Duan Zhengxing, the last king of Dali Kingdom, happily moved to a new residence in Kaifeng.
But Li Renxiao, the last emperor of the Western Xia Dynasty, had already moved from Kaifeng to Luoyang. He really couldn't pass the exams of Taixue and even the Taixue graduation exam. After failing the exam for two consecutive years, the emperor gave him a special graduation quota.
.
After graduating from Taixue, he automatically became a Juren, and then Li Renxiao could directly take the National Examination.
But Li Renxiao gave up in the end. He had been recognized by the Ming Dynasty officials, so he asked the emperor for a title and an official position. This was the promise given by Ju Ming at the beginning. If Li Renxiao failed to pass the Jinshi examination, he would still be compensated.
.
His title is Duke, and his official position is Hanlin Literary and Historian Official.
Li Renli was also serving as an official historian of the Imperial Academy and an authoritative expert on Xixia studies. He happened to serve as Li Renxiao's academic mentor.
In addition to Li Renli and Li Renxiao, there are several Xixia scholars, all of whom are classified as researchers in the Xixia Group of the Hanlin Academy of Literature and History. The first draft of "Book of Xixia" has long been published, and the second draft was revised and approved last year, but new historical materials were discovered
Currently working on the third draft.
Because the imperial court banned Xixia writing, a large number of folk books were confiscated and shipped to Luoyang. The official historical materials of Xixia have been studied, but only a small part of the folk books have been sorted out, and the rest are piled in several rooms in the warehouse.
Not enough manpower!
Hearing that two generations of Dali kings had come to Beijing, Li Renxiao pretended not to know and was too lazy to go and exchange experiences on destroying the country.
He came to the warehouse to work as usual.
The handymen were called to carry out a large wooden box. These boxes were sealed and marked with the source of the books. The wooden box opened at this moment came from a Nestorian temple in Xiliang Prefecture.
Li Renxiao's job was to preliminary sort and classify them, and then send them to the Xixia Group of the Museum of Literature and History for research.
Ordinary officials really can't do this job. Because in addition to Chinese characters and Xixia characters, there are also Uighur, Sogdian, etc. Even preliminary sorting requires skills.
Li Renxiao was organizing these in Luoyang, but more than ten painters were copying the cave murals in Shazhou.
It has been several years since Zhu Guoxiang sent him.
The reason why he sent painters to Shazhou at that time was because he heard that the Mogao Grottoes had exquisite murals from past dynasties. The painting style was very different from that in the Central Plains, so he asked some painters to go there and take a look, and copy them to practice their painting skills.
Zhu Guoxiang didn't know which cave the Dunhuang suicide note came from, so he couldn't pinpoint the location of the secret room.
What makes Zhu Guoxiang even more unexpected is that the Mogao Grottoes are not the same as the Dunhuang Grottoes, because the Dunhuang Grottoes are a group of caves. They are everywhere in Shazhou!
Even the Hanlin painters went to Shazhou and asked the local monks, but in the first year they could not find out the whereabouts of the Mogao Grottoes - the locals called it Thousand Buddha Cave.
There are two Thousand Buddha Caves, and the Mogao Grottoes belong to the East Thousand Buddha Caves.
The murals in Mogao Grottoes were not uncommon in Shazhou at this time, and many local grottoes had similar works.
More than a dozen painters from the Hanlin Academy came to Shazhou and copied them in six grottoes, and Mogao Grottoes was just one of them. Of course, Mogao Grottoes had the most painters, because someone discovered the inscription "The Story of Mogao Grottoes" and knew that this is where
The place where the emperor called his name.
Due to the suppression of Buddhism by the Ming Dynasty, all grotto construction in Shazhou was stopped, many small grottoes even gradually fell into disuse, and even nearby temples were banned.
But in several large caves, believers still come to worship the Buddha and offer incense.
Zhou Cong is thirty-two years old and has been copying murals in Shazhou for five years. He can only correspond with his wife twice a year.
This job is quite hard, but Zhou Cong doesn't complain.
He studied under the famous artist Li Tang, and was only a registered disciple. His painting skills were good, but only okay, and he was not ranked high in the Hanlin Academy of Painting. Being able to improve his painting skills in Shazhou would be of great help to his future development.
There are many murals here, and Zhou Cong especially likes the Wei, Jin and Tang Dynasty styles.
They usually live in the Thousand Buddha Temple east of Mogao Grottoes. There used to be more than 200 monks there, but now there are only a few dozen left. The remaining monks were forced to return to secular life and share the fields with Han immigrants for farming.
The craftsmen hired to dig the grottoes were all registered with the government and were uniformly assigned to resettle in various places.
The entire group of large and small grottoes in Shazhou, from the Southern and Northern Dynasties to the present, has only been suspended for a long time during wars. Once peace comes, monks or believers will raise funds to dig new caves, which historically continued until the fall of the Yuan Dynasty.
It’s another new day, Zhou Cong and his friends go to work.
They also hired monks to act as handymen in the temple and do odd jobs to help carry things.
It's going to snow soon and the weather is a bit cold.
Zhou Cong copied all morning, his hands and feet were cold and he ran out to exercise, jumping up and down and chatting with friends.
"When will Brother Lu Dao return to Beijing?" Zhou Cong asked.
Liu Cunzhong said: "I will go back in the spring next year. If I don't go home, my children will not know their father."
Zhou Cong said: "I also plan to go back in the spring."
Zhu Guoxiang did not set a time limit. He just mentioned it casually at the Hanlin Academy of Painting, and the Academy sent more than ten painters.
Liu Cunzhong said: "I went home to rest for a while, and then I applied to go to other Buddhist caves. There are so many famous caves in the world, and there must be some with completely different painting styles. I gained a lot from this Mogao Grottoes. In the future, I will travel around the country and learn from others' opinions.
Maybe I can understand it all."
Zhou Cong praised: "Brother Lu Dao has such a great ambition!"
Liu Cunzhong said with a smile: "Even if I can't become famous all over the world, there are so many copied paintings passed down to my family, and my descendants will be able to eat from this bowl of rice in the future."
For painters since the Tang and Song dynasties, their skills were often passed down from father to son.
The painter will make his own material library for his children and grandchildren to copy from an early age.
Children can draw flowers, birds, insects and fish in a realistic way without leaving home, and master various basic painting techniques of realism, including spatial perspective, etc. When they grow up, they can go a step further by observing real objects.
"Da da da da..."
There was a sound of horse hoofbeats, and an official came running and shouted: "A letter from Luoyang has arrived, along with the "Da Ming Yue Bao" for the past six months. If you want to write a letter to your family, you'd better finish it today. I will take it to Shasha tomorrow.
At the state camp, before it snows, we will send home letters from officials, soldiers, and immigrants together. Please tell each other!"
"Good work!"
The painters came out of the cave one after another.
In remote areas, post messengers are very popular, and they eat well wherever they go.
Zhou Cong and others stopped copying and returned to the temple to collect family letters.
Not only did he have a letter from home, Zhou Cong also received an embroidered purse.
The wife said in the letter that her daughter would be haircut in two years, and that the female workers were getting better and better. Half of the patterns on this purse were embroidered by her daughter. She also said that some people came to propose marriage, and one of them had good conditions and was a distant relative of the wife. The young man was not only a good person,
He was of good character and had been admitted to the state school at the age of fifteen. Both parents at home thought it was suitable and wrote to ask Zhou Cong for his opinion.
Zhou Cong read and re-read the family letter, and then looked at the purse that his daughter participated in embroidering.
After giggling for a while, Zhou Cong wrote back.
He first talked about how much he missed his wife and children, then wrote that he was in good health without any illness, and then mentioned the interesting things and troubles he had encountered. Finally, he said that his painting skills had improved by leaps and bounds in the past six months, and he planned to return to Luoyang after the spring.
Reunion with family.
After thinking about it, Zhou Cong asked his wife not to agree to his daughter's marriage until he went back to inspect the young man in person.
After writing the reply, Zhou Cong opened the letter from home and read it several times before running to find the newly delivered newspaper.
In order to save money, these painters at Mogao Grottoes jointly subscribed to the "Da Ming Yue Bao". After everyone took turns reading it, the monks from Qianfo Temple would come to borrow it, and even take it to the city at a low price.
sell.
Before Zhou Cong entered the room, he heard his friend Zhang Luqing shouting: "Master Wang destroyed the Dali Kingdom and changed the Dali Kingdom to Yunnan Province! The Jisi Prefecture under the original jurisdiction of Qianzhou, as well as some prefectures and counties in western Hunan, were also changed to Yunnan Province.
Guizhou Province suddenly gained two more provinces!"
"Long live the Ming Dynasty!"
"Long live the Ming Dynasty!"
The painters who were reading newspapers in the room shouted in celebration.
Although they are far away in Shazhou, they know the major events happening across the country through the "Da Ming Yue News".
Soon, a painter named Yang Juhou, holding another newspaper in his hand, said: "This summer, the imperial court sent envoys to Qiangtang, and a total of fifty-two Tubo tribes surrendered, and each sent envoys to Luoyang to pay tribute and meet the emperor.
"
The crowd cheered again.
Soon, people read about the Huainan corruption case and the personnel and institutional changes in the imperial court, and they all felt sad.
Zhou Cong went in and sat down, picked up a newspaper that had been read by others, and sat there happily reading quietly.
To be continued...