Chapter 8: The Number One Tower Under Heaven

  The biggest neglect of Zhou Ming's fall is that after discovering that the entire ceramic plate was a fake made up of new and old ceramics, when observing, he only remembered to observe the bottom plate and ignored the overall structure.

  It wasn't until he suddenly recalled the overall shape of the porcelain plate that he realized this plate seemed to be Yongle porcelain.

  Ming Yongle porcelain, the inner wall and bottom of plate and bowl-type vessels have a red thread around the junction, the center of the vessel is concave outside and convex inside, presenting a collapsed bottom shape.

  The He pattern on this porcelain plate is hidden at the junction of old and new vessels, using the He pattern to cover up a slight shallow mark at the junction of old and new.

  This craft of piecing together ceramics is also diverse, the simplest one can be achieved with garlic juice, for example, if we smash a ceramic bowl and reassemble it, applying garlic juice to the broken parts can make it stick together, more practical than ordinary super glue, as long as it doesn't get wet, it won't easily break.

  At the moment, the splicing of this porcelain is not garlic juice, because its cracks are not obvious, and even with the naked eye, it's hard to see. If he didn't know in advance that this was a joint, even if Zhou Ming picked it up and examined it carefully, he might not have discovered it. But at this moment, he doesn't need to discover it, as he has already seen through it with his X-ray vision before picking it up.

  However, counterfeiters can use brocade to cover up cracks, and this counterfeiting is also an art, it's really hard to detect.

  Looking at it again from a holistic perspective, Zhou Ming Luo thinks that the overall shape of the porcelain plate should belong to Yongle porcelain.

  But there is a big problem here, Yongle porcelain is collapsed at the bottom, but the bottom of this plate is flat.

  "This plate imitates Yongle porcelain, but the base is flat? If it's assembled as a whole and examined carefully, it can be confirmed that this base should be Ming Yongle porcelain, but it has a flat bottom, could it not have been a ceramic plate originally?"

  What else could it be?

  Silently closing his eyes and thinking for a moment, he rummaged through all the knowledge about Yongle porcelain in his mind.

  Just a few seconds later, Zhou Ming's eyelids jumped and he finally remembered something.

  Ceramic tile!

  Flat and smooth, about ten centimeters square of blue and white porcelain, two or three millimeters thick, this is a piece of ceramic tile.

  Blue and white porcelain bricks? Thinking of blue and white porcelain bricks, Zhou Ming Luo immediately thought of the Bao En Temple Pagoda!!

  Having been in the antique circle for so long, especially being most skilled in ceramics, he has a particularly deep impression of this astonishing giant tower known as "the number one tower under heaven", "China's greatest antique, Yongle's great kiln vessel", and one of the Seven Medieval Wonders of the World alongside the Great Wall, the Roman Colosseum, the underground tomb of Alexander the Great, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

  After all, this tower's reputation is too great.

  Ming Yongle Emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang's fourth son Zhu Di was able to seize the world from his nephew's hands, and can be considered a person with great momentum. His personality is also fond of movement and dislikes quietness, and that life can be said to have done many great things.

  The magnificent Forbidden City complex that we can see in the capital today was originally built by Emperor Yongle, who also compiled the "Yongle Encyclopedia". Zhu Yuanzhang founded the Ming Dynasty and established Nanjing as the capital, leaving behind a legacy that forbade the relocation of the capital. However, Emperor Yongle disregarded this legacy and directly relocated the capital to Beijing.

  This is undoubtedly something that only people with great momentum can achieve. Moreover, organizing Zheng He's voyage to the Western Ocean and other events have also been written in heavy ink throughout history.

  Apart from these many well-known major events of modern times, Ming Yongle also did two other great things.

  One of them is the Yangshan Stele.

  It's astonishing to mention this stele, which was erected by the Yongle Emperor in memory of Zhu Yuanzhang. In order to show his filial piety and maintain his orthodox status, he had the Yangshan Stele carved out of the mountain in Yinyang Mountain, Tangshan County, on the outskirts of Nanjing.

  It's hard to imagine how big this stele is without being there in person. If it were standing upright, it would be over 70 meters high, equivalent to the height of a 25- or 26-story building today.

  The stele is divided into three parts: the body, the head and the base. These three parts are still unable to stand upright in present-day Yangshan. Even with modern technology, it is impossible to put these three massive and terrifying stone slabs together as a whole, let alone the manpower of 600 years ago.

  The total weight of the Yangshan Stele is estimated to be over 30,000 tons. To suspend such a massive object on the base and then place the stele on top was an impossible task at that time. As a result, after being carved by Emperor Yongle, the stele became a huge abandoned project, lying in Yangshan for over 600 years.

  You think, the Yongle Emperor was originally to carve stone monuments to commemorate Zhu Yuanzhang, to show his filial piety to the world, and also to declare to the world that he is still a good son of Zhu Yuanzhang, even if this throne was snatched from his nephew's hands, it would be legitimate. In order to consolidate his imperial power better, as a result, the monument was done but couldn't be erected, ended up being an unfinished building, can imagine how embarrassing and ridiculous this matter is.

  It was also for this reason that Yongle built the Repaying Kindness Temple and its pagoda in Nanjing.

  It is even possible that the Yongle Emperor had a premonition before the Yangshan Stele was completed, guessing the outcome that might appear, so the construction of the Baoning Temple Pagoda began while the Yangshan Stele project was still under way.

  However, this tower is no longer simply a memorial to Zhu Yuanzhang, but also includes his mother.

  The entire Bao'en Temple Pagoda was built to the imperial palace standard, and this tower alone cost 2.485 million taels of silver, under the supervision of Huang Li Gong, the Minister of Works in the Yongle era, and Zheng He, the famous eunuch, took nineteen years to complete, with more than 100,000 laborers working on it.

  The entire tower has nine layers and eight sides, with a height of about 78 meters, which is equivalent to the height of a modern 20-30 story building.

  It was also the absolute No. 1 in Nanjing six hundred years ago, and the entire tower is made of white porcelain five-color glazed bricks, each with Buddha statues and other patterns engraved on it.

  After the tower was built, there were 146 lanterns inside and outside the nine layers, each with a core of about one inch. During the day, the tower competed with the sun for brilliance; at night, it was even more spectacular with smoke and fire rising like dragons. It is currently the only glazed pagoda in the country with historical records, its unique artistic value and viewing value are highly recognized at home and abroad, especially the exquisite glazed art of this tower, which represents the highest architectural achievement in Chinese history.

  "China's greatest ancient artifacts, the great kiln of Yongle, are the Repayment Tower. The Repayment Tower was built in the early years of Yongle, and it is not possible to build such a tower without the spirit, material resources, and labor of the founding emperor. Its grandeur and ingenuity are sufficient to overwhelm this tower."

  Zhang Dai was a person of the Ming Dynasty, and at that time this tower was still standing, towering on the banks of the Yangtze River, all passing ships could see it. If it were still there today, it would absolutely become one of the most important tourist attractions in China. Unfortunately, this "Number One Tower Under Heaven", which stood alongside the Great Wall, the Roman Colosseum and the Leaning Tower of Pisa as one of the Seven Medieval Wonders of the World, was destroyed during the internal war of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. In 1856, Wei Changhui, the Northern King of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, fearing that Shi Dakai, the Wing King, would occupy the city's outer walls and the Glazed Tower, ordered cannons to attack the city, while also digging tunnels under the tower to detonate explosives and directly bombarding the tower with artillery. In the end, the Glazed Tower was reduced to a pile of rubble, and all other buildings in the Temple of Great Gratitude were burned down by the great fire triggered by this event.

  Although the tower was destroyed, some things were preserved, including some Qinghua tiles scattered among the people.

  Using blue and white porcelain as floor tiles is an unprecedented luxury, only one Yongle Emperor in ancient and modern times dared to do so.

  This is also a display of Yongle Emperor's majestic momentum!

  This blue-and-white glazed tile was unknown for a long time, and when people saw it for the first time, they would mistakenly think it was a fragment of a broken plate. Because the pattern on each brick is incomplete, only by connecting multiple bricks can you piece together a complete picture.

  This is also why Zhou Ming Luo initially thought the ceramic tile in his hand was a defective product. In fact, this ceramic tile was even more misunderstood at first and was placed together with other ceramics to form a plate.

  But after discovering the doubts, Zhou Ming Luo finally realized that he might have really guessed wrong, this is not a residual device, but a complete ceramic tile from the number one tower in the world.

  He had also seen pictures of the tiles online, but just didn't think of it earlier. Now that he thought about it again, Zhou Ming Luo tried hard to recall the pictures of the tiles and carefully compared them with the ceramic plate in his hand. To his surprise, he found that the bottom of the plate was extremely similar to the authentic Qinghua tiles.

  This finally thoroughly excited him.

  "Blue and white glazed tile? Is this really a blue and white glazed tile from the number one tower in the world? And it still looks intact. If it's genuine, then it would be highly valuable for collection."

  At that time, the entire tower of Baoyun Temple could not have been reduced to just one brick, but it was destroyed. Only a very small number of bricks were able to be passed down into private hands. In this sense alone, this brick is a treasure.

  Of course, this is far from being a national treasure. According to historical records, the glazed tiles, glazed components and white porcelain bricks used to build the tower were all made in three sets, with one set used for construction and the other two sets numbered and buried underground, so that when damaged, they could be reported to the Ministry of Works, and replaced with matching parts. Although the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's civil war destroyed the already built tower, a large number of glazed components with ink marks were also unearthed near the original site of the Bao'en Temple Tower in 1958, which are now scattered among the Chinese History Museum, Nanjing Museum and Nanjing City Museum.

  Many things have decreased in price, but most of them are kept in museums. For a private collector, it's still very exciting to collect such an item. Zhou Ming Luo is no exception, and it would be even more beneficial for him to let the Yellow Skin Book absorb the "Wen Qi" after knowing that this might be a complete ceramic piece.

  Who dares to say that a complete blue and white porcelain brick from the world's number one pagoda does not have any humanistic artistic crystallization?