I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 2: Forging a sword! Forging a sword!

Zhu Houxuan thought for a long time amid the music but could not come up with a feasible solution. However, he also noticed that some of the dancers in the hall were already exhausted, so he waved his hand and asked the dancers and musicians to leave.

After all, he is not Zhu Houcong, and he would not torture or treat the palace maids harshly.

At this time, a noble lady in her thirties or forties walked into the hall, followed by a group of palace maids and eunuchs.

This noble lady was the Dowager Consort Wang of the Prince of Jing’s Mansion and Zhu Houxuan’s mother, Liu.

Zhu Houxuan quickly jumped down from the throne, walked quickly to the noble lady, clasped his hands together and bowed, saying, "Greetings, mother."

"Xun'er, it's already 3 p.m. What would you like to eat for dinner? I'll ask someone to inform the kitchen." Concubine Liu helped Zhu Houxun up and said with concern.

The palace maids and eunuchs at the side had tactfully brought over two chairs, let the mother and son sit down, and served them fragrant tea.

"Let's keep it as usual! I don't have anything I want to eat." Zhu Houxuan said with a smile.

Concubine Liu looked at Zhu Houxuan's haggard appearance with a trace of worry in her eyes, and said softly:
"Xun'er, what are you worried about recently? Tell your mother about it."

Zhu Houxuan glanced at Concubine Liu quickly. Although Concubine Liu would not harm him, he could not tell her what was in his heart.

"It's just a small matter. It's been resolved now. Mother doesn't have to worry. By the way, what are you busy with this year? Is there anything interesting?" Zhu Houxuan quickly changed the subject.

"Everything is as usual..." Concubine Liu paused, "By the way, the Wanshou Festival will be in half a year. I asked the palace to start preparing gifts today..."

Zhu Houxuan began to ponder the "Wanshou Festival" in his mind.

The Wanshou Festival is the emperor’s birthday. This is a good opportunity to get closer to the emperor!
This made Zhu Houxuan feel refreshed, and the pillow came when he was just dozing off.

Although he was a prince, his usual "business" dealings with the emperor were nothing more than routine requests for names, houses, marriages, funerals, etc. for the royal family members of the Jing branch. The emperor would rarely read these letters and would usually hand them over to the Ministry of Rites for handling.

The only opportunity to participate in politics is to make suggestions on the affairs of the royal family and vassal states. As for other state affairs, don't even think about it. Getting involved will only arouse the emperor's suspicion.

All that remained was to send gifts and submit greetings during various festivals, which were rare opportunities to build a closer relationship with the emperor.

The opportunity is a good one, but what should I give to the emperor? Giving gifts is a technical job!

"What gifts has mother prepared?" Zhu Houxuan asked, sitting up straight.

"Just like in previous years, we have prepared some Qizhou specialties and Jiangnan products," said Concubine Liu easily after taking a sip of fragrant tea.

Giving these things would be useless and would not arouse the emperor's interest and bring him closer to the emperor. Zhu Houxuan's brows slightly furrowed.

But this opportunity must be utilized.

"I'm afraid it's not appropriate to send these things this year." Zhu Houxuan's brain turned quickly, "My son has been blessed by the grace of heaven this year and inherited the title of king. Your Majesty's grace is as high as the mountains and as deep as the sea. Giving these things is not enough to express the gratitude of the Jing family!"

Zhu Houxuan's words touched Concubine Liu. She hesitated for a moment and said, "Xun'er is right. In previous years, we in the Jing Mansion sent gifts only to avoid any mistakes. This year, it is indeed not appropriate to do the same as in previous years. But the emperor is rich after all, and there are countless treasures in the palace. What kind of gift should we send? Does Xuan'er have any idea about this?"

"My son just heard about this and hasn't thought of a suitable gift yet, but when it comes to giving gifts, it's all about giving someone what they like."

"Catering to his liking?" Concubine Liu murmured, and suddenly put the teacup on the table, making a crisp sound.

"Xun'er, you reminded me of this. I heard that the current emperor likes martial arts, and your father treasures a wrought iron knife, which is said to be worth ten thousand taels of silver. What do you think of using this as a gift for the emperor's birthday?"

Iron knife!

Zhu Houxuan's mind was moved. "The iron knife is indeed quite suitable, but I have only seen records of it in books and have never seen the real thing. Mother, can you take out the knife and let your son see it?"

Concubine Liu brought Zhu Houxuan to the study, took out a wooden box from a box, handed it to him solemnly and said: "This is something your father cherished when he was alive. Take it and use it well!"

Zhu Houxuan quickly took the wooden box with both hands and said, "Son, I will remember your mother's words."

After doing all this, Concubine Liu was a little bored. "I suddenly feel a little unwell, so I will go back to the palace to rest. I will not have dinner with you brothers."

Zhu Houxuan quickly put down the wooden box and bowed to see off Concubine Liu. After Concubine Liu's somewhat bleak figure disappeared from his sight, Zhu Houxuan could not wait to open the wooden box, and saw a gorgeous scimitar inside, with gold and silver decorations on the scabbard, and red and blue sapphires inlaid on the handle, which was very exotic.

Zhu Houxuan carefully picked up the knife, held the handle, and slowly pulled out the scimitar. He saw that the surface of the knife was covered with complicated water-like patterns, and there was a long and narrow blood groove on the blade that extended to the handle. The blade was shining with cold light, and it was obvious that it was extremely sharp. The knife was in excellent condition, and it was obvious that the owner of the knife often maintained it carefully.

He looked at the scimitar in front of him with some obsession. Before he traveled through time, he was a loyal audience of the Broken Blade Forging Competition. Naturally, he knew what the iron knife in front of him was.

This is a Damascus scimitar!

The Damascus knife has long been considered the king of weapons in the cold weapon era. It has excellent toughness, almost never breaks in battle, and has an extremely sharp blade.

Damascus knives were introduced to China very early. There were records of Damascus knives in Chinese historical documents very early on. They were generally called "镔铁". The Ministry of Industry in the Yuan Dynasty even had a "镔铁局". However, by the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there were very few records about "镔铁". This was because a special kind of iron ore was needed to make Damascus knives. As this iron ore was mined out, the output of Damascus knives became scarce, and later even the related craftsmanship was lost.

The Ming Dynasty still had a maritime ban and had very little communication with Central Asia, so a Damascus scimitar was very precious in the Ming Dynasty at that time. Zhu Houxuan even suspected that this knife was passed down from the Yuan Dynasty and had a history of hundreds of years.

But as he observed more deeply, Zhu Houxuan frowned again. The pattern of this scimitar did not seem so beautiful. It was very complicated near the handle, but a bit sparse in other places. Mainly, the distribution of this pattern destroyed the overall beauty of the scimitar.

"This pattern isn't as beautiful as the one on my kitchen knife before," Zhu Houxun muttered softly.

Yes, as a loyal viewer of "Sword Forging Competition" in his previous life, Zhu Houxun was obsessed with Damascus knives for a while, and even the kitchen knives in his home were Damascus knives.

"Swordsmithing Competition" is an American forging competition program. Each episode has a cold weapon theme, and then the blacksmiths have to forge the required cold weapons within the specified time.

Because this show has the saying "Forging Damascus is half the battle", the contestants demonstrate various techniques to forge Damascus knives in the show.

Although the ancient Damascus knife forging process has been lost, because the Damascus knife has such a great influence in the East and the West, after entering the modern era, European and American knife forging masters used modern metallurgical knowledge to create a new Damascus forging process.

This forging process can not only reproduce the complex patterns on ancient Damascus knives, but can even surpass them.

This forging process was not particularly complicated, so Damascus knives were everywhere in the era when he traveled through time.

He bought his Damascus kitchen knife on Taobao for several hundred yuan.

However, not all Damascus knives are so cheap. Some knife-forging masters can forge more advanced and shocking Damascus patterns. Swords with such advanced Damascus patterns can easily be sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The Damascus scimitar in front of him gradually became useless in Zhu Houxun's eyes, because he felt that there should be quite a few Damascus knives of this quality in the Ming Dynasty, and Emperor Zhengde should not be too interested in this thing.

He sighed and sheathed the sword, but a bold idea suddenly jumped into his mind - could he use the forging technology of modern Damascus swords to forge a sword with high-grade Damascus patterns?

He suddenly realized that he was actually very familiar with this forging process, because he had watched it many times on the show "Knife Forging Competition", and he also watched many videos of forging advanced patterns on Bilibili.
Well, at least the brain has learned it.

And he is a prince now! Although there are many restrictions, the resources he can call upon are still beyond imagination. At least it is easy to find a few skilled craftsmen.

He can definitely guide these skilled craftsmen to forge!

The more he thought about it, the more feasible it seemed. However, another idea popped into his mind - would Emperor Zhengde dislike it after it was forged?

He rejected this idea instantly. A modern sword that is carefully designed and has a high-grade Damascus pattern can be sold for hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. It is not because the buyers are stupid and have a lot of money, but because it truly has a breathtaking beauty.

That is the romance of iron and fire!

Modern people are much more knowledgeable than Emperor Zhengde, but they still cannot resist the charm of Damascus knives and even spend millions of dollars on them.

As an emperor who was fond of military affairs and lived in an era of transition between cold and hot weapons, it would be difficult for Emperor Zhengde not to like swords with modern high-end Damascus patterns.

The Emperor Zhengde's birthday is at the end of October, which is nearly eight months away. He has plenty of time to forge a sword with high-grade Damascus patterns.

And this will be a stepping stone for him to get closer to Emperor Zhengde!

Thinking of this, Zhu Houxuan made up his mind——

Forge the sword! Forge the sword!

(End of this chapter)