From The Rock

A little place in China called Jingdezhen has made some of the most revered porcelain pieces the world over. But it’s no mistake; this town once made porcelain items and tea sets just for the royal families. Emperors, empresses, princes and the like all ordered porcelain from Jingdezhen.

This storied history is a very important piece when it comes to solving the Chinese porcelain industry puzzle.

In 1278, Mongol emperor Kublai Khan built the first imperial kiln in Jingdezhen. Jingdezhen then made a type of porcelain that was celebrated for being as white as snow. The Mongols revered the color white.

His successors continued to build their own kilns in the following centuries. And at its peak, there were 58 imperial kilns in total. Orders from the imperial palace came in everyday, and the towns porcelain industry was booming.

The workload was so great, many emperors sent special envoys just to oversee the porcelain production. These envoys were trusted to send only the best pieces of porcelain to the capital.

The officials the emperor sent were also responsible for ensuring that no one else even touched the porcelain meant for the royal family. And no one else was to receive the products of the royal kilns. The only way to do this was to break all of the porcelain that would not be sent to the capital into tiny pieces. The pieces were then buried in a restricted area. Also, any potter caught revealing the secrets of the imperial kilns would be punished severely.

Making such great porcelain was never an easy task. Some emperors sent troops halfway across the world to find colors and other designs that became essential parts of royal Chinese porcelain.

Empires rose and fell, but these royal kilns continued to operate till the 1900s, the last years of imperial China.