On December 24, the 12th year of the Qingli period of the Song Dynasty, envoys from neighboring countries arrived in Kaifeng one after another starting from last month.
Although the weather was cold, it did not stop the people of Bianliang from being enthusiastic about the celebrations.
Because the imperial court had found the lost imperial seal for a hundred years, the whole country was celebrating, so the celebration originally scheduled for December 28 was held ahead of schedule.
After discussion in the court, the sacrificial ceremony was held on December 24th, and the New Year celebrations began on the 28th.
After that, the celebrations will continue until the third day of the first lunar month, the Holy Day. From the third to the fifteenth day, the court celebrations will end, and it will basically be the folk celebrations from the Holy Day to the Lantern Festival.
After all, it would be extremely expensive for the imperial court to hold large-scale events, which could basically only last for a few days. Most activities still had to be held spontaneously by the people. For example, during the New Year and Lantern Festival celebrations every year, the government was only responsible for maintaining order.
The reason why the 24th was chosen is that it happens to be the Kitchen God Festival, also known as the Little New Year. This festival has existed since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and was particularly grand during the Northern Song Dynasty.
According to the Dongjing Menghualu, "On the twenty-fourth day of the lunar year, people in the capital would invite monks and Taoists to read scriptures, prepare fruit and wine to send off the gods, and burn paper money at home. They would post a stove horse on the stove and smear the stove door with wine dregs, which was called the Drunken God of Life. At night, they would light a lamp under the bed, which was called the Illumination of Loss."
In addition, in this month, people offer gluey candies, also known as stove candies, to stick the mouth of the Kitchen God so that he cannot say bad things. After sending the Kitchen God away on the Little New Year, people "welcome the Kitchen God" on the 30th day of the twelfth lunar month. After the evening of the 30th day, the New Year is not considered to have arrived until the first day of the Lunar New Year.
In the early morning of the 24th, all the markets and streets in Bianliang were decorated with lights and lanterns. Many Bianliang people were strolling around the streets, buying New Year's goods. There were also a large number of foreigners walking around, looking around curiously.
In the past few days, the foreign envoys needed to focus on business, discussing cooperation and trade with the Song Dynasty court. In addition to arms deals, many other trade contracts were also discussed.
The orders for handicrafts and industrial products such as tea, silk, ironware, porcelain, clothing, books, pencils, paper, and sugar combined were no less than those for arms.
Now that the Song Dynasty is increasingly upgrading its regional industrialization and entering the era of electrification, the Ru Kiln, the first of the five official kilns of the Song Dynasty, now uses electricity to make the turntable rotate rapidly, making it more convenient for craftsmen to mold and carve.
In factories, some manufacturing assembly lines also began to transition from the steam engine era to the electrification era. Many steel processing plants and textile factories that engaged in screw driving gradually introduced electricity.
Therefore, there are not many industries that still retain traditional handmade manufacturing.
Either they are commodities like tea, which are difficult to industrialize in terms of production and manufacturing, or they are industries like silk and porcelain, which can only be produced with a small amount of industry and most of the time still require manual labor.
It is no wonder that Britain was the first to complete the Industrial Revolution and sold its products all over the world, but was always strangled by the Qing Dynasty in tea, silk and porcelain.
Crafts such as growing tea, raising silkworms, making porcelain, frying tea, reeling silk, and carving cannot be easily completed by machines.
Early in the morning of the 24th, the streets of the outer and inner cities of Bianliang began to become gradually congested, with workers going to work, street vendors, and people buying New Year's goods on the streets coming in an endless stream.
"Tanghulu, sweet and crispy tanghulu, made with the best white sugar."
"Steel pot, a good one, made at Wu'an Iron and Steel Plant."
"Towels, a face towel, and a toothbrush. New Year, new beginnings. Let's buy some toiletries."
The sounds of vendors shouting were endless.
There was little white sugar in the Song Dynasty because there were many impurities and sediments in ancient sugar, resulting in mostly black sugar or brown sugar being produced.
It was not until the Southern Song Dynasty that a sugar maker accidentally discovered the "yellow mud water leaching decolorization method". This method was recorded in the "Sugar Frosting Spectrum" of the Southern Song Dynasty and was eventually widely used in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties.
In recent years, the Song Dynasty has planted a large amount of sugarcane in the Philippines, Vietnam, Hainan, Guangzhou and other places, and introduced sugar beets from Middle Eastern merchants. Through industrial extraction and the decolorization and impurity removal methods developed by the School of Chemistry, white sugar is widely produced.
As a result, in the past two years, the people of the Song Dynasty have finally been able to enjoy sugar products without impurities.
Although the production capacity of sugar beets is not high and sucrose has a certain production capacity, it is limited to being grown in subtropical and tropical areas and still cannot be promoted nationwide, so the price of sugar products is still slightly high and cannot benefit every household in the Song Dynasty.
However, this is already a good start. Once sugar beets are promoted nationwide and sugar factories are built in large numbers, it is only a matter of time before sugar products benefit the entire country.
As for various kitchen utensils and daily necessities, they are actually not produced by Wu'an Iron and Steel Plant or Bianliang Textile Plant. As the largest steel plant and textile plant in the Song Dynasty, these two companies mainly produce raw materials, namely steel and cloth.
Items like pots, pans, towels, and clothes are made in processing plants. They purchase raw materials from two large factories and then carry out secondary processing, which is also a good ecological development.
The streets were crowded with people, and many people were heading towards the square outside Xuande Gate.
There was a flag-raising ceremony in the early morning. At the end of the morning, that is, at 8:30, a large number of officials were already waiting in the square outside Xuande Gate, wearing traditional court robes.
Now many officials have followed suit. After the Constitutional Council and various ministries changed into Zhongshan suits or youth uniforms, they rarely wear official uniforms to work.
However, on this important occasion, one still has to wear court robes used for grand sacrifices to show the importance of the sacrifice.
In addition to them, there were also envoys from various countries standing alone in the square on the right.
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