Rebirth of Zhu Di's son

Chapter 275 Ming Dynasty AD Calendar

In fact, it does not matter whether the year of the beginning of the Yanhuang period is used as the first year of the new calendar era, the year when Qin Shihuang unified the six countries, or the year when the Ming Dynasty was founded as the first year of the new calendar era. The most critical thing.

The most important thing is that the name of this new calendar era must cover the entire Chinese history from the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, and have the meaning of Chinese supremacy.

Zhu Gaoxu didn't think at all that he would be criticized for launching a ritual to record the years of the Yanhuang calendar.

Because this matter did not harm the interests of people from all walks of life, and he did not say that he would abolish the reign name.

Whether it is the rule of the Three Dynasties advocated by Confucianism or the Spring and Autumn Period in which Confucius and Mencius lived, there is no era name.

Therefore, Confucian students have no reason to oppose the Yanhuang calendar, and they should even respect the Yanhuang calendar. The so-called descendants of the Yanhuang calendar should naturally use the Yanhuang calendar to record years.

It even saves future readers a lot of trouble. They don't have to write down all the complicated year numbers. They only need to have a rough idea of ​​what major events happened in a certain year in the Yanhuang calendar.

"Your Majesty's courage is not inferior to that of the Qin Emperor and the Han Dynasty!"

Xie Jin complimented calmly: "Just this one thing will definitely leave a name for eternity and be remembered by future generations."

Fang Xiaoru's face suddenly revealed that Zhu Gaoxu took this opportunity to change all the past dates and merge them into the Yanhuang Calendar.

Not taking the first year of Qianxi or the first year of Hongwu as the first year of the new calendar, but taking the beginning of Yanhuang as the first year of the new calendar, is not only a good reason, but also commendable in terms of measurement.

In the future, as long as people recite "Yanhuang Calendar" and think that it was caused by Fang Xiaoru and Xie Jin Feng, Emperor Qianxi of the Ming Dynasty compiling history books, what happened today will become a good story in history.

"Your Majesty is wise, in this way, I can compile the history of China from far to near according to the Yanhuang calendar."

Fang Xiaoru said extremely excitedly.

Seeing the excitement of the two bachelors, Zhu Gaoxu felt quite proud. He decided that in a few years, when astronomy and calendar science would be mature and perfect, he would figure out the equator, longitude and latitude. By then, the prime meridian would be based on the central axis of the Forbidden City. allow.

In fact, after the Yanhuang Calendar was introduced, the first people to feel the convenience were the historians and historians and scholars, followed by the ordinary people in the world.

Emperors in the past dynasties set year names to reflect the emperor's unique sanctity.

Based on the population circulation and literacy rates in ancient times, most people would not know immediately after the era name was changed.

At most, the imperial court would send people to post notices on the notice board in the county town. It was impossible to go door to door to notify.

Especially in remote villages, tax collectors and rent-collecting landowners would not talk to their tenant farmers about court affairs.

Therefore, rural people mostly relied on hawkers and hawkers walking around the streets to get news about the imperial court.

It has been several years since the emperor passed away, and it is normal for the people in the countryside not to know. Only the old farmers in TV series will casually say the year of Apocalypse and the year of Chongzhen.

In fact, ancient people mostly used the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches to record time, such as the Xinchou Year and the Gengxu Year. This was limited to knowledgeable scholars.

Ordinary people at the bottom of society don't even know a few characters, let alone know the heavenly stems and earthly branches, and have no channels to learn about the change of era names. They just live in numbness.

However, after the implementation of the Yanhuang calendar, once the people at the bottom know that this year is such and such a year in the Yanhuang calendar, it will not be that important whether the emperor's reign name will be changed next year, because next year will definitely be in the Yanhuang calendar. So-and-so plus one year.

Although the current Ming Dynasty is the first year of Qianxi, the method of counting years can still be adopted, that is, using the heavenly stems and earthly branches as support, a cycle of 60 years is mixed with the 24 solar terms of the astronomical calendar.

Zhu Gaoxu didn't know much about astronomical calendars, and he didn't know how to calculate solar terms and the ecliptic.

He proposed the use of the Yanhuang Calendar, which simplifies historical chronology and has little to do with the lunar calendar and solar terms. It is just conducive to integrating Chinese history into a whole.

Although this move seems to be a pioneering work to the current people, in fact it has little impact on Ming society and people's livelihood at that time.

Even if the Ming Dynasty emperors in later generations followed the Yanhuang calendar, the era name would still be changed. After all, the emperor's supreme status required the use of era names to show his personality and majesty.

Zhu Gaoxu would ask Lang Guan, historians and others who were responsible for recording daily life notes to use the Yanhuang calendar to record the year, but he would not be so stupid as to cancel his "Qianxi reign name".Xie Jin and Fang Xiaoru made such straightforward statements because they were aware of this, otherwise they would have to discuss it with the officials of Qintian Prison first.

In fact, this kind of thing belongs to the emperor's "whim", which is both harmless and highly feasible.

The hardship was suffered by the historians of the Ming Dynasty. They presided over the revision of the historical annals and had to change the chronology of past dynasties. The project was huge.

After Xie Jin and Fang Xiaoru retired, Prince Zhu Zhanyu came to see him.

"Father, according to your instructions, I have written a detailed guide to the evolution and simplification of 'numeric symbols'."

Zhu Zhanyu presented a manuscript to Zhu Gaoxu.

Zhu Gaoxu opened the manuscript and read it carefully.

When "one" is established, it becomes the simplified digital symbol "1".

If you bend the two characters together, they will become the simplified number symbol "2".

If you bend the continuous stroke "three", it will become a simplified numerical symbol "3".

Remove the bottom horizontal line of "four" and then simplify it through six steps (Note 1) to improve it into the numerical symbol "4".

Remove the upper and lower horizontal lines of "five", and then simplify and improve it in four steps, which is the numerical symbol "5".

Remove the middle horizontal line of "six" and bend the strokes. After three steps of simplification, you will get the numerical symbol "6".

Turn "seven" upside down and remove the middle horizontal line. After two steps of improvement and simplification, it becomes the numerical symbol "7".

Adjust the angle of "eight", extend the two corners, turn the straight line into a curve, and form a circle. After three steps of improvement and simplification, you can get the numerical symbol "8".

Cut off the head and tail of "Nine", and then turn the remaining tail upside down. After three steps of improvement and simplification, the number symbol "9" is obtained.

Then make the symbol "O", which was originally used to represent zero, thinner, and get the digital symbol "0".

Zhu Gaoxu closed the manuscript and said with emotion: "In the past, our Chinese sages used abacus to calculate, and later we used abacus to calculate. In the future, we can use simple numbers!"

Calculation is a counting method, and the calculation symbols drawn in documents are like Arabic numerals in later generations and can be used to represent numbers.

According to the "Sun Zi Suan Jing", the rule of counting is: "In any calculation method, you must first know its position, one vertical and ten horizontal, hundreds standing and thousands standing, thousands and ten facing each other, and thousands and hundreds are equivalent."

"Xia Yanghou Suan Jing" says: "If there are more than six, five should be at the top. Six will not be accumulated, and five will not be counted alone."

The age of the abacus is unknown, but according to historical data, it is speculated that the abacus appeared in the late Spring and Autumn Period and the early Warring States period at the latest. It was an original creation of China before the invention of the abacus, and it is the most effective calculation tool.

As for the abacus, it is a computing technology that uses the abacus as a tool and is based on arithmetic and algorithm. It uses formulas to move the abacus with the fingers to perform mathematical operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and square root.

It began in the Han Dynasty and matured in the Song Dynasty.

Nowadays, the Ming Dynasty's economy is highly prosperous. Due to the needs of commercial development, abacus has been widely promoted, gradually replacing the previous common calculation.

Under this situation, Prince Consort Ouyang Lun, under the instruction of Zhu Gaoxu, compiled "Zhizhi Algorithm Tongzong", which played an important role in the promotion and development of abacus.

However, seeing more and more fields where numbers are used, Zhu Gaoxu rushed to come up with the so-called "simple number symbols".

Note 1: Although Zhu Zhanyu drew graphics on the manuscript to simplify each step of text improvement into numerical symbols, due to display problems in the reading software, it cannot be reflected here. There are easter eggs to see later for those who are interested. You can search for an article online called "Arabic Numerals: The glyphs of each character originate from China."

PS: Thank you to book friend 20211204145111961, brother Zichuan, among the people Lu Bu specializes in stabbing his adoptive father, Long Zhen, awesome and 66 and other veterans for their recommendation and monthly votes!grateful!

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