Three million years ago, the Himalayas rose strongly, and the western part of the Yangtze River basin rose further. The glacial meltwater formed by the Dongxueling Glacier in Tanggula, Gladin, finally merged into turbulent waves due to sunshine, weathering and meltwater, and rushed out of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, cutting the Wushan cliff and connecting the East and West ancient Yangtze rivers.
From then on, the Yangtze River is like a silver dragon, roaring and rolling, flapping the cliffs and impacting the rugged rocks. After 6300 kilometers, I ran all the way to the East China Sea. In this process, the fish and dragons are mixed, and the mud and sand are mixed. Reaching the Nanjing section of the downstream flat zone, the Yuhuatai gravel layer is gradually deposited, and Shi Yuhua is one of them.
For example, in the site of Xia Dynasty in Nanjing, 76 natural flower stones, namely rain flower stones, were found buried in several tombs. There were two or three rain flower stones in each tomb, and some were placed in the mouths of the dead.
It is said that the Xuan Palace was built in the Xia Dynasty, and the stones used were made of agate to beautify the environment. This is the first time. This is the earliest known evidence of rain flower stone culture, which proves that rain flower stone has been treasured as jewelry in the Xia and Shang Dynasties in the late Neolithic period.
After the Xia Dynasty, the rain flower stones entered the court as tributes in the Spring and Autumn Period. Confucius, a famous thinker, educator and founder of Confucianism in China, wrote Shangshu? Gong Yu recorded: "Yangzhou Gong Yaokun." Describing Yao Kun as jade rather than jade, crystal clear, may be called "rain flower stone" by later generations, which is the earliest description of rain flower stone.
The Qin Dynasty ruled the whole country, and Nanjing belonged to the State of Chu, so the produced rain flower stones were naturally sought in the Qin Dynasty. Zhao Yan's collection, the management of the Han and Wei Dynasties, and the elites of Qi and Chu are all "tinkling jade nuggets", among which jade beads will come out of Chu. The beautiful stone of Chu, the rain flower stone is naturally an example.
Since the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the literati have sent their love to the mountains and rivers, smiling proudly at the clouds, and reached the peak in the Tang and Song Dynasties. The magical rain flower stone has become a treasure in the stone, known as the "queen in the stone", and is deeply loved and treasured by people. Its cultural history has a long history.
There is a beautiful legend about the origin of rain flower stones in the Southern and Northern Dynasties:
According to legend, during the Southern Liang Dynasty, there was a monk named Guang Yun who talked about Buddhism everywhere, and few people listened. Seeing that the situation showed no signs of improvement, Guang Yun began to feel a little discouraged.
One night, when Guang Yun was sitting on the side of the road sighing after explaining Buddhist scriptures, he met an old woman begging.
After eating the dry food given to her by Master Guang Yun, the old woman took out a pair of Ma Xie from the broken bag and gave it to Guang Yun, telling him to wear it and spread Buddhism everywhere. And tell him where the shoes are rotten, let him settle down there and give lectures for a long time. The old lady suddenly disappeared when she finished speaking.
I don't know how many places Guang Yun went, but the Ma Xie on his feet always wears well. Until he came to Shigangzi in Nanjing, Ma Xie suddenly rotted away. From then on, he listened to the old woman's words, got a good marriage on the stone mountain, and taught Buddhist scriptures. Not many people listened at first, but after speaking for a while, more and more people believed.
One day, he talked about Buddhist scriptures, and he was very devoted to it. After touching the immortal for a while, colorful rain began to fall in the sky. Strangely, as soon as these raindrops fell to the ground, they became glittering and translucent pebbles with colorful patterns on them.
Because these pebbles are melted by raindrops falling from the sky, people call them "rain stones". Since then, Shigangzi, who gave lectures in Guang Yun, has also been called "Yuhuatai".
At that time, the famous products in the rain flower stones, such as "Dragon with a treasure to cover the morning sun", were all pink, like Danxia reflecting the sea. The beauty of this stone is that there are two dragons flying. The dragons are green, covered with red clouds, and the top is as white as Yushan. There is still a golden sun in the red clouds.
Another example is "A Flower in a Flat House". The stones are colorful, with a mountain peak of Taihu Stone on it, and the caves are exquisite. There are reflections of flowers and leaves in the cave, and several red peonies are decorated on it. Flowers and leaves are sacred and shaped.
The famous stone "Huang Shigong" in Yuhua is oval, with yellow and white alternating. The word "Gong" is born at one end of the stone, and the strokes are like books, like the word "Gong" in the Northern Wei Dynasty.
Since then, rain flower stones have been regarded as ornamental gems or embedded in various utensils to increase their aesthetic feeling.
Du Yang Zaben in Tang Dynasty recorded Nine Jade Hairpins written by Nanqipan, which were engraved with nine colors, and the word "Yuer" was naturally engraved on the stone. Yuer is the nickname of Pan Fei, which is clever and beautiful and naturally generated.
Tang Yizong's daughter accompanied Princess Tongchang when she got married, and it took hundreds of years to collect it from Nanqi to the late Tang Dynasty. It can be seen that the collection of rain flower stones existed in the Southern and Northern Dynasties and influenced the Tang Dynasty.
Chen Chao's obsession with rain flower stones does not show weakness. At one time, the stubborn stone was sealed as three products, and the wind of Tang people loving stone spread to the literati class. In the Tang Dynasty, Li Bai, Du Fu, Wang Wei and others all wrote poems praising stones. Wandu's first stone spectrum "Yunlin Stone Spectrum" appeared in the Southern Song Dynasty, which once said:
There are stones in the river of jiangning house called snails, where there are five colors. Generally, it is no different from agate produced in Lingyan and other places in Liuhe County. The texture is as bright as cocoon, and the stone surface looks transparent, moist and gratifying.
This is the earliest stone spectrum describing the rain flower stones.
At the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, Zhou Mi, a great collector, also recorded his love for rain flower stones, and made the earliest description of the treasure of rain flower stones: "After three inches, the sound gurgled and covered the air, so it was also." It can be seen that in the Southern Song Dynasty, the rain flower stone has become a treasure in people's eyes and attracted much attention.
On Zhu Yuanzhang's 60th birthday, Zhu Yunwen, the favorite grandson of the Ming Dynasty, spelled out the four characters "Long life without borders" on the plate, and added a piece of rain flower stone shaped like a peach as a birthday present, which made the royal family, officials and bureaucrats all amazed and overjoyed.
After Zhu Yunwen proclaimed himself emperor, he still had a special liking for the rain flower stones, and there were offerings of rain flower stones on his desk in Neigong.
Mi, a calligrapher in the Ming Dynasty, was a friend of Shi, also known as a man named Shi. Mi Wanzhong is a descendant of Mi Fei, a great calligrapher in the Song Dynasty. He was good at painting and calligraphy all his life. > in the late Ming dynasty, Dong Qichang was known as the "rice in the northeast, south and north".
Mi Yu 1595 was admitted to the Jinshi Examination, and he was appointed as the magistrate of Liuhe County the following year. Mi Wanzhong lamented the colorful rain flower stones as wonders, so he asked for high prices and exquisite. The local people rushed to provide their favorite stones. At one time, many strange stones were collected in the hands of Mi Wanzhong.
The rain flower stones collected by Mi Wanzhong are filled with large and small containers. It is often said that "Ya Zhai enjoys himself alone, tastes himself, and is tireless all day long". Among them, the best gems are Lushan Waterfall, algae powder, thousands of beads, three mountains and a half falling from the sky, and mountains covered with snow. And please Wu Wenzhong painting "Lingyan Map", Xu Zimian preface to write "Lingshan Stone Map".
Mi's appreciation and publicity of yuhua stone contributed a lot. Mi Wanzhong loves stones and is called "stone idiot". He has traveled to many places in his life and is famous for his exquisite and small collection of strange stones.
Since then, Lin has also made great achievements in the study of rain flower stones. He selected 35 "Plain Stone Spectrum" and drew them carefully, each with a good name. Lin built a "Xuanchi Pavilion" in Suyuan, which specializes in collecting strange stones. He collected all the strange stones of various landforms in the south of the Yangtze River and put them in pavilions, where he often enjoyed them.
Friend He Shiyi gave Lin some rain stones. He put them on the "violet boat" and admired them again and again. One by one, he painted figures and recited inscriptions, which were attached to the end of Suyuan Stone Spectrum and named after "Qinglian Stone".
In the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, Xu Rong wrote a poem with seven rhythms on the topic of rain flower stones. Zhang Dai said in the article "Rain Flower Stone": "My father collected rain flower stone, and after three generations, he got 65,438 +03 yuan ..."
After that, Jiang Ye was an enthusiastic collector of rain flower stones. Jiang, whose real name is Jiang Shaoshu, was a bibliophile and scholar in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties.
With the increasingly frequent exchanges between China and foreign countries, people from the west were often seen in the Ming Dynasty, so the rain flower stones hidden by Jiang were also called "western beauties". This stone is 1.5 inch long and 0.8 inch wide. It is straw yellow, oval and flat. On the table stood the head of a western beauty, with a hat on her head, her shoulders cut off, her skirt trimmed, her waist thin and her cheeks beautiful, her chest concave and her body light, and her figure all black.
Another example is the "faint fragrance and thin shadow" of the rain flower stone, which is round, light yellow in texture, moist and elegant, with green branches on the top and pink lines all around, fresh and gorgeous, like a plum blossom, and quite poetic.
There is also the mysterious "Tai Chi Map" of Yuhua. The stone is spherical, black and white, and the boundary is arc, which has become a very standardized Taiji diagram.
Jiang Shaoshu's ancestor Nugong was Shi's nephew. Once, he went to the antique market with Shi Yun and saw a round stone that sounded like a hollow stone. Shi Yun thought it was a rough jade, so he bought it and asked someone to cut it. At first glance, some of the sky is black and white, with yin and yang alternating, and the edge is surrounded by a red line, like summer. And the rain flower stone named "Yun Xiang White Crane" is as white as a cloud, and a white crane is walking in the clouds, and its soaring attitude is lifelike. In addition, the interesting "squirrel grape" in life is made of stone, kidney-shaped and yellow in sauce. There is a black squirrel with its tail up and eating a bunch of grapes. "Mei Zhu Lan Ju" is composed of four pieces of rain flower stones, and the Mei stones are oblique; Shi Lan Youfang vomited; Bamboo and stone hold the air and pass the green; Ao Shuang is facing the wind. The four stone heads have their own wonders. A rare "cat-bird amphibious" stone, with two birds perched on the branches at the top and two cats lying opposite each other at the bottom, looks radiant. The magical orphan "old turtle goose", this stone is black and white, with a big image of an old turtle with its neck stretched out on one side and a naive gosling on the other.
The Journey to the West's novels and Peking Opera began to spread in the Qing Dynasty, so some rain stones were named "Wukongpang", and the color was like cowpea. An ingot-shaped curve protruded from the stone table, just above the middle of the curve, and two parallel small white circles were born, which were still cowpea red, much like the Monkey King's face on the Peking Opera stage.
Emperor Qianlong of Qing Dynasty reigned for 6 1 year and made six southern tours. Nanjing is a must. There are five poems with the theme of Yuhuatai, such as "Yuhuatai Slogan" and "Yuhuatai Story". On the landscape stone beside Mochou Lake, there is a poem "Don't scoff at a stubborn stone, it is ugly, and the emperor used it to mend the sky".
Emperor Qianlong treasured four pieces of rain flower stones. One of the dragon heads is amazing, and is called "the real dragon son of heaven".