silicate, which was made of sand, and the sand was actually silica, which became silicate after a chemical process.

Of course, Lin Yuan didn't know how to say "silicate", so Zhang Ziyu couldn't understand it, so Lin Yuan said: "I know that it's sand." ”

Zhang Ziyu's eyes lit up, and he said in surprise: "I didn't expect Lord Lin to be an insider, indeed, the glass is fired from sand, but the process inside is very complicated, I won't tell the adults one by one, but there is a key process that needs to use one thing: we call it stone alkali." Lin Yuan thought: "The stone alkali she said should be the soda ash commonly used in the silicate industry, that is, sodium carbonate in modern chemistry, the word soda ash comes from the twentieth century, the original alkali used in China is trona, and later imported synthetic alkali from foreign countries, the purity is higher than that of trona, so there is the name of soda ash, when making glass, soda ash must be added." ”

Thinking of this, Lin Yuan nodded and said, "I understand, you go on." ”

Zhang Ziyu said: "There are more than a dozen firing glazed ware in this capital, the reason why our Zhang family can take the lead, there is a very key reason, that is, the stone alkali we use is very pure, other people's alkali are brought back by businessmen from the alkali lake in Mongolia, and our family's stone alkali is dug out of the mine, but also by God's blessing, the mine we found, the stone alkali is extremely pure, which can burn such a beautiful glass." ”

Lin Yuan knew that before the emergence of synthetic alkali, people used trona, and there were two sources of trona, one was a saline-alkali lake, and the other was alkali ore, so he asked: "Is that fatal catastrophe related to alkali ore?" ”

Zhang Ziyu nodded and said, "That's right, we suddenly found out one day that the pure stone alkali in the alkali ore has been mined out!" The alkali mined again is far less pure than before, and this incident frightened the owner of the family at that time, because as soon as the stone alkali was gone, our glazed ware would no longer have the previous brilliance, and the reputation of our Zhang family accumulated for several generations would be ruined. ”

"What's even more terrifying is that our Zhang family should have received orders for dozens of pieces of glazed ware at that time, and almost all of the orderers were powerful people in the capital, and even a few were personally supervised by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and they were to be sent to the palace.

"Our head of the family at that time kept this matter a secret, and at that time he thought of transferring part of the family business to the outside of the customs, but at that time, the ban on the border was strict, and the Han people were strictly forbidden to go out of the customs, so we bought off the officials and secretly went out of the customs, and transported the glazed ware handed down from our ancestors to the outside of the customs, and purchased land in the Fengtian area, in order to retreat, on the other hand, we purchased high-quality alkali from Mongolia, hoping to be able to fire the same glazed ware as the original."

But the head of the family tried hard, still failed to fire the glazed ware, seeing that the date was approaching, he asked the Ministry of Internal Affairs for guilt, fortunately Emperor Daoguang said at that time: It is not easy to be a craftsman, how can Ming Jun be responsible for the plaything? My Zhang family was spared the catastrophe of raiding the house. ”

"But who knows that other craftsmen who burn glaze in the capital of Lu Dao actually colluded with those powerful people to ask for their customized glazed ware at my Zhang family, they knew that our Zhang family could not burn it, so they humiliated in every way, wantonly made it difficult, the head of the family knew that he was wrong, and he couldn't argue, in the middle of the night, the head of the house actually committed suicide by hanging the beam!"

"Although our Zhang family has taught part of the craft to the master, the core craft is a single line, only passed on by the previous generation of family heads to the next generation of family owners, and it is taught by word of mouth, and not a word and a half are allowed to fall on the paper! When the head of the family committed suicide by hanging the beam, he had not yet selected the next head of the family, so the most exquisite and core craftsmanship of my Zhang family was lost! ”