Harem: Biography of Concubine Qin

Chapter 135 Chicken and Rabbit in the same cage
After leaving the Compassionate Ning Palace, she ordered Bai Lu to send a letter to her home quickly.

She wants Chen/Xihai to send someone to Mongolia to find out what this Yu promised.

She always felt that Yu promised to be selected into the palace, and there was an unknown secret in it.

However, I'm afraid this matter is not easy to investigate.

If it could be found out at will, the emperor would have found out a long time ago, right?

It's still necessary to ask the small table to order someone to monitor this jade promise to prevent any troubles from happening to her.

She is very smart, she speaks half truths and half lies in front of herself and the empress dowager, without revealing any conclusive evidence for people to catch.

In the palace, she does not make good concubines, nor is she hostile to any one, but relies on the empress dowager to protect herself.

It seems to be self-protection, but I don't know that I am not watching and waiting for an opportunity.

For people like Concubine Tong, their purpose is obvious, which is not scary.

Yu agrees to this kind of person, you don't understand her purpose and means, but it is scary.

It's as if she still doesn't know whether the spike anklet she picked up in Qianqing Palace during the Spring Festival was actually promised by Yu.

"master."

The little table seemed to have been waiting outside the Compassionate Ning Palace for a long time, seeing Chen Wenxin coming out, he rushed forward and said: "The emperor invites you to go to the Qianqing Palace."

She was too lazy to go back to Yikun Palace, so she just went directly.

She entered the Qianqing Palace from the back hall, and heard the voice of the emperor resounding in the front east.

"Have you figured it out? How many chickens and rabbits are there?"

What chickens and rabbits, what is the emperor doing?
Li Dequan came out to greet him, and said hurriedly, "Your Majesty, you are here."

"What is the emperor doing?"

"The emperor suddenly summoned all the elder brothers and asked them to do arithmetic problems. If the elder brothers can't do well, the emperor will not be happy."

Every time the emperor is unhappy, he will come to him. This Li Dequan, what do you think of her?
Fire extinguisher?

"But all the elder brothers are here, so it's not good for me to go in, isn't it?"

Li Dequan hurriedly bowed and said: "The emperor has ordered, and the empress will be called in when she comes."

Then she'll go in and have a look, what kind of chickens and rabbits are they?

When I entered the East Room, I didn't see any chickens or rabbits. Instead, I saw the four elder brothers from the eldest elder brother to the fourth elder brother standing there with their heads hanging down like a defeated rooster.

The emperor saw her, put down a few pieces of paper in his hand, and beckoned to her, "Come and see."

She walked up to the emperor, and first saluted the emperor: "My concubine, I wish the emperor peace."

In front of her brothers, she still has to be full of etiquette.

After she had saluted, the four elder brothers saluted her together, "I send my respects to Mother Qin'er."

All elder brothers are called Qin Erniang, only the fourth elder brother has known her for a long time, and the name is Chen Erniang.

Chen Wenxin smiled and returned half a salute to all elder brothers.

"Why do you have to be so polite, they are children, what are you doing in return?"

If the elder brothers grow up and are treated like princes, the concubines should return the courtesy to the elder brothers.

Now that they are still young, Chen Wenxin is a concubine and has been favored, so it is true that they do not have to return the courtesy.

She smiled and said: "As the saying goes, it is not surprising that many people are polite. When the ministers see that the elder brothers are humble and polite, they forget it for a while."

She doesn't have to return the salute, but obviously she returned the salute, and the elder brothers looked at her more kindly.

They originally thought that Qin'er Niang was deeply favored by Huang Ama, and would domineeringly in front of them.

I didn't expect that she not only didn't take big money, but was also so humble and polite.

The emperor smiled and handed her a book on the case, she took it and read it.

"I don't know how many chickens and rabbits are in the same cage. There are 36 heads exposed in the cage. There are fifty pairs of feet. How many chickens and rabbits are there?"

My God, isn't this the most classic problem of the chicken and the rabbit in the same cage in the Mathematical Olympiad for modern primary school students?

Chen Wenxin didn't know whether to laugh or cry, "Is the emperor doing this question for my brothers just now?"

"Exactly. The second elder brother and the fourth elder brother counted on their fingers for half a day, but the third elder brother doesn't even know how many feet a chicken has."

He looked at the eldest elder brother who was the tallest among the four people below, "The eldest elder brother figured it out, and it took a stick of incense."

The eldest brother is already 11 years old, and he is about to graduate from primary school.

"Only Big Brother can figure it out, Big Brother is really amazing."

Chen Wenxin looked at the big brother with a smile, the big brother blushed a little, and lowered his head in embarrassment.

She persuaded the emperor again: "The other three elder brothers are still young, especially the third elder brother and the fourth elder brother. They haven't studied seriously yet, how do they know this?"

"I'm impatient. How can I tolerate those Westerners who dare to look down on the mathematics of the Qing Dynasty?"

The emperor was also on the spur of the moment today, he was furious when he heard that Westerners dared to say that mathematics in the Qing Dynasty had declined.

Grab a few elder brothers and take a look, this is math...

Really bad.

The emperor always looked at the Qing Dynasty with the eyes of a heavenly kingdom, and felt that the Qing Dynasty was stronger than Western countries.

How can he allow them to say that there is something about the Qing Dynasty that is not as good as the West?
She thought, should I take this opportunity and simply tell the emperor that the sea ban should be lifted and more communication with countries around the world should be done?
Forget it, he is getting annoyed now, and in front of all the older brothers, he said what he didn't like to hear.

Chen Wenxin thought about it and said: "Your Majesty, do you want to drag out a few young brothers to compare themselves with foreigners?"

The emperor snorted coldly and said, "Isn't it giving them too much face by letting the princes and ministers come forward?"

He didn't want those well-educated bachelors to come forward, he was afraid that people would say they were bullying the weak, so he planned to let his little elder brothers compete with foreigners.

Little brother, it is too small.

She closed the book and put it in front of the emperor, "A concubine or even a harem woman can figure it out, so it doesn't count as falling into the prestige of the Qing Dynasty?"

The emperor raised his eyebrows, "Why have I never heard that you have studied arithmetic?"

A woman's lack of talent is a virtue. Manchu women do not have a tradition of reading and learning. Among Han women who can read and write, they are considered talented.

Most women study poetry, and Chen Wenxin was born in a family of officials, so how could he learn arithmetic?

She said with a smile: "That time in Tsinghua Garden, the concubine calculated a wrong account for Eunuch Li, the emperor forgot?"

That was the only time, she didn't need arithmetic at all in the harem, so naturally she couldn't show her talents.

The emperor suddenly remembered that there was indeed such a thing.

It was when the Yikun Palace was still under renovation, Concubine Tong's phoenix seal was confiscated, and all the palace building documents were sent to Tsinghua Garden.

He was overjoyed, "Okay, okay. Then tell a few elder brothers how this question is calculated?"

As Li Dequan said, he wanted to serve him with a pen and paper, but Chen Wenxin waved his hand at him, "I don't need a pen and paper, this question is very simple, and I can explain it clearly in a few words."

"Are you sure you can make it clear just by talking?"

The emperor himself calculated on the manuscript paper for a while before he could come up with the answer.

She said: "The emperor will know as soon as he hears it."

"First of all, if the cages are full of chickens, and each chicken has one pair of legs, then there are 36 chickens with fifty pairs of legs, which is [-] more pairs of legs."

"A rabbit has two pairs of legs, so put the fourteen extra pairs of legs on fourteen chickens, and these fourteen chickens will become rabbits."

"So, there are fourteen rabbits, fourteen are removed from 36, and there are twenty-two chickens."

The emperor took a look at the manuscript paper he had calculated, and found that there were indeed 22 chickens and [-] rabbits.

It's just that what she said just now was too absurd.

Put a pair of feet on the chicken and it becomes a rabbit?

He couldn't laugh or cry, "It sounds a bit weird at first, but it's interesting when you think about it."

In arithmetic, it doesn't matter if it is a chicken with an extra pair of legs, or a rabbit with two pairs of legs.

As long as it has four legs, that is the essence of this question.

She brought the emperor's calculation paper, which was similar to a quadratic equation.

It is naturally much more complicated to convert binary into unary first, and then perform calculations.

"The emperor's calculation is very good, and it makes sense. What the concubine said is indeed too wild."

It was rare for her to face such a simple arithmetic problem, and she didn't want to use complicated methods to solve it.

The emperor said: "As long as the calculation is correct in the fastest time, it is a good algorithm."

He said to all elder brothers: "What Qin'er Niang just said, did you understand?"

"Understood!"

All elder brothers spoke in unison.

What Qin Erniang said is much simpler than what Huang Ama said, and she can calculate faster than Huang Ama.

emperor:"……"

He explained it to them just now, why wasn't it so clear?

He brought the book and posed another question to the elder brothers.

"When a group of children gather together to share fruits, if one person has six fruits, then there will be six more fruits, and if one person has seven fruits, there will be seven fewer. So how many people are there in total, and how many fruits?"

This question is even more difficult for the elder brothers. I don’t know how many people, and I don’t know how many results, and I have to figure out both.

At first glance, this question is more complicated than the previous question, but it is actually the same as the chicken and rabbit cage question just now.

Chen Wenxin and the emperor started to calculate at the same time, writing almost at the same time.

The two put the manuscript papers in their hands together and compared them, and the answers were exactly the same.

Not only the answers are the same, but the calculation process can also show that their methods are the same.

The elder brothers at the bottom were still scratching their heads, only the second elder brother shouted: "Huang Ama, I know!"

The elder brother stopped while he was still calculating, his face was a little dignified.

It was obvious that he was the only one who calculated it just now. How could the second brother be so fast this time?

Among the younger brothers, the second younger brother Yinfeng is the one he fears the most.

He is the son of the former empress and the only legitimate son of Huang Ama.

Even his adoptive mother is currently the highest in the harem, Tong Guifei.

In terms of background, he is no better than Yinfeng.

So he has been studying hard all the time, and every time he gets praise from his husband in the elder brother's office, he can regain his dignity as an elder brother.

This time, why did the second brother surpass him this time?

"Oh? You talk about it."

The emperor was also very surprised, could it be that the second elder brother is so good at understanding, he just said a question and he grasped the key?

The second elder brother smiled proudly, "There are 84 dolls and [-] fruits."

"Okay, okay!"

The emperor's eyes burst into brilliance, but soon darkened again.

Because he saw that the manuscript paper in front of the second elder brother was empty, and he didn't write anything at all.

He looked at Li Dequan, and Li Dequan's eyes pointed to the answer written by him and Chen Wenxin on the desk.

It turned out that the second elder brother didn't calculate it by himself at all, but peeked at their answers.

No wonder he can count so fast.

The emperor and Chen Wenxin were talking, so naturally they didn't notice the second elder brother's movements, but Li Dequan saw it for real.

(End of this chapter)