Hello, this is a journey of civilization, and you are welcome to travel to 1006 AD. This year is the third year of Jingde in the Song Dynasty, and the twenty-fourth year of Tonghe in the Liao Dynasty.That year was the second year after the alliance of members was signed. For more than 20 years, the top priority of the Song Dynasty has been the war against the Liao Dynasty, which caused chaos for an entire generation.Now that peace has finally come, this political situation will of course change.The biggest thing that happened in the Song Dynasty court this year should be that Kou Zhun, who was recognized as the biggest hero in the Battle of Chanyuan, no longer served as prime minister and lost his official position.So do you think this is a drama about a traitorous minister framing a loyal minister?Does it mean that the emperor uses people to look forward and does not use people to look behind?Of course these factors exist, but they are not that simple.Let me tell you one thing, the taste behind your taste.

It is said that after the Zen Yuan Alliance was signed, Kou Zhun said this to Emperor Zhenzong, saying, look, if I listen to you in everything, oh, can this matter be done so quickly?Wang Li smiled and said, yes, yes, it's all your credit. Just say that as a minister, can he talk like this?You just say that as a leader, for the sake of Emperor Zhenzong of Song Dynasty, is that enough?So if you look at the matter of Kou Zhun’s elephant, hey, it’s not as simple as it seems on the surface.

This year we won’t talk about Kou Zhun, because this is not the first time about Kou Zhun’s eight events, nor is it the last time. We will put an important figure like Kou Zhun in the back and focus on a special episode.So today we have to grab time to do something.What's going on?You see, Song Zhenzong only used the title Jingde for four years in total. This year, 1006, is the third year of Jingde.This era name will soon pass in history, but this era name is not simple.Why?Because it ignites a place whose glory has only just begun.Yes, you guessed this place is Jingdezhen. In the 2006 Civilization Journey, let’s talk about Jingdezhen.We all know now that Jingdezhen is a famous porcelain capital, but in the early years of the Song Dynasty it was not in this position. Let's just look at the price.As of today, the most expensive Song poems that appear on the modern Chinese porcelain market are not Tang poems and Song poems. The Song poems are Song Dynasty porcelain. In 2017, Sotheby's in Hong Kong auctioned a piece of Ru Kiln Tianqing Youxi with a transaction price of nearly 300 million.Hong Kong dollars.Jay Chou's song is called Blue and White Porcelain, and there is a line in it that says sky blue is waiting for the misty rain. In fact, sky blue is not the color of blue and white porcelain, but the color of breast milk.Because the Ru Kiln was fired for more than 20 years and then stopped, the number of extant Ru Kiln porcelain is very small. Some estimate that there are less than 100 pieces in the world.If we only look at porcelain from the Song Dynasty, the top five Song porcelains at modern auction prices are all from the so-called five major official kilns of the Song Dynasty.What Ru Guan Song? How can Jingdezhen not be ranked on the ranking list at this time?

An interesting question arises. The Wuda Guan Kiln quickly ceased its inheritance, but in the Northern Song Dynasty, the Jingdezhen kiln, which was not of high quality, was able to continue. Why is this?Furthermore, we have to ask, Jingdezhen's porcelain industry is a small spark of industrial civilization. How did it survive for a thousand years surrounded by a vast ocean-like farming civilization?Okay, let's take this question and travel back to 1006 AD, the third year of Jingde in the Song Dynasty. Today we talk about Jingdezhen, what about Jingdezhen?Is it known as the porcelain capital?Its status in the history of Chinese porcelain cannot be over praised, right?But to be honest, when I was reading the historical materials of Jingdezhen in order to prepare for this program, what shocked me most was not how great Jingdezhen was in history and how it reached the top in the porcelain industry. It was not these, but it made me suddenly realizeOne problem is that in such an ancient era of Chinese civilization, there is such an industrial scene. It is really a little red among the greenery.
This Jingdezhen is not a concept of porcelain machinery, it is an industrial scene that appeared prematurely in agricultural civilization.Hey, look, this is interesting. I will read a letter. This was in 1712, the fifty-first year of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty. At that time, a French missionary named Yin Hongxu came to Jingdezhen. What did he see when he saw Jingdezhen?Then he wrote a letter to a friend, and he wrote this, saying that Jingdezhen has 18,000 households, most of which are businessmen in this industry.Their residences occupy a large area and employ an astonishing number of workers.Generally speaking, this town has a population of 1 million and consumes more than 10,000 dans of rice and more than 1,000 pigs every day.

When entering the port from the pass, the first thing you see is this scenery. The flames and smoke rising from everywhere form the vast outline of the floating source of Jingdezhen.And at night, it seemed like a huge city surrounded by flames, like a huge furnace with many chimneys.The number mentioned here, the population of 1 million, is a bit exaggerated, but there must have been a population of 100,000 at that time. Then you think 100,000 people gathered in a city around an industry, with flames and chimneys working day and night., then even if such a scene appeared in Europe, it must have been after the Industrial Revolution.Although the letter I am reading is from 1712, you would think that in 1006, the craftsmanship of making porcelain and Yao furnaces in China had matured by this time, so the scale of Jingdezhen in 1006 may not have been so large, but as a social landscape, it should be similar to the one in the letter I just read.Remind us of something. In fact, if you think about it, China must have had a large-scale industrialization scene of centralized production since ancient times, even earlier in the Qin and Han Dynasties, or even earlier in the Warring States Period, right?Because people at that time also had to use ceramics and iron, so the iron smelting industry must be the same.If you look at the biographies of Shi Ji, there are many records of extremely wealthy people.Why did you start the iron smelting industry?Aren't the iron smelting factories in ancient times similar to Jingdezhen?It was the society at that time.strangeness.Just imagine a scene like this: China's farming civilization at that time was a vast ocean, but if you look down from a high altitude, there are actually islands of industrial civilization dotted in it. The scene is at least that of industrial civilization.

Didn’t Li Bai have a poem called Qiupu Song?I memorized it when I was a kid.The fire in the furnace shines on the sky and the earth, and the red stars are scattered in the purple smoke.On a bright moonlit night, the song moves through the cold.This is talking about the iron-making factory that Li Bai saw when he was in the Tang Dynasty.The most expressive thing in it is the lazy wolf Mingyue Ye Lai. The word "Lazy Wolf" means "shy". The young man's face is red. Why?It was definitely not illuminated by the bright moon, nor was it because of shyness.Why?Alas, it was illuminated red by the fire of the iron-smelting furnace. It was such a scene.Ha, so magical.

If I were from the Song Dynasty and a farmer in 1006 suddenly dumped me in this place called Jingdezhen, I would be shocked.Maybe I was shocked at first because of the dense fire chimneys, which I am not used to seeing, but if I live here for a few days, I will be even more shocked.Why?Because the people in this place are so strange, they live a completely different life than me.

The people in this place actually do not work according to the natural rhythm of winter and summer. Their work rhythm is actually set by themselves. Moreover, the people in this place do not live according to the natural blood relationship.The family lives together, and he surprisingly divides labor and fully cooperates with people of different types of work.For people in this place, the various stages of their life development are not step-by-step, and they do not have to do what they want when they arrive. Instead, they are full of all kinds of adventures and shocks.If you suddenly get a big order, you can make a fortune. If you suddenly do something wrong, you will lose your job tomorrow, and you will have no guarantee of food and clothing.Wow, that's amazing.For me, a farmer, this is too exciting and I can’t stand it.

Yes, the existence of Jingdezhen in 1000 actually opened a small hole for our generation.It is rare that we can see how industrial civilization survived under the wrap of agricultural civilization 1,000 years ago, but more importantly, Jingdezhen was different from other small industrial fires at that time. Others were extinguished, and some were destroyed.Decades, some work for a few years, and then they cease to exist.

As we said before, all the folk songs of the Song Dynasty disappeared in the smoke of history. Only Jingdezhen has survived for thousands of years and has an everlasting song.How?Okay, let’s talk about where is Jingdezhen?In general terms, you must know that it is in Jiangxi, right?The geographical conditions of Jiangxi Province are actually very similar to Shanxi, a province in northern China. They both rely on dangerous mountains and rivers, their geographical boundaries are very clear, and they are self-contained.If you look at Jiangxi, it is surrounded by the Yangtze River in the north, Wuyi Mountain in the east, Dayuling in the south, and Luoxiao Mountain in the west. It is just a square area enclosed.So what is a good place here?Of course, it is the river valley plain. If you count the Poyang Lake Plain from north to south, Jiujiang is to the north, Nanchang is to the south of the Poyang Lake Plain, and then if you follow Fuhe and go east, hey, this is called Fuzhou.This place is amazing. In ancient times it was called Linchuan, a place where talented people were born.The talented scholar from Linchuan returned to Nanchang and headed south along the Ganjiang River.This place is amazing, it’s Ji’an. What was it called in ancient times?His name is Lu Lin.Yes, it’s also a great place.Further south along the Gan River is the Ganzhou mountainous area. In the farming era, the plain valleys on both sides of the river were a good place where the population could easily gather and the property industry was richest.By the way, during the Song Dynasty, Jiangxi was an extremely good place.The Linchuan talents and Lulin talents I mentioned just now are all brands.Just put it like this, you know the Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties, right?Among these eight families, Su Xun, Su Shi, and Su Zhe, father and son, are from the same family, so Sichuan has three places.Then there are 5 people left, how many stops do you have in Jiangxi?Yes, Wang Anshi, Ouyang Xiu, and Zeng Gong are all from Jiangxi.Look at another calculation, the eight great families of the Tang and Song dynasties, except for Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan of the Tang dynasty, and the old Su family of the Song dynasty, were all from Jiangxi, and none of them ran away.This does not include the famous literati of the Northern Song Dynasty. Yan Shu, Yan Jidao and Huang Tingjian were all from Jiangxi.

You may feel strange when you hear this. Why, there are so many good places in Jiangxi, but Jingdezhen has not been mentioned yet?Where is Jingdezhen?By the way, can't he be in a good place in Jingdezhen?He is hiding in the mountainous area in northeastern Jiangxi. If you look at the map, Jingdezhen and Huizhou in the mountainous area of ​​southern Anhui are connected.In the agricultural era, what was a mountainous area?Just poor, right?The land is barren, floods occur frequently, and transportation is inconvenient. The deep mountains and old forests are not suitable for farming.But what he does in Jingdezhen is industry and charity, so in his opinion, the resources of this place are quite good.For example, you say that the slope of the hillside is too steep and not suitable for reclamation, but Jingdezhen says that it is just the right place to build a dragon kiln for firing porcelain.What is a dragon kiln?It is a kiln that is tens of meters long and built along the hillside, like a giant centipede. This kind of kiln has a high output of heating blocks. To this day, there is a 64-meter Tianbaolong kiln in Jingdezhen, which is still there.Production.You said this is a deep mountain and old forest. Jingdezhen said, yes, what I lack is this wood fuel, and there is also an abundance of burnt-resistant pine near Jingdezhen.You said there is a lot of precipitation here and frequent floods, which is a natural disaster.For those of us who make porcelain, isn’t this exactly a water conservancy resource?Because I have to break the magnet into powder and then turn it into a porcelain batch?I don’t have a steam engine at this time, so you can see the water conservancy resources.All of this is not the point. The biggest legend about Jingdezhen is not that it has produced any good porcelain, but that it has become a long-lasting ceramics industrial base for 1,000 years because it is located in a mountainous area.

Why?Because 1,000 years is a very long time scale, anything can happen in the middle, such as strategy. Now we are in the Song Dynasty in 1006. I think this dynasty is so good. We have just signed a long-term alliance and now it is a peaceful one.’s golden age, right?But who would have thought that in a little more than a hundred years, the Northern Song Dynasty would be destroyed, the Jin Dynasty would rise, and the north would be in chaos?The war is raging, and as soon as the soldiers pass by, whatever public welfare you have, whatever inheritance you have from master and apprentice, whatever artistic attainments you have, they will all be turned into powder for me.Looking back at Jingjing Town at this time, he was hiding in the production base in the mountains, so he had a chance to escape this disaster.

Hearing this, you may say that is wrong. Jingdezhen later became very wealthy and famous. If he encountered those violent armies and slanderers during the war, why didn't he come to occupy Jingdezhen?It’s not like the mountains are high and the road is far away for these troops, right?What's the use of hiding in the ravine?As long as I stand still, if I just collect taxes in Jingdezhen in a year, how much can I collect?Refutation, especially this point asks about a very essential difference between the industrial economy and the agricultural economy. Let’s jump out a little and take a look. What do you mainly look at when looking at the agricultural economy?Look at natural endowments, right?As long as the four major conditions of light, hot water and soil are met, this land is here and it can produce some crops throughout the year.

In this, do you think farmers’ labor and technology are important?It is also important, but sorry, this is not a scarce resource, right?Who in the labor force has not yet established his position?Moreover, farming technology plays a very limited role in it. Even if you are a very skilled farmer, how much can you increase the yield of the same piece of land if you improve it?It is capped, with a low ceiling.But the industrial economy is different.Are natural resources important?Of course it's important.But what are the more important factors of production?Who is it?There is no upper limit to the knowledge and technology in people's minds, and the increase in output brought about by knowledge and technology has no ceiling.

If you look at such an analysis and comparison, this will bring about a consequence, right?That is to say, violence was very useful in the agricultural era. If you could occupy land, you would possess wealth. If you didn't come to cultivate the land and pay for the food, there would be people who would come. But the industrial economy was not good. You couldn't use violence. You could use violence to occupy the place.But if you scare people away, especially those with knowledge and skills, it will be all in vain.
What's the use of having a low possession?You just think if a group of gangsters occupied New York today, what would be the use?Can you ask Wall Street fund managers to farm land for you?Even if he could farm, could he create profits on the scale of Wall Street today?It's too far off.You can also do a thought experiment. If you are now the director of an urban development zone and you have a piece of land, should you engage in agriculture or industry?Most likely, I guess you want to engage in industry, because the output value of industry is high and you can make a lot of money.But if you traveled back in time to ancient times, such as the Song Dynasty in 1006, and if you had a piece of good land, would you engage in industry or agriculture?I guess you will finally understand why, because as long as the land is planted, there will be some harvest.

And if you are engaged in industry, you think I will have another Jingdezhen miracle. It seems that you can make a lot of money, but sorry, it is very difficult.Products, technology, talent organization, sales, and system guarantees are all problems, and if one step goes wrong, it will result in losing all your money.So I advise you, if you travel to the Song Dynasty in 1006, you have a piece of land.Hey, I advise you to farm.

Forget it, from this perspective, let’s look back at it, what is Jingdezhen industry?Industry is an extremely delicate flower. It needs a little luck and a little protection to appear in a farming society.The ravine in northeastern Jiangxi where Jingdezhen is located provided him with such protection.But the next problem comes. Industry cannot be like agriculture. It can hide in a peach blossom garden.We don’t know the harm, no matter what happens, we produce and sell it ourselves.The survival of an industrial base is essentially the survival of a huge market network. It is the result of successful competition with opponents thousands of miles away. It cannot hide in a ravine and become a unified entity.Therefore, we need to further explain why Jingdezhen can last for thousands of years.

Today we are talking about Jingdezhen. We keep claiming that it is an industrial miracle in the agricultural era. This is certainly true, but there is one thing that we must not forget at all times.After all, it is an existence surrounded by traditional society. Even if we call it industrial civilization, it is still a small bonsai of industrial civilization in the soil of agricultural civilization. It is surrounded by the vast sea of ​​traditional society, Jingdezhen for a thousand years,The opponents it faced were not like today's ceramic industry base.Just think about new processes, new products, new marketing, and new materials.

In traditional society, what is Jingdezhen’s biggest enemy?It was all the forces around him that were eyeing him.What is a bandit?What is a gentry?What is a gang?And the court, right?The surrounding forces are thinking, wow, you are so rich, how can I get a share of the pie?Please pay attention to the word town in Jingdezhen. This word is interesting. When we mention the word town, we often have two different feelings. One is that towns, small towns, and cities are all prosperous, full of people, and a world of fireworks.feeling.So warm.But there is another feeling in the town. If you listen to that group of words, suppression and guarding, hey, they all have the feeling of being powerful, powerful and deep, and violently calming down.How can these two completely opposite feelings coexist in the same word?Yes, this is the ingenuity of the evolution of Chinese characters. This turning point actually occurred in the Song Dynasty.Please pay attention to the so-called formation before the Song Dynasty, that is, the military formation, which means that as soon as the garrison soldiers arrive, they will be at peace. It is like taking a big iron block and hitting me. Is there something to suppress it?It's calm, just like the town in Jingdezhen.

During the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the first town to be established was called Xinping Town. As soon as I heard this name, I knew it must be because when this generation was originally developed, some bandits might have been suppressed in the mountainous area, and then they simply stationed troops and stopped leaving.I think you can still find some flowers.Alas, a military formation was set up.Set up a military formation and give it a name.What to name it?Alas, didn't Xinjin put down a group of bandits?It’s called Xinping Town, I guess that’s how it came about.

By the Song Dynasty, although the military pressure in the north was still great, the south was deeply developed and peaceful and prosperous. Therefore, from the Northern and Southern Dynasties to the Sui and Tang Dynasties, some military administrations were established in the south, but by this time they had lost their military significance.But don't forget that when the locations of these military formations were selected, they must first be transportation nodes to facilitate the deployment of troops.And because there used to be a military camp, there were hundreds of people living there, and the surrounding people bought and sold here, forming a market of a certain size.If there is a market, taxes can be collected, which is a layoff.Therefore, from the beginning of the Song Dynasty, supervisors were set up next to these towns to collect taxes and maintain local security.

Yes, we have supervisors in Jingdezhen, which started during the Jingde period.Let me give you another example. As a side town, for example, there is a very famous town called Meili Town in Changshu, Jiangsu today.Hey, the name of the town is so beautiful, with plum blossoms and plum trees, and a Jiangnan scenery.That's it, isn't it?The origin of Meili Town is very simple. It was also a military formation at the beginning. The imperial court sent two generals, one surnamed Mei and the other surnamed Li. The house here was a military formation.Later, ordinary people did business with the soldiers here, and a commercial town gradually formed. So do you think this transformation process is similar to Jingdezhen?Moreover, this transformation was completed in the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty.So the two different feelings of the word "Zhen" in Chinese characters are also here, alas, they will be lost.

From this evolutionary process, we can also see that what our ancestors said is called blue dew and blue wisps. It is not easy to be in the mountains and forests. Soldiers first, then courtesy. The development of any place is a process from barbarism to prosperity.Okay, let's go back and look at Jingdezhen.What we are talking about now is the Zhenzong period of the Song Dynasty. At this time, the court's finances were good and very wealthy. However, in a few years, our journey of civilization will soon reach the Shenzong period of the Song Dynasty, and the court began to be short of money.Then the tax in Jingdezhen starts to become more and more heavy, because you can't run away?Do you make porcelain here every day?Right?You make money, well, can the court still ignore it?During the reign of Emperor Shenzong of the Song Dynasty in Xining, Jingdezhen's commercial tax contribution had reached more than 3,000 yuan. You must know that this is just a fact. The commercial tax of Fuliang County, which is much larger than him, was only more than 5,000 yuan. Even so,, of course the court would not be satisfied.During the Yuanfeng period, a specially customized institution was built for Jingdezhen. This yamen was the only one in the country.Just in Jingdezhen, you not only manage the sale of porcelain, but are also looking to collect taxes. Look at the test questions, aren't you a big business?Can't you make money?Bring it over, and the court will persuade you to come over and let me see if you can still live in Jingdezhen.

But this time involves a principle of tax collection. The state has principles for collecting taxes. Not only is the more collected, the better, but more importantly, it must be easy to collect the tax, right?Just like Adam Smith proposed the four principles of taxation, the so-called equality, convenience and economy.What is equality?It’s just that everyone persuades us to be fair.What does it mean to be sure?I need to be able to calculate the taxes I pay, and I know in my mind how much taxes I will pay by the end of this year.So what is convenience?I just have to be careful when paying taxes. What is economy?It’s just that the cost of tax collection is even lower.This is not what Adam Smith thought. All rulers who wanted to collect taxes must do these four things.The yamen of the Song Dynasty also collected taxes from Jingdezhen. How did they collect them?You'd imagine this would be technically difficult, right?Are the tax collectors running down and counting plates and bowls one by one? Wouldn't they be exhausted?Haha, if you were the tax collector at that time, you would have to come up with a way.What solution?Yes, the tax is levied according to the size of the kiln.Don’t you make porcelain?Once your kiln is built, its volume is fixed, and the output of each kiln is basically fixed.How many times can the kiln be fired per year?It is basically fixed.Okay, then we will collect taxes based on how many kilns your home has and how big it is.You see, this is in line with the economic principle of paying taxes that I just mentioned. There are many such things in the history of taxation, and it brings about a very interesting interaction.

For example, there used to be a window water tax in the UK. The original intention of this tax was to collect house tax. So how to collect house tax?What is the living area of ​​each family?Do I still need to bring this tape measure to your door for measurement?The cost is too high, it is too complicated, it does not comply with the economic principles of taxation, and it is easily controversial.That's what the tax collector thought of, so I'll just count the windows.Your house is large, so it must have many windows, right?I'll just count the windows in your house. How much tax do you pay?For example, if your house has less than 10 windows, there are two county magistrates, and if there are more than 10 windows, there are six magistrates. This work is easy to do.I held a notebook, stood on the street, and counted the windows. The tax was collected, but did you notice it?The interesting thing about taxation is that it is an interactive process. Those who collect taxes want convenience, and those who pay taxes use your convenience criteria.I try to evade taxes. For example, if a British person sleeps with the windows closed, that's fine. When I build a house in the future, I will open fewer windows, or even no windows, or open dark windows.

Okay, so what has become of British architecture over time?Even if there are no windows, the indoor lighting is generally not good, and the health of the people will be affected.So later the window water was abolished, so this is a two-way interactive process. With this concept in mind, let’s look back at these folk songs in Jingdezhen. How did he interact with officials to collect taxes?Don't you collect taxes based on the volume of the Yao?So what I try to do is I have to reduce the amount of silk with each shake, right?I have to think about how many more portions I want to cook every year, and more importantly, I can produce more products from each portion. This is the direction of my efforts.

Because the tax base is determined by the tax amount, as long as I make a quantitative breakthrough in this aspect, can’t I evade and avoid some taxes?But you have heard that the original intention is to evade taxes, but whether it is a few more pounds per year, more products per dollar, or fewer defective products in each product, what is this?Interpretation?Technological innovation?Let me give you an example, such as how I can burn more products with each shake. One of the important ideas is that the bowls were originally placed one by one, but now I stack them upside down.I won’t go into the technical details, only the degree of efficiency improvement.

As for these bowls, once they are stacked, some scholars have studied it. Such a stack of Yao furnaces with the same volume can be stacked 4-5 times. On average, the tax paid for each bowl is not small.Is it done?Of course, this method will cause a serious problem, that is, the bowl mouth that is turned upside down cannot be fixed.In the Song Dynasty, we called it blind mouth, which means a rough bowl mouth. If you think about it, if the bowl mouth becomes rough, then the experience when eating and drinking will not be good, and the mouth will be loose, right?So today, this kind of porcelain gift bowl has become extinct.Then you say that this porcelain merchant in Jingdezhen is not very good. Is he relying on shoddy manufacturing to avoid taxes?It can be said that beauty and high quality can of course be the goal of efforts, but for an industrial system, lowering the price of products and making products of high quality and low price is also the goal of efforts in itself.The target users of Jingdezhen are not the folk songs of the north, the royal family or the aristocrats, they are ordinary people. Low price and large quantity are the way to go. This is the biggest market of Jingdezhen.

Wherever there is Mangkou, there is Mangkou. What’s the big deal?Let me give you another example. From here, you can experience the industry in Jingdezhen, its innovation, and its complexity and diversity.Speaking of which, there is a saying about female aesthetics at this time: southern people love clear porcelain and northern people love white porcelain. Do you think this is an aesthetic preference?Yes, but to a large extent it is also because the chemical composition of the raw materials is different.The magnets in the south have a high iron content, so they tend to be cyan when burned. After using them for a long time, southerners feel that they like the cyan color.Northern porcelain has low iron content, so it comes out white when fired. It's that simple.Originally, this pattern was set.

The Anshi Rebellion came, and the north fell into turmoil. A large number of northern people moved south, which brought the aesthetic habits and consumption habits of the north to the south. Look, this is a fluctuation in the market, right?The opportunity has come.At this time, as a rising star in the porcelain industry, Jingdezhen, what should he choose?There are two roads, one is to continue to make celadon that southerners like. There is nothing to go on this road, because the largest kiln in the south at that time was Longquan Kiln in Zhejiang. It had both technology and brand. Continue on this road.Lu, what’s the point of being the second child forever?Okay, let's look at another way.So is Jingdezhen going to make white porcelain at this time?It caters to the emerging market. There is a wave of people from the north who like white porcelain, but using porcelain from the south to make white porcelain has a high technical threshold.As we said before, this is because the magnet contains iron elements and impurities. It is expensive and difficult to remove them.How to choose a police car array?Both paths are difficult, but Jingdezhen’s final choice is simple.Well, I chose to make white porcelain, but why did I follow your way to make white porcelain?Me too, I am white, but do I need to be so authentically white?It's a bit light. Your official kilns in the north receive a large number of orders from the government. What kind of details do you pay?These particularities cannot kidnap me.

So Jingdezhen actually came up with a third way and produced China's earliest blue and white porcelain. The white porcelain has a bit of green in it. So don't you think this doesn't rely on both sides?Isn't this inferior goods?At this time, you have to look at the market's insignificance.The consumer market faced by the industrial economy is a market that fluctuates at any time. There may be rain in any cloud, or a pig may suddenly step into the wind.During the Northern Song Dynasty, Jingzhi Town suddenly encountered a trend.What?It was the Silk Road. Because of the obstruction between the Party Prime Minister and the Liao Dynasty, the original jade from the Western Regions could not reach the Central Plains.We Chinese have been fond of jade since ancient times. What should we do now that jade is beautiful?Hey, Jingdezhen provides pure porcelain. Isn’t this just right when everyone sees it?Is this jade different from hairy?Yes, Jingdezhen’s innocent porcelain was given a nickname by the people at this time. What was it called?It’s called a turtle, isn’t that just right?If there is no real jade, then use fake jade to satisfy your eyes.What's more, the products in Jingdezhen are mainly cheap, so sales have increased significantly.

This is how the first pot of gold in Jingdezhen came. Do you think this proves a rule of industrial economy? That is, there is no innovation direction in industrial economy. It is determined, and you must follow that direction, no, any direction.Any breakthrough is likely to be successful.In fact, Jingdezhen later flourished in the Yuan Dynasty and created Yuan Qinghua. This is also a story of innovative breakthrough and an unconventional story.But Yuan Qinghua, when we talk about the Yuan Dynasty in civilized management, let me just remind you one thing. Let me ask you a question. Which museum do you think has the largest collection of original Qinghua porcelain in the world?Sorry, the museum with the largest collection of original blue and white flowers in the world is not in China. It is the Topkapi Palace Museum in Turkey, which ranks first, and the Adbil Temple Museum in Iran, which ranks second.Why is it Türkiye or Iran?Why is this happening?Very simple.Because the market in Jingdezhen at that time had already broken through the original Chinese blue and white porcelain, which was produced for the world, especially for the Arab Empire at that time.Therefore, the original blue and white, whether it is the raw materials, the patterns on it, or the final consumer, may come from other countries.

You see, this is another innovative stock market that has jumped out of the original market and found an unprecedented breakthrough.We will tell this story later. If you notice, industrial civilization is just like that. Innovation and breakthroughs are real. If you don’t follow the old rules, any path may lead to success.Today I brought a book, a book published by the economist Schumpeter in 1942 called Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy.This book puts forward a very wonderful concept called disruptive innovation. This word expresses the most essential difference between the industrial economy and the agricultural economy.The agricultural economy also innovates, but its direction is almost the same. It is continuous accumulation and innovation in the original direction. However, the innovation of the industrial economy often manifests itself in the destruction of the original, and it is destroyed everywhere, maybe in the form of this product., comprehensive destruction of technical routes, business organizations, market systems, and economic structures.

Is it like the new energy vehicle revolution that our generation is experiencing with our own eyes?New energy vehicles are not an iteration of the original gasoline vehicle technology. They innovate very thoroughly and destroy them very thoroughly.The original technology, products, brands, markets, and even the relationship between people, vehicles and roads have been completely reorganized. This is called disruptive innovation.From the story of Jingdezhen 1,000 years ago that we just told, we can already see the power of this industrial civilization-style and destructive innovation.Let’s ask a little question by the way. Jingdezhen is called Jingdezhen. Did Emperor Zhenzong officially give his reign name to this town?It was started by the people themselves, and eventually they got used to it after shouting.When I was reading the materials, I saw both of these statements, but I believe the latter statement more. Why?First of all, I have not seen any official historical data. I have never seen the imperial edict that named Jingdezhen.Then secondly, you want the emperor to give a place to his new year. There are many local names in history.But your place must have a very special fate with the emperor. For example, when Emperor Gaozong of the Southern Song Dynasty was escaping, he stayed in Yuezhou and developed feelings for it, so he gave his reign title to Yuezhou. This place becameWhat is called Shaoxing is all related to emotions.

And back in 1006, our Song Zhenzong must have never been to Jingdezhen. Jingdezhen did not bake any high-end tribute porcelain at that time to make the emperor Longyan happy. Didn't he have such an opportunity?How can this be given to you?Furthermore, if you listen to the few stories I just told about Jingjing Town, I guess you won’t be able to tell the difference either.Destructive innovation is the background of this place. It is possible to beat old masters to death with random punches, force horses to snipe, and do things like branding. This kind of place can do it.So I imagined a scene. For example, if the porcelain is turned over, look at the bottom of the bowl. It has the words "Jingde Nian Zhi" printed on it.Folk oral traditions may have been passed down from generation to generation and turned into Jingde politics.Then when he saw that it was a good idea to use the year number as a brand, Xi Feicheng made a mistake.Let's leave it at that, our place will be called Jingdezhen.Anyway, I think if I were from Jingdezhen, I would be more willing to believe in the latter possibility. I think this is much more glorious than some emperor giving me a reign title. I think this is how our ancestors started from scratch to enter the market., killing gods and killing gods, killing Buddhas and killing Buddhas, this is what our ancestors should be like.

Anyway, when I was reading the historical materials of Jingdezhen this time, what moved me the most was the gods in Jingdezhen.For example, a god worshiped in Jingdezhen is called the lost owner. This person's name is Zhao Kai, and he is said to be from the Jin Dynasty.When Zhao Kai first came to Jingdezhen, he encountered a rumor that the rumor could not produce a good Cixi, so everyone began to sacrifice the escape rope. Without saying a word, Zhao Kai drew his sword and stabbed the escape rope. This solved the problem.Kiln ventilation issues.How many eyes were pierced on the kiln?Is ventilation the solution?The result is a good product.The so-called Zhao Kai became the divine ancestor of Jingdezhen.Jingdezhen also worships a god called Fenghuo Immortal Master Tongbin.This one was even more fierce. It is said that he was from the Ming Dynasty. Once when Dalonggang was being fired in Jingdezhen, it could not be fired. This fellow citizen became anxious, so he jumped into the kiln and sacrificed himself.The flesh-and-blood approach solves this technical problem.

The big dragon vat has been burned. Now look at Jing Dezhen’s fairy. What does he want?What he wants is a technological breakthrough, and what I want is an unprecedented breakthrough.I don’t care whether I destroy my previous belief in gods or my own body, anyway, I want to break through to become a product manager in today’s industrial age.After listening to such fairy tales, you may feel in your heart, alas, this is the person who is following us.

Our pursuit of a better life comes from the opening of every extraordinary door.Casarte, born for love, is the art of connecting homes.Today we are talking about Jingdezhen. In fact, we want to see what industrial civilization surrounded by agricultural civilization should look like through the perspective of Jingdezhen.Agricultural civilization and industrial civilization are two completely different economic forms and forms of civilization.There is an unconscious tendency in Honggeng Civilization, that is, I have to stack its inherent complexity in a fixed direction. For example, if you have a bowl, it must be good-looking if it is just usable. You have to be particular about whether it is good-looking or not. Just being particular is not enough.It also needs to be endorsed by a celebrity, and the richer the elements in it, the better.For example, isn't the sky blue color of Ruyao just because of something an emperor said?Wow, after the rain, the sky is clear and the clouds are clear, the color of pleats is like the future.

Some people say that it was said by Shizong of the Later Zhou Dynasty, and some say that it was said by Huizong of the Song Dynasty. No matter which emperor said it, it was an emperor anyway.You see, there is one more element in this complexity. Isn’t this better?This is the direction he pursues.The porcelain of the Song Dynasty has the so-called "playing gong" in the Northern Song Dynasty and "playing right" in the Southern Song Dynasty.What is Wan Gong?Just try your best to carve out more complicated shapes.What is playing right?It is the multi-layer earth glaze that makes the color richer and more beautiful. The Longquan kiln in the Southern Song Dynasty had up to 7 layers.In short, the craftsmanship of farming civilization is to stack up the work with precision and detail. The more complex the elements, the better to follow this path.But it is a pity that the five major official kilns that followed this path have not been as long-lived as Jingdezhen. It is not just our Chinese culture. If you go to Europe to see the complicated Baroque art style, it is the same path. Later, it also declined in the same way..Modern industrial civilization is different and goes in the opposite direction.Why should I stack complexity in a fixed direction?I am exploring further, what do you mean by getting closer to the people and the market? How can I explore further to make it more convenient, easier to obtain, and cheaper?Our industrial civilization has worked so hard. In fact, these two directions coexist in our modern lives.

For example, there is sushi in Japan. The so-called god of sushi means that it is like a god. How can it be good to pay attention to all kinds of details in sushi?Anyway, we laymen like us can't afford it. At that price, it is said that a meal of sushi made by the Japanese sushi god Ono Jiro costs thousands of dollars, and you have to queue up.But it’s expensive, and the number of people who can eat it in a year is still very limited.So do you think this is essentially the logic of farming civilization?If you were an industrial enterprise and faced with the Japanese product sushi, how would you think about it?Of course, how to standardize it, how to make it as cheap as possible, how to sell it in large quantities all over the world, right?This is the direction of my efforts, so I have rice balls that everyone can afford in convenience stores, and they actually taste very good.

You see, these are two completely different personalities of civilizations. Is there such a saying?Therefore, the best thing about modern industrial civilization is that it does not allow the queen to wear more stockings, but allows every ordinary female worker to wear stockings.It does not turn drinks into rare wines that have been stored for decades, but allows beggars and rich people to drink the same Coke.And no matter how rich you are, you can't drink better Coke than that beggar. This is the achievement of industrial civilization.

Therefore, in order to achieve this, industrial civilization is desperately trying to deepen the division of labor, desperately expanding the network, desperately increasing production, and desperately innovating technology. The final goal is to desperately reach ordinary people.Do you think this process is a bit like the giant Antaeus in the ancient Greek mythology we heard about? Although he is extremely powerful, all his power comes from Mother Earth.Industrial civilization is the same as Antai. The direction of life is downward, then downward, and back to the embrace of Mother Earth.Of course Nie Wenming had his problems, and he also created a lot of bad consequences, but our generation of Chinese people, we have just watched the country complete industrialization, and we have just tasted the first sweet wine of industrial civilization.That’s why today I saw Jingdezhen, the igniter of industrial civilization hidden deep within Chinese civilization, and I can’t praise it enough.Of course you may say that Jingdezhen is a fire source, but hasn’t it always been a fire source?It didn't ignite a raging fire, nor did it trigger an industrial revolution in China. What's the point?Of course it makes sense.The progress of civilization does not happen overnight. It is very slow. It is not like watching a video and switching to the next picture with a swipe of your finger. Sometimes the progress of civilization relies on small fires and small areas to survive for a long time. When the opportunity comes, it willThen it spreads and becomes a wildfire all over the land.Among the historical materials about Jingdezhen in the past dynasties, there is one that is often quoted, which is a passage written by Wang Shimao, the younger brother of the great writer Wang Shizhen. This passage describes the production in Jingdezhen. Every night, fires shoot into the sky, and there is a big production. Someone givesHe was nicknamed 40 Thunder Array.It was a non-stop 40-turn cycle, with thunder and lightning, and for a while, one production was booming.But what I noticed was the following sentence. Wang Shimao said that the people in this place are very rich and many children can go to school, which is rare.But for so many years, no one in Jingdezhen has passed the exam for any reason. He must have been punished by God. I'm afraid it's because you guys dug every day and ruined the feng shui.

This is Wang Shimao's understanding. After so many hundreds of years, we modern people certainly understand what is going on. Isn't this because this place lacks talents?With so many children going to school, he couldn't even take the imperial examination.It is not that the minds of Jingdezhen people have undergone decisive changes.If you look at some other business gangs, we see in the historical data that they made money and worked hard to provide education for their children.What is the purpose of reading?At that time, the purpose was to become officials and allow them to return to the right path. The so-called right path returned to what they considered to be traditional society.But here in Jingdezhen, adults and children are working every day. They clearly see another path to life development, which is also a path where they can make a fortune and realize their ideals.I still want to take the imperial examination, but they don't have the motivation.Of course, we did not have the opportunity to talk to the Jingdezhen people at that time about what they thought and why they could not pass the imperial examination?But I guess some of their people and their minds have faintly entered another civilization track that is parallel to the agricultural society.Recently I saw a post on Zhihu, talking about China’s railways before the 1990s.Everyone of our generation knows that the railway was once a very magical existence in China. It was simply a country within a country, and it looked completely different from the China next to it.He has his own territory, his own population, his own heating, power supply, closed-circuit television, telephone system, and even railways. He has his own public security, railways, and courts.

When I was a child, I knew some children who went to the railway school. They called children like me the local face and pride. They particularly hated them. That pride cannot be hidden. Why?The railway back then was the same as what we call Jingdezhen today. It was an industrialized society in a vast ocean of traditional society. The railways spread all over the country and were widely distributed, but after all, they only had a thin line, right?Why were railroads industrialized?If you think the railway is imported, it must have a fine division of labor, be full of knowledge, be fully cooperative, be high-level, and be industrialized.

Nothing else to say?I saw a figure in the 1980s that said the literacy rate of railway workers at that time was over 90%, which we definitely couldn't reach in that place.At that time, the rankings of railway primary schools and railway middle schools in many cities were very high in the city. It was not about how good their students were or how strong their teachers were, but what the parents were like. I came from an industrial society.I will cooperate with the teacher's work even more.
That post talked about a scene where students were fighting. The teacher called all the parents over and asked them to talk about something clearly. It would be easy to do any work because you are all colleagues.You see, just this one thing puts it down compared to the surrounding society. It doesn’t matter whether you say it is incompatible with the industrial society or the surrounding society, or it doesn’t matter whether you say it is far ahead. Anyway, it is an episode of an era.

So why does the railway seem to be less prosperous after the 1990s?The reason is simple, because China has generally entered an industrial society, and the local development level has caught up with the railway. As an isolated industrial system, the railway no longer needs to maintain its isolation.So the railway is not in decline, it is melted by industrialized China, don’t you think?Today we are talking about the role of Jingdezhen in Chinese civilization 1,000 years ago, which is a bit like the role that railways played in China over the past 100 years.It provides another type of civilization in the background of traditional society, providing another possibility of survival and development, until there is a chance to turn a small fire into a prairie fire.

In fact, this is the case in every era. The future era is actually fully present in a corner or a bonsai around us, but it is not the mainstream.As science fiction writer William Gibson said, the future is already here, it’s just even on top.In this issue of Civilization Journey, we are talking about the Song Dynasty in 1006. We are now in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi, and the fun is still there.This year is about to pass, and I thought, you said we have already arrived in Jiangxi, let's take a little detour, let's go see two people?We went to Fuzhou alone, which was called Linchuan at the time and was very close to Jingdezhen. Unfortunately, we can't see him now. He was recommended to the court as a child prodigy in 1004, the first year of Jingde.

Who is this person?It was none other than his later name and appearance.Yan Shu also wrote, "There is no choice but the flowers fall away, and the familiar swallows return."Last night the west wind withered the green trees. I went up to the tall building alone and looked at the beautiful tree on Tianya Road.It's a pity that I can't see Yan Shu.Then we will go west along Fuhe to Nanchang, then go south from Nanchang, and go upstream along the Gan River to Luling.Even with the current backlog, we are not looking at who we are looking for. He is not here now. We just casually express our feelings that this person’s ancestral home is in Luling, where his father was born.

Now their family is far away in Mianyang, Sichuan. This person is still a fetus in his mother's arms and will be born next year. But without this person, Chinese literature and history will be missing countless good stories. This person is Ouyang Xiu.Ouyang Xiu will be born next year, which makes me a little excited when I think about it.Don't you think?Our Civilization Journey program has reached the year 1006, and we are getting closer and closer to the familiar, warm and star-studded Northern Song Dynasty era.See you in the next issue of 1007.