Chapter 242 Craftsmanship cannot come from nothing.

The sky is high and the clouds are light, the green fields are bathed in the warm sunshine.

The ground was leveled and dust netting was laid down. In the center, a huge sign was erected: Groundbreaking Ceremony of the Hejin Ancient Kiln, Yuncheng Branch of the Shanxi Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and the Northwest University Cultural Relics Restoration Center.

There were many people present, including leaders from the Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau, heads of subordinate archaeological and cultural heritage units, and representatives from the YC Municipal Party Committee and Government, and the Hejin Municipal Party Committee and Government.

There were all sorts of people, men and women, forty or fifty in total.

The meeting was chaired by Ren Xinbo, Director of the Science and Technology Department of the Cultural Relics Bureau. First, the Deputy Director of the Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau spoke, followed by Lin Sicheng, then the directors of the Archaeology and Cultural Heritage Institutes, and finally the leaders from the city and county levels.

Looking at Lin Sicheng, who stood in the very center, looking so young and innocent it was almost unbelievable, Shang Yan sighed, "Even in Shaanxi, Lin Sicheng didn't receive this kind of treatment?"

Wang Qizhi and Zhao Xiuneng exchanged a glance but remained silent.

This is just Shang Yan's opinion.

Putting everything else aside, just consider the reverse-flow teapot and Zhang Anshi's tomb. If Lin Sicheng were willing, at least a municipal-level department would have to hold a celebration for him.

The person who presented him with the award was at least a department-level leader.

Because both cases are somewhat sensitive, they cannot be made public for the time being. Also, Lin Sicheng doesn't like to be in the limelight, so not many people know about them.

But the credit and favors received are genuine.

For departments directly under the district and city levels, if Lin Sicheng were to handle matters, he could do so much faster than Wang Qizhi. For places like the Public Security Bureau and the Cultural Relics Bureau, Lin Sicheng didn't even need to go; a simple phone call was enough.

Honestly, it was even more effective than Wang Qizhi going...

The ceremony was short, lasting about an hour. Several leaders picked up Luoyang shovels and symbolically shoveled a few shovelfuls of soil.

After seeing the leaders off, the archaeological team brought out an incense table and set out a pig's head, a whole sheep, a chicken, fish, and fruit.

Lin Sicheng didn't really believe it, but as the saying goes, when in Rome, do as the Romans do, even if it was just for psychological comfort.

After burning paper money and offering incense, and setting off three strings of ten-thousand-shot firecrackers, the project officially commenced.

Lin Sicheng served as the chief engineer and commander-in-chief, overseeing the overall operation. Ren Xinbo was appointed as the deputy commander-in-chief, responsible for coordination and scheduling. Gao Zhangyi was in charge of the excavation and construction, with assistance from the Provincial Institute of Archaeology and the Field Research Institute.

Apart from Lin Sicheng, all of them were veteran archaeologists who had spent half their lives in the field, and their professionalism and experience were beyond question.

After offering a few words of encouragement, Lin Sicheng got into the car.

He's just a figurehead, only coming to check on things for a week or two at most, or occasionally when there's a new discovery.

His main task was to find the kiln sites from the Song and Jin dynasties and eventually restore the egg white jade.

Just as I was about to return to the hotel to discuss the follow-up survey plan with Tian Jie, my phone buzzed.

"Water is life," he said, adding that he had seen Huang Zhifeng's newly completed analysis report in the lab and wanted to discuss it with Lin Sicheng.

After he hung up the phone, Wang Qizhi clicked his tongue and said, "The old man is over eighty years old and has been retired for twenty years, yet he is still so dedicated!"

Lin Sicheng nodded.

As far as I remember, Chief Engineer Shui passed away in the 2020s at the age of ninety, and he still insisted on studying every day.

Although he had stopped making appraisals by then, the Industrial Bureau, the Archaeological Institute, and the Provincial Museum would still invite him to give lectures from time to time.

The free kind.

The silkworm spins silk until its death, and the candle burns until it turns to ash—this describes such an elder.

In the blink of an eye, the car arrived at the municipal (county) cultural relics bureau.

The city government specifically allocated two floors as research facilities for various archaeological units involved in the Hejin Ancient Kiln project. All the instruments and equipment were transported from Yuncheng and Taiyuan.

The Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau's Institute of Cultural Relics, Institute of Archaeology, Institute of Cultural Heritage, and the Xida Restoration Center have all established separate laboratories. Huang Zhifeng has essentially upgraded from a ragtag operation to a completely new facility.

Once inside, a group of people surrounded the computer, with Shui Jisheng sitting next to him, several lab reports spread out in front of him.

Upon seeing Lin Sicheng, a group of people greeted him one after another: "Engineer Lin... Teacher Lin... Commander Lin..."

They have all sorts of names, all of them are honorifics.

Having met together before, Wang Qizhi, Zhao Xiuneng, and Shang Yan all knew that these people in front of them, even if they weren't the top scholars and experts in the fields of Shanxi archaeology and cultural heritage, were at least in the first tier.

Without real skill, these people wouldn't have addressed a mere twenty-something-year-old as "teacher" so readily and without hesitation.

What are Lin Sicheng's skills?

If stumbling upon a pile of ashes at the old kiln site is considered luck, then casually going up the mountain and sketching out the entire layout of the Beiwuqin ancient porcelain kiln site can also be considered luck?

To put it simply: Don't talk for half a day, I'll give you half a month, is that alright?

To be honest, it's hard not to admire him.

Lin Sicheng greeted everyone with a smile: "Hello, Teacher Shui and all the teachers!"

Shui Jisheng waved his hand and pointed to the lab bench next to him: "When I passed by, I saw a few pieces of white porcelain on the bench. They looked like Xing Ding porcelain, so I came in to take a look... When I asked Professor Huang, it turned out to be Xing kiln porcelain?"

As he spoke, he waved the report in his hand again: "Are you planning to trace the origins and speculate on the technological origins of the Beiwu Qin Tang white porcelain?"

“That’s right!” Lin Sicheng nodded. “There were only a few kilns in the Tang Dynasty that could fire white-glazed porcelain, and even fewer that were good at it. They were either in Henan or Hebei.”

"Xing, Ding, Gong!" Shui Jisheng thought for a moment, then looked at the report in his hand. "Xiao Lin, which one do you guess it is?"

"Some of the techniques should have originated from Xing Kiln!"

Lin Sicheng replied without hesitation, "For example, lime makeup and wood ash glaze mixing—these techniques all originated from Xing Kiln. Even Ding Kiln, which began experimenting with firing white porcelain in the mid-Tang Dynasty, also derived its techniques from Xing Kiln… Crucially, they are all quite close to Hejin…"

It is indeed quite close.

It can be said that all the ancient white porcelain kilns discovered in Shanxi basically originated from these two kilns. Ding kiln and Xing kiln are of the same lineage and do not conflict with each other.

Water seems to be deep in thought.

Director Yao of the Provincial Ceramics Institute, who was also Shui Jisheng's student, looked puzzled: "Teacher Lin, why only a part?"

"Xing Kiln is a wood-fired kiln; to date, there has been no record of it being fired with coal!" Lin Sicheng smiled. "It used double or even multiple fireboxes, with a kiln temperature of up to 1300 degrees Celsius!"

A group of people suddenly realized:

Teacher Shui's bowl, as well as some samples collected from Bei Wuqin, are all high-temperature porcelain that requires a kiln temperature of at least 1,400 degrees Celsius, which cannot be fired in a wood-fired kiln.

Someone suddenly had a whimsical idea: "Could it be a firing technique invented locally in Hejin, including the coke?"

After a slight pause, Lin Sicheng shook his head.

This isn't pottery, like a clay pot that you just throw in and fire. Besides the most basic requirement of high temperature, the reducing atmosphere also needs to be controlled to an extremely precise degree: what temperature, how strong the wind, and how long it needs to blow, even down to the degree and minute.

To reach this level, the craftsmanship cannot come from nothing; it's impossible to create something out of thin air.

Lin Sicheng suspected that it may have come from the predecessor of Jun kiln, Yuzhou kiln.