Chapter 37 Chapter 55

The Inner Palace has long established manufacturing institutions, such as the Neiyuan Zaozuo Institute in the Song Dynasty and the Imperial Prison in the Ming Dynasty, both of which have workshops.During the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, the construction office of the Hall of Mental Cultivation and the Hall of Wuying were set up.The former includes more than 300 houses in the Hall of Mental Cultivation, the Palace of Compassion and Peace and the back of the White Tiger Hall.The Wuyingdian Building Office later focused on book repairing and became the Wuyingdian Book Repairing Office.The Manufacturing Office has local branches, such as Jiangning, Suzhou, Hangzhou Weaving Bureau and Jiangxi Burning Porcelain Office.

In the mid-Qianlong period, it was adjusted to seven categories of forty-two works: the first category includes box works, mounted works, paintings, and wide wood works; the second category includes wood works, lacquer works, carved luan works, and turnip works. There are five types of writing and engraving; the third type includes lamp, cutting, flower, tapestry, beading, leather, and embroidery; the fourth type includes gilding, jade, silk, and chisel. Flower work, mosaic work, tooth work, and inkstone work are seven works, five types are copper work, jian (jian, also known as wan) 鋄: "Wang Li Ancient Chinese Dictionary" reads wan, horse crown, decoration on the horse's head; He read Jian again, chiseled inscribed characters on ironware, and hammered in gold and silver threads.In addition, the word "", which is similar to the word "鋄", is pronounced sou, which means carved.There are five works, miscellaneous work, air gun work, and glasses work. The six categories are Ruyi Pavilion, Clock Making Office, Glass Factory, Furnace Office, Cannon Office, Map Room, Bow Work, Saddle Armor Work, Enamel Work, and Painting Academy Office. Among the ten works, the seven categories include helmet head making, tin placing work, sachet making, large vessel making, etc. There are a total of forty-two craft workshops above.Each job sends treasury palms, reminders, etc., responsible for inspecting work, receiving money and food, and checking each other.

The manufacturing office not only made utensils used and rewarded by the emperor's family, but also made military supplies.For example, "Map Work" draws military maps, and "Pao Gun Work" manufactures tens of thousands of guns and ammunition.Among them, in February of the seventh year of Yongzheng (1729), 11,300 muskets, 1,000 bronze cannons, and 10,000 rocket launchers were manufactured at a time. medicine. Although the Manufacturing Office is a "bureau-level" unit, it is a "ministerial-level" sequence, and "counseling speeches" are used for ministries and governors.There is a minister (second rank) in charge of the House of Internal Affairs, and sometimes the special minister of the management office is appointed by a prince or a minister of the first rank, such as Prince Yi Yunxiang, Prince Zhuang Yunlu, etc., so that the emperor can directly command.Among them, Prince Yi Yunxiang has a high aesthetic ability, a high degree of trust, and a lot of power.

There are three main categories of craftsmen in the manufacturing office: 1. "Banner craftsmen", who are selected from the three banners of the House of Internal Affairs and coat (slaves) for the House of Internal Affairs, account for the largest number of people.They eat one or two taels of food every month and half a share of silver every day, which is the money and food to support their families.They undertake work without wages (piece wages).Two "Southern craftsmen" are craftsmen selected from Guangdong, Jiangning, Suzhou, Yangzhou, Hangzhou and other places.They are highly skilled, and they have money for food, food and silver, and silver for spring and autumn clothes.Three "folk craftsmen" are craftsmen from the north and the south recruited from all over the country.For example, a glass factory opens a kiln every August to smelt glass, using people from Boshan County, Shandong.There are also "painters" and so on.They are special craftsmen, rewarded with housing and home silver.The number of craftsmen is not fixed.For example, in the fourth year of Jiaqing (1799), there were 426 self-owned craftsmen and 383 craftsmen borrowed from other places in the House of Internal Affairs, a total of 809 people. "The Occasions of the Beijing Master" contains a short story of a clever craftsman: During the Kangxi period, the imperial court needed mounters, and Suzhou specially sent four people to pick up the work as soon as they arrived, to mount the inside of the thin-waisted gourd.This "Southern craftsman" pondered for a long time and came up with an idea - remove the stalks of the gourd, put it into broken bowls, several people shake it in turn to make it extremely clean, then soak the white cotton paper in water overnight, mix it thoroughly, and immediately Pour it out, refill it when it dries up, and then present it several times.The emperor opened the gourd and saw that there was paper in the gourd, and there was no trace of patching. (Quoted from "Qing Palace Shuwen")

The chief officer of the manufacturing office is the "supervisor", who is close to the emperor and has great power.Let me introduce two important supervisors, one is Zhao Chang and the other is Tang Ying.Let me talk about Zhao Chang first.