Hongwu Daming: Why hasn't my son rebelled?

Chapter 105 Break through three levels

Although Zhu Qi did not have much hope for the mathematics level of these scholars in the early Ming Dynasty, a simple "mouse punching a hole" problem is a classic in the history of Chinese mathematics.

The "Nine Chapters of Arithmetic" in the Tang Dynasty had the same problem, but what Zhu Qi never expected was that it was such a problem. He waited for a whole day, and only three people in the entire Yingtian Mansion could solve the answer.

One of them is Li Qi, and the other two are also scholars, but they seem to have a little foundation in mathematics.

But in the entire Yingtian Mansion, there are only two people who can solve this problem. To be honest, it is too rare for the population base of Yingtian Mansion.

As for the foreign envoys, they rushed to give Zhu Qi gifts and buy answers.

After Zhu Qi also received the gift, he vomited bitterly:

Oh, you all don't know, this question was asked by His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, it is always difficult, and the king spent a lot of effort to get the answer!

Of course, this answer is given to you not because of the gifts you gave, but because of the friendship between me and you, which is stronger than gold, just like the water of the Yellow River coming from the sky, and the surging river is endless...

Good guy, those envoys were so moved that they were almost speechless.

But this can't help but make Zhu Qi start to think about a very real problem, that is, Daming's desire to take the route of rejuvenating the country through science and technology may not be as simple as he thought.

Especially after the rise of Neo Confucianism in the Song Dynasty and several reforms of the imperial examinations, Confucianism, a pure liberal arts type, has become the mainstream of social research topics.

Thought is important to develop science and technology, but Confucianism can only stabilize society, but it does not have the spirit of bold innovation and exploration.

More practically, it is because the development of science needs the promotion of natural science, and throughout the development of human science, the most important thing is-mathematics!
Whenever there is a new breakthrough in mathematics, it can always drive the advancement of other subjects.

Zhu Qi once read an article on a public account, saying that Maozi had limited funds and cut research in many disciplines, but did not cut funding for mathematics. Not only did he not cut it, but he also increased investment every year. So far, Maozi’s mathematics The level is still in the leading position in the world.

The reason for this is that as long as the level of mathematics does not lag behind, the level of other subjects will catch up sooner or later.

It may be a bit exaggerated, but the importance of mathematics is beyond doubt.

Most great scientists are not as bad in mathematics.

And China's mathematics research, even in the Northern Song Dynasty, was still in a leading position.

However, after the rise of Neo Confucianism, and later the Song Dynasty abolished the compulsory item "Mathematics" in the imperial examinations started in the Tang Dynasty, the level of mathematics in China has been declining.

In the Southern Song Dynasty, it was surpassed by the mathematics level of the Arab world.

The Western world, on the other hand, came from behind. In the 45th century, a blowout of Western mathematicians laid a solid foundation for the subsequent technological leap.

In China, however, during the Hongwu period, numerology was no longer a separate subject, but mixed with astronomy. Above the imperial court, arithmetic was the work of Si Tianjian to calculate the calendar and the direction of the stars.

Of course, there may be Minghei who is about to argue, saying that the decline of Chinese mathematics is all because Zhu Yuanzhang curbed folk mathematics research, promoted abacus, and turned mathematics into formulas.

This is really pure bullshit.

Let’s talk about curbing folk mathematics first. There is a sentence in the "Law of the Ming Dynasty": "Anyone who privately collects mysterious artifacts, astronomical prophecies, books that should be banned, and images of emperors in the past, gold and jade talismans, etc., will have a staff of one hundred. Those who study astronomy are guilty of the same crime. In addition, under the name of the prisoner, one or twelve taels of silver will be chased, and the reward will be given to the accused.”

In fact, the main purpose of this prohibition is to prevent lawbreakers from the public from using the name of learning astronomy and calendar to make rumors about demon books and confuse the public.

After all, many people would say things like "the celestial phenomena are changing, and the destiny lies with so-and-so", which does not really prohibit non-governmental organizations from learning astronomy, but instead encourages scholars to learn more about serious astronomy and calendar calculations.

At least none of the banned books listed in the Ming Dynasty were mathematical works.

As for Zhu Yuanzhang's promotion of abacus, that is an example of Zhu Yuanzhang's emphasis on arithmetic.

It's just that Zhu Yuanzhang, who has no modern education, can't understand the importance of advanced mathematics. He only sees the importance of popularizing simple mathematics among the people to business development.

In fact, few people in this era understand it.

Even in 300, the first university in the western world was established 1088 years ago, the University of Bologna in Italy began to set up mathematics as a subject of study, and it was not for the sake of technological progress.

Simply because in Roman culture, mathematics and philosophy are always tied together and sanctified together.

Of course, the basis of reality is that the Western world relies on the Mediterranean, and the marine commercial culture bred throughout their entire history.

However, most of the wars between big countries have to do with business, such as the Hundred Years War between Britain and France.

Seeing that the mathematics ability of the people in the country is worrying, Zhu Qi is also quite emotional. It seems that if you want Daming to occupy a dominant position in the future world, guide the current imperial examinations, and gradually increase the proportion of social sciences, it is hard Makes sense.

Of course, all of this has to wait until after the match with the pro.

After the selection here, apart from the envoys, a total of three common people were shortlisted, and one of them was Li Qi, a noble son.

Soon, the date of the marriage competition was decided, and it was set on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the day of the Lantern Festival!
And the location of the competition happened to be in the school field in the east of Yingtianfu City.

As for the onlookers, there were naturally not many, but it was enough to invite officials and students from various academies to act as spectators.

The rules of the competition are checkpoints. There are three checkpoints in total, and the one who can clear the checkpoints at the fastest speed will be the final winner!
----

On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, in the east school grounds of Yingtianfu City.

Zhu Qi arrived at the gate of the school field early in the morning, and was still yawning over and over again. The reason why he was so tired was because he was so busy these days.

It is very difficult to use three checkpoints to defeat all the envoys without making it too obvious.

The problem is easy to think about, but the key is to not only give them guidance, but also make them unable to pass the test, which is very technically difficult.

The main target is Goryeo. After all, Daming needs to win over at present, and only Goryeo is the only superficial brother.

Fortunately, with Zhu Qi's clever mind, he still thought of a way to get the best of both worlds.

I only saw crowds of people on the school grounds, and those envoys were all sad, and there was no other reason.

Just because His Royal Highness Liao Wang said that the answer to the initial test questions is to do their best, and they can only go on their own in the future.

In other words, today's competition is really a matter of serious competition.

However, most of the envoys are still very satisfied. After all, without the help of His Highness Liao Wang, they would not even be able to take this step.

Soon, the envoys one by one, and three people including Li Qi, were arranged in the middle of the school grounds.

I saw Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty sitting on the throne in the distance, the prince Zhu Biao standing next to him, and next to him was Zhu Qi, the king of Liao.

Zhu Yuanzhang looked at Zhu Qi beside him, smiled and asked:

"Third brother, you have arranged all the competitions? Are you sure that none of the envoys can answer the questions you asked?"

Zhu Qi smiled and said:

"Father, don't worry, you will never be able to answer."

Zhu Biao also had a smiling face beside him, obviously agreeing with Zhu Qi's words very much.

The opening ceremony was naturally very simple. An internal official came out and shouted twice, and then announced the official start.

Then a group of envoys who participated in the competition, as well as the onlookers saw two hundred people each, leading one hundred adult horses and one hundred juvenile horses, came out and stood still in the school field.

The internal official in charge of hosting shouted:
"This is a hundred mares and a hundred young horses. They are all one-on-one teams. Whoever can find the most mothers and babies will win the first round!"

As soon as this question came out, the audience was in an uproar.

(End of this chapter)