the walls of a city of Daming

Today's Reading

The Daming City Walls begins in modern times, when archaeologists find a very special Ming Dynasty city brick in the walls of Nanjing with two handprints of a man and a woman and sixteen characters - "Yuan Shui Tang Tang, Kiln Fire Wang Wang. My hand sister hand, the sun and the moon grow together". According to the inscription on the brick, archaeologists found the hometown of the kiln maker who made the brick, thus unveiling a story that has been sealed for 600 years.

The Nanjing City Wall was built in 1366 and completed in 1393. The historical Ming city wall is 35.3 kilometers long, high firm armor in the sea, currently 25.1 kilometers of complete preservation, stillIt is the largest surviving city wall in China and the first city wall in the worldThe

The construction of the Nanjing city wall is huge, consumed a lot of building materials, including bricks and stones, especially the most used brick material, said hundreds of millions of pieces. Brick uniformity, basically 40 centimeters long, 20 centimeters wide, 10 centimeters high, weighing about 20 kilograms.

Where did these bricks come from? Documentary history is not recorded. From the Ming city brick inscription, the city brick firing range covers the Ming dynasty South Zhili (now Jiangsu Province, Anhui Province), Jiangxi Province (now Jiangxi Province), Hubei Province (now Hubei Province, Hunan Province), the central system in charge of engineering and construction of the Ministry of Public Works, as well as the army guards are involved in the Nanjing wall brick firing.

One of the characteristics of the Ming Dynasty brick is the central government-owned Ministry of Industry, the army, as well as the provinces, states, counties burned wall bricks, the person in charge of the brick-burning units and kiln craftsmen's positions and names are in accordance with certain requirements printed on each brick. Brick text is not only engraved with the names of supervisors at all levels, but also the names of brick makers, tenants and other producers. Responsible person from big to small arranged, up to 11 levels, reflecting the responsibility of the city brick firing system.

Brickmaking Officials in Brick Texts

"The Great Ming Wall" is set in the early Ming Dynasty.Starting from the historical nuances, it painstakingly draws a picture of the customs of Nanjing in the early Ming Dynasty.Legends and ballads about the Nanjing wall, such as Shen Wansan's treasure bowl, the nursery rhyme of "the city gate is several zhang high", and the folklore of the sixteenth day of the first month, when Nanjing people climbed the city wall,......, were all skillfully weaved into the novel's scrolls by him.

The novel depicts the story of three generations of kiln makers, namely Tang Heqi, Tang C, and Tang Man, who burned bricks with exquisite skills. Tang C and Tang Man, father and son, participated in the construction of Fengyang City and Nanjing City successively, and went through a lot of hardships. Tang Man was praised by Zhu Yuanzhang for his ability to burn "white jade bricks" with a hard texture. However, Tang Man had no intention of becoming an official, but only wanted to be a craftsman. His love story with Mingyue, a young lady from a big family, has many twists and turns, and finally the lovers are united.

The characters in the novel, Tang Heqi, Tang C, Tang Man, Tiezhu, Li Hei, Liu Shunyi, and Huang Niu Si ...... are all taken from the names on the bricks of the Nanjing city wall.The author intended to bring these craftsmen back to life in the novel to honor those who participated in the construction of the Ming wallThe