The Age of Discovery: Chinese cuisine swept across Europe

The creation of colored glaze solved the biggest problem of creating something from scratch. Logically, it should become easier and easier, and better and better, but in fact it is not the case.

They soon discovered many new problems, such as the glass would burst directly when it was left to cool after being blown into shape. Even if it did not burst on the spot, it was still very fragile.

Min Xi speculated that it was caused by the huge difference between the temperature inside the kiln and the temperature outside. After all, it was winter. The temperature inside the kiln was several thousand degrees, but outside it was below zero. Excessive cooling would cause the material structure to be unstable.

In order to solve this problem, Min Xi and Dan Yangzi thought of many ways, including slowly cooling the freshly blown glass in boiling water and cooling it in charcoal fire. Finally, they summed up a series of slow cooling methods. After the glassware was blown and shaped, it was placed in kilns of different temperatures to prolong the cooling process and solve the problem of glass being too fragile.

This process is very common in metal smelting and is called annealing. Annealing can eliminate stress and increase the toughness and ductility of the material.

In addition to the bursting during the cooling process, bubbles will appear when the silica sand is melted in the kiln. Once such bubbles are produced, it is difficult to eliminate them, and it is impossible to release the bubbles by popping them. After all, molten silica sand is different from water. Even if the bubbles inside are released, the hole cannot be filled as quickly as water, and only a hole will be left.

These are all technical issues that urgently need to be improved, so in comparison, transparent glass can be pushed back a bit.

Another thing is to train glass blowers. Yun Ji can't be asked to help blow all the time. He doesn't have much time to do this. Even Min Xi himself can't stay in the kiln to burn glass all day. He has more things to do, so he has to find helpers.

What we need to do now is to solve various problems in firing colored glaze. When the skills are mature, we will open a colored glaze kiln and specialize in firing colored glaze wares and sell them to the dignitaries in the capital. That is a profitable business. Turning ordinary sandstone into precious colored glaze products will immediately increase the value by hundreds or thousands of times.

When the first snow fell, Min Xi asked Dan Yangzi to return to the Taoist temple and come back after the New Year: "Master, go back and think about how to solve the problem of bubbles in the silica sand melt. Come back after the New Year when it's warmer."

Min Xi paid Danyangzi his wages and gave him some rewards, and also gave him a few glasswares, which had some minor flaws but did not affect their functions.

Dan Yangzi said: "This colored glass is very valuable, why did you give me so much? I will just take one back to honor my master."

"Take it. It has some small flaws. There's no use for me to keep it. You can use it as a decoration or give it to someone else."

Danyangzi took the glassware and left.

Min Xi still had some pieces without any flaws, or with very small flaws, left here, ready to give away.

The first group to send him off were naturally his colleagues from the Honglu Temple. After all, he was away from work all day, and although there was really nothing to do, he still left early.

When Min Xi presented the gift to his colleagues, they all looked at the glassware in the box and were amazed: "Why did you give us such a valuable gift?"

Min Xi smiled and said, "It's not something expensive. I made it myself."

As soon as these words came out, everyone was shocked: "You can also do this?!"

"I was just thinking about it for fun, but I didn't expect to actually succeed. I haven't done much, and the quality is not very good. Some of them have some minor flaws, I hope you don't mind."

"How could that be! She's so beautiful, I love her so much, why would I mind!"

Colleagues don't mind the flaws at all. With their status, if their families were not wealthy, they would probably never think of buying colored glaze in their entire lives relying on their own salaries. Now that someone is giving it away for free, why would they reject it!

Min Xi picked out some good ones and asked Yun Ji to send them to Tao's house, and also gave some to his colleagues.

There were a few fine pieces left, so they planned to keep two for themselves and give two to the emperor.

The weather was getting colder and colder, and Min Xi no longer rode his bike to the yamen. He still took a horse carriage to the yamen every day. However, he only checked in and left. In the middle of winter, the yamen was not like home with floor heating and a brazier to hold the fire. Who would be willing to stay there and suffer the cold?

After Danyangzi went back, Min Xi was not idle either. He began to arrange for people to build a glass kiln in a farm outside the city. He was going to wait for Danyangzi to come back after the New Year and solve the bubble problem before starting the kiln to produce glass.

Although his original intention was just to make some glass measuring vessels, who wouldn't be happy to produce profitable colored glass? The money earned could just support his research and development, and he wouldn't have to add too much pressure to Yun Ji.

When the kiln was being built, Min Xi asked people to recruit craftsmen, who would start working after the new year. He selected two clever children from the servants of the Yun family and trained them first. While Dan Yangzi was away, Min Xi still fired the colored glaze twice by himself, letting the two children learn to watch the fire and teach them how to fire colored glaze. In the future, he and Dan Yangzi would definitely not stay in the colored glaze kiln, as they had other important things to do, so it was enough for the two people to learn how to fire colored glaze.

The technology of firing colored glass is extremely confidential, so one needs to find someone who knows the ins and outs of it to learn from. These two children are family-born, so there is no need to worry about them betraying or leaking the secret.

Soon it was the end of the year, and Yun Ji found an opportunity to present the colored glaze made by Min Xi to Wanli.

They presented the emperor with a pair of colored glaze lampshades, which were Yunji's best. They were not only well-shaped, but also thin and transparent. The light grey color was very close to transparent, and the light transmission effect was excellent. In order to match the lampshades, a pair of matching brass lamp holders were specially made.

Wanli looked at the pair of lanterns and asked Yunji, "Why did you think of giving me this?"

Yun Ji said, "Your Majesty, my brother has been tinkering with how to make colored glaze at home recently. This pair of lampshades is made of colored glaze that he personally made. This colored glaze lampshade has good light transmittance, and he said he would like to present it to Your Majesty for lighting."

Wanli smiled when he heard this: "So Min Qing made it himself? He is so talented, I didn't expect he can also make colored glaze. There will be a reward!"