Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 235 Returning to Beijing Pragmatically (Part [-])
The capital is still the same capital, the only difference is that it is warmer than a few days ago, the spring flowers are just blooming, and the south wind is intoxicating.

A banquet was held at Gao Gong's mansion, as a welcome to Gao Guoyan and others, to welcome them.In the inner hall, apart from Gao Gong, Mrs. Gao Zhang also attended as an elder, but she actually just came forward to say a few polite words and left early. After all, among the few people who came this time, only Gao Guoyan They are the juniors of the Gao family, and the rest of them, no matter what their seniority, are just servants of the family. Gao Gong staying to eat with them is equivalent to a gift from the master to the servants, and it is inappropriate for her to stay at the table as the hostess.

After Mrs. Gao left, everyone began to eat.Because of the presence of Gao Gong, everyone did not dare not to talk about etiquette. It is not allowed to talk while eating, so they had to finish eating in silence.On the contrary, Gao Gong himself, as an elder, said a few words of persuasion to Gao Guoyan.

After eating, it's time to chat.After the servants withdrew from the table, Gao Gong first asked Gao Guoyan about his father's situation. After hearing Gao Guoyan say that his father had indicated that he was about to ask for an official post, Gao Gong seemed a little distracted.

Gao Guoyan and Gao Wushi looked at each other, but didn't say anything to disturb his thoughts.

After a while, I heard Gao Gong sigh slightly: "People will always grow old, I just hope that after getting old, when I look back at my life in my spare time, I won't feel that I missed too many opportunities, and I won't have too many regrets , so, this life is enough."

Gao Guoyan was not familiar with his third uncle, so he dared not speak out when he heard the words, but Gao Pragmatic was different, and immediately persuaded him with a smile: "Third uncle, you have grasped the opportunity now, if you want to leave no regrets, Now is the time."

Gao Gong was taken aback for a moment, and then smiled a little: "That's right, what you said makes sense, but Uncle Sanbo is getting older, and Yi Sheng feels emotional..." He paused for a moment, then stood up suddenly: "I'm also old. Near Jiazi, I don’t know how much time there is left to serve Daming and His Majesty loyally, to be practical, you and Guoyan are brothers in your own family, you can talk slowly.”

Gao Guoyan didn't say anything, even Gao Wushi didn't expect that Gao Gong would suddenly have such a big emotion because of the fact that his second brother was about to retire, and it seemed that he would be more focused on his official duties than before. I couldn't help being a little bit astonished, but I couldn't persuade him, so I had to say: "Third Uncle, although you have to do things, you must also take care of your health. After all, your body is the revolution... No, I mean, the body is the capital of innovation, you If you are too busy, if something happens to your body, then you will really miss a big deal!"

Gao Gong laughed, waved his hands and said: "I know my body, I probably won't die in the next few years, you are young, don't worry about these things... By the way, I see that you have a lot of things recently, um ... Don't want me to emphasize what I talked to you that time? No matter how many things there are, we must distinguish between priorities."

Gao Wushi was afraid of hearing this, so he hurriedly said, "Yes, yes, third uncle, my nephew understands, understands."

Gao Gong glared at him, but thinking about his recent studies, he has not failed, and in her capacity, it is not easy to say anything unreasonable, so she had to let Gao Yushi control the speed by herself, shook her head immediately, and left .

Several people at the table naturally got up to see them off, Gao Gong casually waved his hands: "No need to see you off, let's chat."

After sitting down, Gao Wushi saw that Gao Guoyan seemed to be a little curious about his third uncle's behavior, he couldn't help touching his nose, and explained in an awkward chat: "Well, the third uncle's behavior... has always been, uh, always chic."

Gao Guoyan was a little cautious when facing Gao Gong, but of course he didn't when facing Gao Yushi, he smiled and said: "I heard that Yushi wrote a book called "Long Wen Bian Ying", which was highly praised, and now it is even more based on it. It is really gratifying to be named as the prince's accompanying student, and to be named in the Imperial Academy."

Gao Yushi naturally responded with a few words of modesty, and Gao Guoyan said again: "You are good at reading, which is a good thing, unlike my brother, I have never been interested in those scriptures and poems, but I just prefer numerology. It is nothing in this life count on."

Gao Wushi hesitated for a moment, and asked, "Brother Sanhuai, will you not participate in the tribute exam in the future?"

"I won't participate." Gao Guoyan said, hesitating for a moment, and added: "At most, I'll just take the exam to be a scholar, so that I won't be able to speak anywhere."

Gao Wushi said: "Actually, numerology is an extremely important subject in the world. From the income and expenditure of the imperial court to the consumption of the common people, which one is not related to numerology?"

Hearing this sentence, Gao Guoyan became a little surprised, and asked, "Why, you also know something about numerology?"

From his point of view, since Gao Yushi can be valued by the third uncle in terms of learning, it must be because he has read the scriptures very well. In his eyes, this kind of person is all focused on the way of sages. "Small tricks" and even "fancy tricks" are all to be dismissed. Why does my little brother play cards so unreasonably?
Gao Wushi said: "The six arts in the world are the foundation of human beings. Knowing the book but not knowing the algorithm is like being in a dark room."

Gao Guoyan was taken aback: "You know my teacher?"

Gao Wushi pretended not to know, and said in surprise, "Your teacher? Who is that, how do I know him?"

"Oh, yes, but what you said...is also a coincidence, my teacher also said exactly the same thing."

Gao Wushi smiled: "Then the younger brother has no choice but to boast about 'heroes see the same thing'."

In fact, Gao Wushi was already very surprised when he heard that Gao Guoyan worshiped a teacher who was a businessman last time, and he was even more surprised when he heard that his teacher was named Cheng Dawei.Later, he thought about it carefully, and then he remembered who this Mr. Cheng was.

This, that is really a rare talent in the Ming Dynasty - and it is the kind of rare that Gao Yushi thinks is "rare".

Because, he is a mathematician.

Cheng Dawei, styled Rusi, named Binqu, was born in Xiuning County (now Huangshan City), Anhui Province.He was born in a small businessman. He was smart and eager to learn since he was a child. He especially loved mathematics and often spent a lot of money to buy calculation books.

When he was about 20 years old, he took advantage of the opportunity of going out to do business, invited Wu Chu, and visited famous teachers.Living in a small county town, he attached great importance to land surveying. He once created a "measuring walker" and handed down his drawings.

Historically, after Cheng Dawei was 40 years old, he was tired of traveling, so he "returned to Qinsi for the remaining 20 years of leading the water".He carefully studied ancient books, deciphered their meanings, examined their established methods, learned the strengths of various schools, and added his own experience, and finally wrote "Algorithm Tongzong" (formerly known as "Zhizhi Algorithm Tongzong") in the 20th year of Wanli. Seventeen volumes.In the following six years, the book was deleted and its essentials revealed, and it was written into four volumes of "Algorithm Compilation Essentials", which were published successively in Xiuning.

In "Algorithms", the first and second volumes are the basic knowledge used in the whole book; the third to twelfth volumes are a collection of solutions to various applied problems, and each volume is basically titled with the chapter name of "Nine Chapters of Arithmetic"; No . Volumes 13 to 17 are "difficulties". In fact, the algorithms are very simple, but the conditions are expressed in poetry; they are relatively obscure; volume [-] is "miscellaneous methods".Abacus calculations are used for various problems in the book. Cheng Dawei used a set of concise formulas for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of abacus calculations and the method of finding squares.

This book systematically summarizes various methods of abacus calculation in the past dynasties in China and becomes a relatively complete book on abacus calculation.Its writing and wide spread marked the completion of the transformation from calculation to abacus calculation in the history of Chinese mathematics, and Cheng Dawei himself was hailed as "the master of abacus calculation".The familiar sayings such as "adding two to one to make five" and "dividing two from three to five" all came from him.

When Gao Yushi thought about this incident at the time, he felt that he could pick up treasures on the roadside. Since his second brother is his disciple, first of all, his level must not be inferior, and more importantly, in the future, his own "Great cause", that really needs a mathematician like Cheng Dawei!
(End of this chapter)