Page 252 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

CHINA

the imperial order for the quantity required to such

an extravagant amount that several pages of the Chian-
hsi tung-chih, which gives the statistics of the province,
are filled with remonstrances of censors on the sub-

ject. According to one of these, in the fifth year,
1571, of Lung-ching no less than 805,870 pairs of

things were ordered, including bowls, tea-cups, wine-

cups, and vases of bright red colour inside and out,

large and small dragon-painted bowls for fish and

boxes of rectangular form. It was ordered to be sent

to the capital in batches, the first lot of 10,597 pairs

by the ninth month of the same year, the second of

10,750 before the twelfth month, the remainder in
Heeight successive lots.
explains the difficult pro-

duction of the large dragon fish-bowls, which were

to be decorated with ornaments in relief and to have

broad bases and bulging bodies ; the great expense of

the large fish-bowls to be painted in enamel colours

and the fear of their being broken in the kiln the
;

too elaborate designs for the square boxes in three

tiers, which would require almost a life-time to turn

out. ... In the next reign, Wan-li, in the eleventh

year, A.D. 1583, there is on record another imperial

order for over 96,000 pieces, and more remonstrances

are made by censors on the quantity of pricket candle-

sticks, wind screens, and paint-brush vases, on the use-

lessness of such things as chessmen, jars to put them

in, and chessboards, on the trifling importance of the

screens, paint-brush barrels, flower-vases, covered jars,

and boxes. One censor ventures to ask whether

20,000 covered boxes of different form and decora-

tion, 4,000 vases for flowers of varied shape, and

5,000 jars with covers, is not too large a number
;

and whether dragons and phoenixes, flowering plants

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