Lan Eucalyptus has a new iron pot at home, and her mother said, "The pot I bought this time is different from the previous one." ”

"What's the difference?" ”

My mother said, "This time the iron pot was made by hand by a blacksmith. ”

The old industry was three kinds of bitterness, striking iron, supporting boats, and grinding tofu. Although it was tiring in the past, the iron business that was once flourishing is about to disappear.

In ancient China, iron smelting was earlier, and the iron-striking industry in the agricultural era was once one of the eight great craftsmen in the village, and there were basically blacksmith shops at the head of the village or at the end of the town.

Those blacksmiths are in good shape, skillful, and the posture of work is also very good-looking, and they stop to watch in the dim room, only to see the masters ping pong with hammers to beat a piece of exquisite ironware, and then put it into cold water for a stir, which is extremely hard.

"Iron has to be hard", it is not false at all, the body and bones of the blacksmith are better. Iron striking is a man's job, because he can't strike iron without strength, he doesn't dare to strike iron without courage, and he doesn't want to strike iron without the spirit of hardship.

Ironsmiths also attach great importance to the credibility of their products, and famous blacksmiths will also leave their blacksmith's shop "logo" (logo or trademark) on their products.

The equipment of the blacksmith is simple: an oven, a bellows, and an anvil with confidence. The furnace space of the oven is very large, and the bellows is close to the oven, making a "hu-la-hu-la-la" sound in the push and pull of manpower, so the coal fire on the furnace is burning more and more.

There are generally only two or three people in the blacksmith shop: the old blacksmith who holds the tongs and the two apprentices who wield the sledgehammer, which are concise and simple. The process of striking iron is divided into "master" (master) and "hand" (apprentice).

Until now, people often politely say, "I'll give you the right time", which means to be an assistant. Experienced in the upper hand, holding a small hammer in the right hand, holding iron pliers in the left hand, in the process of forging, the upper hand should constantly turn the iron by visual inspection, so that it can beat the square iron into a round iron rod or the thick iron rod into a slender iron rod.

As long as the old blacksmith's tongs clip out the fiery forgings, and stand on both sides of the anvil to start - the apprentice will pick up the sledgehammer under the guidance of the old blacksmith's small hammer to "strike while the iron is hot". Where the old craftsman's small hammer hit, the sledgehammers of the two apprentices also hit it accurately, so the golden light was shining......

In the eighties of the last century, agricultural production and the metal tools used at home, such as hoes, iron ties, sickles, rakes and other agricultural tools, or household spatulas, kitchen knives, etc., were all done by blacksmiths in blacksmiths.

In the past, there was a ballad that said: "Ding Dang, Ding Dang, the blacksmith pulls the bellows, the red iron hammer rams, the sparks are bright and shaking, the small hammer point, the big sledgehammer rammed, pounces on a spark seed, and burns the eldest sister's flower clothes." ”

There is also a folk song that sang: "Zhang hits the iron, Li hits the iron, beat the scissors to send my sister, my sister leaves me to rest, I don't stop, I rest at the foot of the stone bridge, the crab clips my ears are missing", these ballads are full of human warmth, and the aftertaste is endless.

Deng Rulin, 55 years old this year, is a native of Datian Village, Nanping Township, Lichuan City, and his ancestral iron-making skills have been with him for more than 30 years. Now, his apprentice Li Chongfu has also followed him for more than 10 years. Although business is not in a downturn, Lao Deng has been reluctant to abandon this craft.

To Lao Deng's regret, with the progress of society, this kind of blacksmith shop has become less and less, and their products only have a small market in remote villages.

Enshi post-90s blacksmith: If you carry this "pot", you must inherit the craftsmanship of your ancestors!

The revival of traditional wrought iron is just the beginning of Tian Huan. He wants to keep and pass on all the craftsmanship left by his ancestors.

Under the warm sun, in the forest, a table, a pot of tea, a person.

When the wind rises, the dead leaves accumulated on the ground are blown by the wind, and they fly, spin and flutter. Drinking the tea brewed from the iron kettle forged by himself, his mood will go up with the tea mist, relaxed and comfortable.

Such a scene, the former dream, has shone into Tian Huan's reality.

Tian Huan, who calls himself Tiewa, is a young Tujia from the 90s generation in Lichuan. The blacksmith of the family has been around for generations, and although he went to college, he has a soft spot for ironmaking.

"I found a lifestyle that suited me." Tiewa, who has been fighting iron in her hometown for four years, feels that there are three thousand floating worlds, each with their own love, and they can care about a dust, a garden, and a mountain. And his favorite dust is iron.

"Jingle bell, ding bell!" Every morning, in a courtyard in Datian Village, Nanping Township, Ichuan City, the bellows are raised, the flames rise, and the sound of iron is intermittent. This traditional blacksmith shop work scene seems too unfamiliar to modern urbanites, but for Tian Huan, it is very common.

4 years ago, Tian Huan was still a North Drifter who had just graduated from college. The hustle and bustle of life every day made him never find a sense of belonging.

Until one day, Tian Huan accidentally saw a group of ironware made by a Japanese handicraft master, which was simple and sophisticated, and the price was as high as thousands of yuan. Shocked, childhood memories were awakened.

Tian Huan's ancestors were famous blacksmiths in Icheon, and the sonorous sound of his great-grandfather and grandfather striking iron, and the raging flames pulled up by the bellows, accompanied him throughout his childhood. Later, with the development of modern industry, the work of manual blacksmiths gradually fell into obsolescence, and the fire at home was extinguished. Only in a few villages can there be sporadic clanging sounds.

"The popularity of Japanese iron pots lies in the beautiful handiwork, and I thought that if we learned the art of making iron from our Tujia family, we could also make a 'good Chinese iron pot'!" In the winter of 2014, the entrepreneurial dream of regaining the ancestral iron-striking craft rose in Tian Huan's heart.

Tian Huan returned to his hometown and rode a dilapidated second-hand motorcycle, Tian Huan traveled to all the villages in Lichuan for half a year. In the end, the car fell apart, and he found more than a dozen old folk blacksmiths.

Tian Huan said that he wanted to learn to strike iron, but the masters didn't believe it, and the old blacksmith Tang Yunguo shook his head like a rattle.

In fact, Tian Huan's heart is as clear as a mirror. He learned the technique of ironmaking, and what he ultimately wanted to do was to integrate the Tujia ironmaking skills into the modern process design products, so as to rejuvenate the ancient Tujia culture.

"Reporting" every day rain or shine allowed the masters to see Tian Huan's sincerity, and finally one day, he sounded the first hammer in his life.

Trust is just the beginning. The old blacksmiths used to make most of the agricultural tools, but the flowers, iron pots, and tea utensils that Tian Huan wanted paid special attention to the combination of traditional craftsmanship and modern aesthetic concepts, which took longer to polish.

In order to make a fashionable and beautiful pot, Tian Huan and his masters explored for 3 years, visited many pot manufacturers, and did hundreds of experiments. Tian Huan's requirements for products are very strict, and they can even be said to be strict.

For example, the iron pot, the error of the opening of 1.5CM is difficult to distinguish with the naked eye, but he has to break it all and redo it. The finished iron pots placed in the "Tiewa Commune" have undergone more than a dozen processes such as iron selection, sampling, plate opening, fire, hammering, molding, quenching, etc., and the most hammered is more than 20,000 times.

Today, the sign of the intangible cultural heritage of Icheon City, "Iron Making Skills", is hung on the wall of Tianhuan's "Tiewa Commune".

The pot is out, where to sell it?

At first, Tian Huan carried an iron pot to sell from store to store, and ran into walls everywhere.

"There are three lines of bitterness in the world, and the boat is beaten with iron and tofu." The pot on the back of the iron baby is getting heavier and heavier.

One day, as he sat down by the brook in the valley, he saw that the clear water of the stream was like a mirror, reflecting the iron pot and the blue-brown stones, and the small stones and blackened leaves at the bottom of the water.

The still water flows deeply, it turns out that the pot is spiritual!

Since then, valleys, streams, forests, and fishing boats have all been natural props. He took pictures of ironwork full of texture and fashion, posted them on Weibo, added them to more than 100 WeChat groups, and updated them every day. Exhibitions all over the country, Tian Huan is even more carefully arranged.

Slowly, the first order came, and the second order also came, one to ten, ten to hundred, word of mouth came out, and the orders were like snowflakes, more and more.

Now, Tian Huan sells seven or eight hundred iron pots every month, and tea sets, flowers, and various iron knick-knacks are also selling well. These products not only entered the metropolis, but also orders from Japan, South Korea, Australia.

Tian Huan's orders this year have exceeded 10,000, and the price ranges from multiple to 10 times the price of ordinary iron pots. He believes that the handmade iron pot has a temperature, which not only has a unique taste for stir-frying, but also has great collection value.

After 4 years of hard work, the blacksmiths have paid off. When he started his business, Tian Huan owed hundreds of thousands of yuan in wages to his masters. Now, Li Xingkui, a blacksmith in Datian Village, earns three times as much a year as in previous years, and Master Mu Laijiang of Nanping Village called back his two nephews who were working outside to join the Tiewa Commune.

In December last year, Tian Huan was commended as a "Good Youth of Great America and Sichuan". Not long ago, he was elected as one of the "Top Ten People of the Year" at the Wuhan Short Video Festival in China.

The revival of the blacksmith shop is only the beginning of Tian Huan. The pure natural ingredients, delicate and beautiful bamboo and wood in his hometown should not be buried in the ravine, he wants to leave and pass on the craftsmanship of the ancestors of the Tujia family.

What about striking iron? After 36 years of iron, 80,000 pieces of iron are sold a year, and it has also been included in the list of intangible cultural heritage!

"It's normal to have been fighting iron for most of your life." At the age of 17, Zhou Guangxing began to learn knife fighting with his father, and at the age of 19, he entered the town's iron factory.

Seeing it be hot, and watching it wither. Once, striking iron is still a popular handicraft work, there are more than a dozen blacksmith shops in Taiping Town alone, before dawn, the town resounded the sound of clanging iron. Nowadays, in the bustling life, it is difficult to place a red-hot furnace.

In his spare time, Zhou Guangxing would light a cigarette in front of his shop and be in a daze, feeling that he had been like a blacksmith in his life, trekking hard when he was young, reaching the peak in his prime, and then gradually declining. He hopes that more and more people will pay attention to this craft, at least not gradually run out of time.

Lately, though, he's feeling a little hopeful about that goal. After 20 days of publicity, the inclusion of the "Zhoujia knife" in Taiping Town into the list of district-level intangible cultural heritage of Tianfu New District has been basically finalized.

Under the promotion of the local government, the "Zhoujia knife" production inheritance base will be put into use in Xiaoyan Village, Taiping Town, "I will continue to fight, this is my breath." ”

After repeated hammering, a handmade kitchen knife was basically formed, and Zhou Guangxing polished the blade of the knife

Backed by the Longquan Mountains, Taiping Town, Tianfu New Area, is a traditional farming and economic town. From downtown Chengdu to the east, it is only one hour's drive away, and the scenery in front of you changes from a noisy city to a small rural scene.

The Zhoujia knife is hidden on the side of the road in the town, the signboard at the door is not conspicuous, and on the three-layer iron frame placed along the wall, there are various knives, slicing knives, bone chopping knives, and fruit knives...... Further inside, there was hardly any movement in the small courtyard, and the sound of clanging came from nearby.

"Come on in." The three black-faced men grinned and greeted, reflecting the orange-yellow firelight, their white teeth and black eyes flashing, and their eyes were particularly bright.

Blacksmith Zhou Guangxing and his apprentices are fighting.

Walking into the iron-making room, time travels back to the last century. An iron drum bellows, a red-hot fire, the walls to the roof were blackened, the ground was littered with steel and stone, soot and sawdust covered each other, and in the corner not far away, some of the obsolete ironworks had been cobwebed.

The walls are filled with chalk phone numbers and names, all of which are simple surnames, "Zhang", "Wang", and "Li", which are Zhou Guangxing's customers.

Zhou Guangxing was clamping the steel knife, an apprentice pulled the bellows with his hand, Zhou Guangxing took the red-hot iron out of the furnace, and another apprentice raised the 12-pound sledgehammer above his head and smashed it down, and sparks flew in an instant.

"Wait a minute, you have to clamp steel in the iron." A gap was smashed in the middle of the iron block, and Zhou Guangxing and his apprentice cooperated tacitly to put the steel that had been folded and forged many times into it to form a steel composite block, and the new beating started again.

Thousands of tempers, such a kitchen knife, from the initial selection of materials to the final forging and forming, requires more than 100 procedures. Zhou Guangxing is very proud, he is confident that every kitchen knife he makes has a service life of more than 20 years, or even 30 years.

With a "squeak", the steel composite block was stretched into the cold water, white smoke came out, and the forging continued. "Jingle bell, ding bell," after working in such a voice for almost 40 years, Zhou Guangxing's ears were a little affected, and his son Zhou Hao was "roaring" every time he called his father, "He doesn't need to turn his mobile phone much, and now he still uses the old man's machine, because the bell rings." ”

Good steel is used on the blade, embedded in the iron of the steel, after forging and hammering again and again, it will form a blade, the steel knife is easy to grind and durable, if it is completely forged by hand, Zhou Guangxing and his apprentices together, can make up to seven or eight a day, more often, they use air hammers to carry out this procedure, but the efficiency is far less than the production of mechanized assembly lines.

"It's rare to see a blacksmith nowadays." Zhou Guangxing's wife, Ye Xiuhua, smiled heartily, and there were many occasional tourists, who exclaimed when they saw this slightly ancient iron-making environment, "There are still people fighting knives these days?" ”

"Fight, why don't you fight! Someone has to cook, and cooking needs such a kitchen knife. Ye Xiuhua always replied like this.

Like Ye Xiuhua's answer, Zhou Guangxing has been fighting knives for most of his life, most of which are kitchen knives. The knife he hammered out did not have the arrogance and murderous spirit of those swordsmen in martial arts, but the warmth and fireworks of one meal after another in the pulse life.

Zhou Guangxing's grandfather was a blacksmith, and in addition to hand-beating knives, he also had to forge some militia weapons in that war era. Since Zhou Guangxing learned to fight with his father Zhou Ting when he was 17 years old, the hammer he raised has never been put down. So far, the three generations of blacksmiths of the Zhou family.

At the age of 19, Zhou Guangxing entered the Taiping Town Iron Factory, when the factory was booming, the workers in the workshop were still busy, and the cars of the supply and marketing cooperatives were parked outside the factory waiting to transport the goods.

Two pairs of work gloves are issued every month, and wages are paid on time, at that time, Zhou Guangxing dreamed of how to fight the knife better, for him, this is not only work, but also brings him great honor and pride. "The factory distributed soap, and I threw it all the way home, for fear that others would not know that I was doing a good job."

In the late 90s, under the impact of the market economy and machine iron, the ironworks gradually declined and finally closed down. Zhou Guangxing was reluctant to use this craft, and after tossing and turning, he opened the blacksmith shop to Taiping Town.