As the most famous classic in the history of ancient Chinese mathematics, the significance of "Nine Chapters of Arithmetic" to the development of human mathematics is no less than the role of the three laws of physics in the development of science in later generations.

Such a book at this time, which enjoys the same status as classics such as "Lao Tzu" and "Poems", Zhang Cang can delete and supplement it inhumanely, so that it is more in line with the background of the times and can be better used in the people's livelihood and national economy...

At the beginning of the crossing, Liu Hong was indeed dissatisfied with the delay of the 'golden finger', but after learning his identity and the era he was in, Liu Hong didn't care much about the golden finger.

- What kind of golden finger can be more useful than Zhang Cang?

Mathematics, people have the ability to add or subtract "Nine Chapters of Arithmetic", and it is accepted by the vast majority of scholars; Etiquette, people are proficient in music and rhythm, and they are deeply afraid of the art of stargazing - whether it is the outline of etiquette, the attributes of the dynasty, or the compilation of the calendar, it is impossible to avoid exploring from the music and rhythm, and looking for the basis from the stars.

In terms of martial arts, although Zhang Cang can't talk about his outstanding military achievements, he also has meritorious achievements: as the acting prime minister, he participated in the suppression of the rebellion of Yan Wang Zang Di, and won the marquis!

dissertation, Zhang Cang studied under Xunzi, and Han Feizi and Li Si were classmates; During the period of Qin Ren's imperial history, he can be described as well-read, with a superhuman memory and top literacy!

In terms of qualifications, it is an exaggeration, Zhang Cang can even say that he 'was in the Qin Palace and his heart was in Han as early as the time of Qin Shi Huang'!

After solving the political enemies of Chen Ping and his party, almost everything Liu Hong wants to do for a long time can be completed with half the effort with the help of Zhang Cang.

At that time, the founding fathers will basically die, and Zhang Cang's qualifications and the identity of 'Xunzi's disciple' can almost be regarded as a double leader of the civil and military affairs!

With such a person in front of him, Liu Hong really can't think of any other golden finger that can be more relaxed and enjoyable than this.

Of course, no matter how good the cheat is, it also needs the host to have enough strength to unlock more powerful functions; Liu Hongneng's 'strength' is undoubtedly the knowledge and knowledge of later generations.

Thinking so, Liu Hong took out a roll of bamboo slips from the side of the case, handed it to Wang Zhong, and motioned to hand it over to Zhang Cang.

"This thing was obtained in my spare time, and I would like to ask the Imperial Doctor to take a look at it and explain whether it is feasible?"

Hearing this, Zhang Cang's face suddenly straightened, and he watched Wang Zhong walk step by step without squinting, and presented the slightly weird bamboo slip in front of him.

Ordinary bamboo slips are generally one foot five inches wide, no more than two feet at most, and the length varies from four to six feet depending on the specific situation.

But the bamboo slip that Liu Hong took out was an astonishing three feet wide, nearly an arm's length!

Respectfully took it, spread the bamboo slip on his thigh, and Zhang Cang carefully examined the book on it.

"Day, thing, take, remainder?"

Suspiciously reading the words written on the first bamboo stick, Zhang Cang raised his head slightly in confusion, and then pulled his hesitant gaze back to the bamboo slip.

The three-foot-long bamboo strips, from top to bottom, are only these four words, arranged at strange intervals.

The word 'day' is at the top of the bamboo strip, only four inches apart from the second word 'thing', but the word 'thing' and the word 'take' are separated by nearly two feet, and the gap almost occupies most of the bamboo strips!

Between the word 'take' and the word 'yu', as well as the word 'yu' to the end gradually, there is a spacing of about three inches.

In Zhang Cang's view, this bamboo strip is written with the words "day" and "matter" at the upper end, and the words "take" and "remainder" are written almost symmetrically at the lower end, and nearly two-thirds of the middle part is completely blank.

Full of doubts, he cast his eyes on the second bamboo strip, and Zhang Cang's face was even more puzzled - in the past 70 years, Zhang Cang has never seen such an 'obscure' text.

——In the spring of February, Ding You still eats chicken seeds, one hundred and fifty-four hundred and fifty-nine thousand five hundred and fifty

-- In the spring and February, Xin Chou still eats fifty fish, one thousand five hundred and eight thousand fifty

——Spring February Bingwu···

It should be mentioned that there is no punctuation in the books at this time, and there will be no gaps between sentences; A 500-word policy will be a 500-word sentence in the future!

This is also the reason why it is difficult to increase the number of readers at this time - Chinese culture, broad and profound...

Even if someone has a lost peerless classic in their hands, as long as they are not taught by a famous teacher, it is almost impossible to understand the book - breaking sentences is the first obstacle that this person encounters in reading!

To give a very simple example, if a certain book says: A sixty-year-old son gives birth to a son, and if it is not my son, the family property and the countryside are paid, and the son-in-law and outsiders must not argue.

How exactly should this sentence be broken?

Who does this 60-year-old man want to leave his family property to?

——A sixty-year-old son gives birth to a son, and people say "it's not my son", and the family property and countryside are paid to the son-in-law, and outsiders are not allowed to argue.

In this way, Lao Er's son is not biological, and he wants to leave the family property to his son-in-law; The outsiders in 'Outsiders Shall Not Dispute' include this non-biological 'son'.

What if it was a different way of breaking the sentence?

——A sixty-year-old son gave birth to a son, and people say "no", it is my son. The family property and countryside are paid, and the son-in-law and outsiders are not allowed to dispute.

In this way, the meaning of the sentence is completely different: others say that the son is right and wrong, but after all, it is the old son's own child, and the family property is left to the son, and the son-in-law and outsiders are not allowed to fight.

There are two diametrically opposed ways to break sentences.

If this sentence is a case recorded in a certain book, how should the reader break the sentence and how should he understand it?

The answer is: opinion!

Even if it is a giant who reads poetry and books, it is a family of broken syntax; For the same scripture, it is even more different opinions, which leads to the same doctrine to give rise to countless sects.

There was a joke in later generations that a middle school student had a little literary talent, and his article was published in a local newspaper, and later cited by a certain test paper for reading comprehension.

In one test, the test paper happened to be used by the middle school student's school and sent to the middle school student.

In the end, as the author of the article, the middle school student only scored 13 out of 35 points for reading comprehension.

When the middle school student found the teacher suspiciously and questioned it, the teacher replied: You answered incorrectly, and the author wrote this article to express the central idea of xxxx.

The middle school student argued: Teacher, the author really doesn't want to express this meaning...

Then the teacher's face sank: Are you teaching me to do things?

Are you a teacher or am I a teacher?

The timeline in which Liu Hong is located, the broken sentences of the classics, are also like the reading comprehension of middle school students in later generations: the teacher said that what the author wanted to express, that is; As for what exactly the author wants to express, no one cares at all!

This led to the account book that Liu Hong saw, putting aside the nature of its running account, just breaking the sentence made Liu Hong pick the back of his head!

For Zhang Cang, the strange 'gap' on this bamboo slip is just like Liu Hong seeing the previous ledger - awkward!

This is not the key - what makes Zhang Cang most uncomfortable is what is written on this bamboo slip, which is obviously all words that Zhang Cang knows, but when they are connected, Zhang Cang can't understand them!

Looking at the bamboo slips, each bamboo strip was like a copy, writing a date, a certain thing, an irregular number, and a smaller and smaller number in order, Zhang Cang faintly felt that there was something that he had neglected, but he couldn't figure out where.

Because of the etiquette, Zhang Cang couldn't ask directly, so he had to be patient and roughly sweep from right to left; Until Zhang Cang's discovery of the law from the bamboo slips was suddenly broken...

At the bottom of the bamboo strip, the lower and lower number suddenly increased sharply above a certain bamboo strip, from 'two hundred and seventy' in the previous one, to 'fifteen thousand two hundred and seventy'!

Zhang Cang's eyes suddenly lit up, and he moved his gaze upward, and saw that the bamboo strip was written: In the spring and February, Gengxu Shaofu allocated money to the treasury of the real government (1) 55,270!

Seeing this, Zhang Cang hurriedly cast his eyes on the last bamboo strip of bamboo slips, and finally found a line of words that he could understand: The account book of the five Shang in the province...

In an instant, Zhang Cang felt that the layer of tulle in front of him was pierced, and his eyes suddenly opened up!

After looking back at the entire bamboo slip and finding that the sum of the two numbers written at the bottom of each bamboo strip is the number at the bottom of the previous bamboo strip, Zhang Cang finally understood what the words on this bamboo slip meant!

The four characters written on the rightmost bamboo strip correspond to the date, event, amount of money withdrawn, and the amount of money remaining in the treasury on each bamboo strip after that!

That is to say, this roll of bamboo slips cannot be read vertically like ordinary books, but the whole bamboo slips should be regarded as a whole and looked horizontally!

In this way, this scroll of bamboo slips is much easier to understand: on a certain day in a certain month, a certain department took how much money from the treasury and how much money was left in the treasury.

Compared with the rest of the ledgers that Zhang Cang has seen, such horizontal alignment and concise bills are undoubtedly easier to see the status of the accounts - every income or expenditure can be found from the ledger; If the account is incorrect, you can also find out the problem directly from the horizontal bar corresponding to the 'thing' on the account book.

The most important thing is that after every income or expenditure, the column corresponding to the word 'Yu' clearly indicates how much money is left in the treasury after this incident!

This has never been seen in other account books that Zhang Cang has seen!

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Ps: The concept of 'negative numbers' has been put forward in the "Nine Chapters of Arithmetic", in the eighth chapter of the nine chapters of arithmetic: "Equations", there is a system of equations problem, the method of separating coefficients is used to represent the system of linear equations, which is equivalent to the current matrix, and the direct division method used in solving the system of linear equations is consistent with the elementary transformation of the matrix, which is the world's earliest complete solution of a system of linear equations.

In the West, it was not until the 17th century that Leibniz proposed the law of solving complete linear equations.

It is also in this chapter that introduces and uses negative numbers, and proposes the positive and negative arithmetic - the law of addition and subtraction of positive and negative numbers, which is exactly the same as in modern algebra; When solving a system of linear equations, the multiplication and division of positive and negative numbers is actually performed. This is a major achievement in the history of world mathematics, breaking through the range of positive numbers and expanding the number system for the first time.

Abroad, it was not until the Brahma and Duo in India in the 7th century that negative numbers were recognized.

The time node in the book, that is, the "Nine Chapters of Arithmetic", is recognized as the birth time of the second century B.C., that is, the foundation of mathematics, the "algorithm of linear equations", appeared in China more than 1,800 years earlier than in the West, and the concept of "negative numbers" was also proposed at least 800 years earlier than in India.