Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

Above Genyue, a large piece of land has been allocated to the Astronomical Academy, including pavilions and pavilions that have not yet been demolished.

The newly appointed dean, Ma Hui, is currently observing the stars with a group of astronomical officials, and there are two vice-deans beside him - Shen Wei and Li Yi.

Shen Wei is Shen Kuo's great-nephew.

His grandfather Shen Yu was of a very young generation and was always mistaken for Shen Kuo's brother, but he was actually Shen Kuo's nephew.

Shen Kuo lived a miserable life in his later years. Xu Xian's wife was violent and vicious, and even drove Shen Kuo's only son out of the house. Shen Kuo could not resist because he was imprisoned by the court and his second father-in-law was in a high position.

Therefore, Shen Kuo's lifelong knowledge, including his improved movable type printing, was inherited by his brothers and nephews.

Another vice president, Li Yi, is only twenty-eight years old this year. He used to be a Xiangjun who knew a few words. Along with several other Xiang soldiers, he was rewarded by Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty to be Zhu Guoxiang's personal attendant. He had already studied mathematics with Zhu Guoxiang for ten years.

Dean Ma Hui also has a background. His great-great-grandfather was Ma Yize (also translated as: Muiza, Muyiz) who compiled the "Yingtian Calendar".

Ma Yize is regarded as an ancestor by many Hui people in later generations, and was born in the Byzantine Empire.

This man came to China in his forties. Not only did he compile the calendar for the Song Dynasty, he also introduced the week system, revised the twelve constellations, and so on. Then he was conferred the title of Marquis by Zhao Kuangyin and took charge of Si Tianjian.

His eldest son was also in charge of Si Tianjian, his second son served as Si Tianjian's deputy, and his third son introduced astrology to the Song Dynasty army.

At present, the work of Ma Hui, Shen Wei and Li Yi is based on the heliocentric theory given by Zhu Guoxiang, and they have also built several astronomical observation instruments, and they also need to correct and update star catalogs and star maps.

The astronomy officials under them came from Si Tianjian, Astronomy Academy and Arithmetic School in the old Song Dynasty.

"Dean, there are many officials coming down the mountain!"

"Ask them to come up."

Ma Hui felt a headache, and he didn't want to be disturbed at this time.

From the time Zhu Guoxiang ascended the throne to the present, for fifteen months, he has been studying mathematics and physics, and studying the heliocentric universe model. Now that he had acquired new knowledge, he was about to start a big fight, but the emperor asked him to explain astronomy to the officials.

After another busy period, dozens of officials came over carrying lanterns.

Wei Shen saw the person in front of him clearly and said happily: "Huang Xianggong (Huang Shang) is also here, which can save a lot of saliva."

The Northern Song Dynasty conducted six large-scale observations of the starry sky and drew the observation results into star maps. The latest version of the star map is the "Astronomical Chart" compiled by Huang Shang.

With Huang Shang present, it is indeed more convincing.

Prime Minister Zhang Gen walked at the front. He bowed to the civil servants and asked directly: "How to determine whether the theory of Hun Tian is false?"

Ma Hui bowed in return, but looked at Huang Shang.

Huang Shang was the dean of the Academy of Astronomy last year. He smiled and said, "Does Mr. Zhang know that the five stars are retrograde?"

"Of course I know." Zhang Gen replied.

The five stars are the five planets, which represent the five virtues and the virtues of the past dynasties. This is the cause of this controversy in the court.

Planetary retrograde was a key point in astrology in ancient countries. Later generations often referred to "Mercury retrograde" as Mercury retrograde.

As early as the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the retrograde motion of five stars was regarded as a normal astronomical phenomenon. However, the popularity of the theory of telepathy between heaven and man, as well as Wang Mang's prophecies, set the stage for the development of astronomy.

In the Song Dynasty, Shen Kuo summarized an algorithm that could roughly calculate the trajectory of planets.

Huang Shang drew a heliocentric model on the ground, pointed to the two planets and said: "This is the earth, and this is Yinghuo (Mars). They both revolve around the sun. The earth is closer to the sun, and Yinghuo is further away from the sun. The earth When passing Yinghuo, if people observe it from the ground, they will find that Yinghuo is going backwards. In fact, Yinghuo has been moving forward, but the speed is slower than the earth, so it looks like it is going backwards."

Zhang Gen carefully observed the model on the ground and quickly asked: "According to this statement, Venus rotates faster around the sun, why does Venus also retrograde?"

This was really hard to express verbally, so Huang Shang took off his belt and asked the two astronomical officers to simulate the movements of the Earth and Venus. He connected the Earth and Venus with a belt and traced the trajectory with stones at certain points along the extended line.

There was no need to explain anything else. Huang Shang didn't say a word. Everyone just looked at the trace and understood.

Zhai Ruwen asked: "If the sun is the center, do you have a way to calculate the movement of the five stars?"

"There are two kinds." Ma Hui asked his subordinate to bring a stack of manuscript paper.

Zhai Ruwen opened it and took a look, but what caught his eye was the three laws of planetary motion.

This cannot be mastered in a short while. Zhai Ruwen took the manuscript to the room and understood it carefully by the light of the oil lamp.

Zhang Gen walked to the astronomical telescope, and Li Yi helped him adjust the lens and angle.

Zhang Gen took a closer look through the telescope and immediately couldn't look away.

"How about it?" Li Bangyan was just here to join in the fun.

Zhang Gen sighed, took two steps back and said, "You should take a look at yourself."

Li Bangyan observed it for a while with his butt raised, and then sighed: "There is no Guanghan Palace, and there is no Chang'e. Now that I have seen the true face of the moon, how should I write poems and lyrics in the future? But I don't want to write about the moon anymore."

Zhong Shidao also came over curiously, observed for a moment and quietly backed away.

One after another, officials came forward to check.

Today is just the first group, people line up according to grade, and there will be people there for the next half month.

Zhang Gen thought for a moment and asked: "In other words, the sun, moon, earth, and five stars are all floating in the void?"

Ma Hui nodded: "Of course."

Zhao Yu, the Minister of War, asked: "Why can it revolve around the sun and not escape in other directions?"

Ma Hui explained: "There is a saying in "Zhang Heng's Notes on the Armillary Sphere": 'The sky is like a chicken, and the celestial bodies are round like projectiles.' The first half of the sentence may be wrong, but the second half is true. Including the earth under our feet, it is also in the void. A pellet. Today’s Holy Emperor teaches: All celestial bodies have gravity and can attract each other. All things fall because of gravity. The sun has the greatest gravity, and the earth and five stars are attracted to rotate around it. "

Huang Shang tied the stone with the belt and grabbed the belt and threw it up: "My fist is the sun, the stone is the earth and the five stars, and the belt is the invisible gravity. The sun does not move, and everything else rotates around it. .”

Chen Dong also came tonight. He clenched his fists and observed for a while, then asked: "Isn't the earth a round ball? Even if the earth has gravity, the people on the other side of the ball will not fall into the sky, but are they living their lives hanging upside down?"

Shen Wei smiled and said: "If people on the other side of the world knew this, they would also have such questions."

Li Yi said: "The earth is big enough, even so big that we don't know it is a sphere. So people everywhere feel that they are stepping on the earth and having a blue sky above their heads."

Everyone was thoughtful and found it difficult to accept it for a while.

Qin Hui also clenched his fists and observed: "If we sail out to sea in Hangzhou and sail eastward, can we still return to Hangzhou?"

Ma Hui said seriously: "The officials said it's okay."

"Where's the moon?" Zhao Ding asked.

Shen Wei explained: "The moon is very small, and it revolves around the earth. Solar and lunar eclipses are also obtained in this way."

Shen Wei lay on the ground, and Li Yi went over to help. Together, they demonstrated the relationship between the sun, the moon, and the earth, and explained the causes of solar eclipses, lunar eclipses, and tides.

The officials looked at each other. They wanted to refute, but they didn't know how.

Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, both the Huntian theory and the Gaitian theory have been used.

The former can be simply understood as the geocentric theory (actually it is more complicated), while the latter is the theory that the sky is round and the earth is round.

Scholars with a little knowledge of astronomy believed more in the Huntian theory, and various astronomical instruments were also manufactured based on the Huntian theory.

Now it is really difficult to suddenly convince them that the sun is the center.

In the Song Dynasty, the official prohibition of private astronomy research, but there were many people who secretly studied astronomy. At least one-fifth of the dozens of officials in front of me have learned it, and the remaining four-fifths have some knowledge.

Huan Guo did not speak from beginning to end. After looking at the moon, he stepped aside and listened silently.

He was thinking that the sun and the moon represented yin and yang, but the sun was so big and the moon only revolved around the earth. What should we do about this theory of yin and yang?

If daytime is yang and night is yin, but day and night are caused by the rotation of the earth, this statement is also difficult to hold.

Huan Guo walked under a tree and stared at the sky in a daze.

I don’t know how long it took, but Huan Guo suddenly realized and knew how to explain.

Yin and Yang are metaphysical things, elusive and unpredictable.

The sun, moon, day and night are physical things, the embodiment of yin and yang, so they can be perceived.

The saying that the sky is still like a chicken's egg, but the sun is the yellow in the chicken's egg, and the earth is like the chicken's egg in the yellow, should be abandoned.

Huan Guo didn't care about other officials. He walked down the mountain quickly, took the car back home to write an article, and reconstructed Luo Xue's cosmology——

The universe was initially chaotic and void, that is, the Tai Chi state. Tai Chi derives the two qi of yin and yang. The two qi of yin and yang are elusive and can be embodied into all things in the universe, including celestial bodies in the void.

The embodied universe is like an egg, with the sun as the yolk in the middle. The earth and the five stars revolve around the sun. The other stars are in the outer layer, and the gods are also in the outer sky.

The Five Virtues Star Kings, who represent the five planets, do not live on the five stars, but the five stars contain the power of their five elements.

The sun is like a father, so it is powerful and distant, representing yang. The moon is like a mother, so it is weak and close, representing Yin.

Qiankun can also be explained in this way.

Since the sun is the center of the universe, it must be the residence of God Haotian.

The Son of Heaven is also the Son of the Sun.

No wonder the new dynasty was named Daming. Isn't "Daming" another name for the sun?

Huan Guo slapped his thigh fiercely, feeling that he understood the origin of the name of the Ming Dynasty.

There was no Sun Star Lord in the Song Dynasty, so Huan directly equated the sun with the God of Haotian.

But what to do with Hou Tu?

The sun and the moon are a pair, so should the sun and the earth be paired together?

Huan Guo began to scratch his head. This was not simply determining the position of God, but also constructing an ideology.

"No, the sky is the sky, the universe. The son of the universe is the sun and the emperor!" Huan Guo slapped his thigh again.

Huan Guo quickly wrote that the emperor is the incarnation of the sun and the son of the universe.

Anyway, the Taoist gods can be changed and replaced at will. The emperor can just issue an edict and canonize them.

During the Tang, Song, Ming and Qing dynasties, there were even gods of the twelve zodiac signs. They were serious Taoist gods, but they evolved from the twelve constellations of the West. Moreover, astrology was very popular in the Song Dynasty, which is similar to those who play with zodiac signs in modern times.

Han Yu, Su Shi, and Wen Tianxiang are all horoscope experts, and they belong to the unluckiest sign, Capricorn.

Until the late Qing Dynasty, people were still using zodiac signs to complain.

Zeng Guofan said: "Everyone's fate is very rough, and his face is pitiful and sad."

Li Hongzhang said: "When the Duke arrives, he will be able to show off the snow. When he is old, he will garrison the Scorpion Palace."

Even the twelve constellations can be absorbed by Taoism, so what does it mean to change them now?