Since the Yellow Emperor unified the various tribes in China, he appointed people on the basis of merit and knew people well. He also promoted and trained a large number of people with special abilities and arranged them to different positions.

At that time, the Yellow Emperor was busy with affairs all day long, and there were too many things to manage in the whole country, and the Yellow Emperor couldn't manage so many affairs. Therefore, the Yellow Emperor divided the labor according to the talents of the ministers, and let them specialize in the management of different types of work in various fields.

In the earliest days, Cangjie was dedicated to managing the livestock, grains, food, utensils and other affairs brought in by various tribes. After Cangjie invented writing, the Yellow Emperor made him a royal literary and historical official who specialized in recording many events in the court.

As for the affairs managed by Cangjie before, including the registration and calculation of many affairs inside and outside the court, and the management of large and small accounts, the Yellow Emperor sent another minister around him to be responsible.

After he became a historian, he began to deal with arithmetic. At that time, people still used knotted rope counting and the number counting invented by Fuxi to calculate.

After a long period of practice, the head of the subordinate believes that small numbers can be calculated by numbers, and it is not convenient to calculate when the number is large. So, he tried to count with small wooden sticks, small stones, fresh fruit pits, small mussel shells, and so on. After a long time, there are often mistakes, which makes the head very annoyed.

Once, there was a group of hunters hunting in groups, and they returned seven goats. And when they counted, the head heard that it was a goat, and he immediately tied a knot in the straw rope.

The next day, the hunters handed over six more fox skins, and this time the head misheard, and he actually remembered nine fox skins. When he went to the warehouse to get something, he saw that there were only six fox skins, so he went to confront the hunters.

As soon as the hunter flipped through the straw rope of the account, he found that the head of the subordinate remembered that he had misremembered yesterday's prey. They thought that the head of the subordination had secretly swallowed the prey, so they were also very dissatisfied with the head of the subordinate.

A few hunters went to the Yellow Emperor to comment, and the Yellow Emperor hurriedly came to confirm the object. This inspection found that the hunters were not wrong about the seven goats and six fox skins, and the Yellow Emperor criticized the head for not doing things seriously.

Angry that the head of the subordinate wanted to pick a son and quit, the Yellow Emperor was afraid that he had wronged the head of the subordinate, and hurried back to understand the situation, only then did he know that the head of the subordinate had too many affairs, and he was too busy for a while, and it was understandable to hear the wrong memory. So, the Yellow Emperor had no choice but to give him another chance to correct himself.

And Li Shoujian has too many things to handle every day, and the number of physical objects in and out every day is becoming more and more chaotic. If the knot is wrong, it will cause people to misunderstand, and those things that are not originally made false claims often make the Yellow Emperor very annoyed.

The head of the subordinate thought: What can I do about this? If I want to do a good job, I have to find a way to improve the current situation and find an easier way to count the work.

This kind of distress has plagued the head of the subordinate for a long time. Because people at that time, although they also understood the law of carrying the number of eleven to ten, ten to hundred, ten hundred to thousand, and ten thousand to ten thousand. However, they only knew how to do arithmetic verbally, and there were no special symbols to indicate the size of these numbers, so they had to find a way to create such symbols first.

One day, Cangjie was about to officially take up the post of cultural and historical official, and he came to make the final handover of the previous accounts and subordinates. Lishou seized the opportunity to ask Cangjie for advice, and he planned to ask Cangjie to help him represent the numbers from one to ten thousand with special symbols for ease of use.

Li Shou said respectfully: "Cangjie, I want to ask you a question, can you help me make a few numbers?" Just like the words you make, you can see a few and a few at a glance. ”

Cangjie said: "Why not! Since you're a historian in charge of counting, I think we'd better study it together. Come! Let's start with the numbers from one to ten. ”

"Cangjie, just listen to you, what do you say we are going to do?"

When the head of the subordinate was questioning, Cangjie had already made up his mind about the small wooden stick that the head was holding in his hand.

Cangjie said, "Lishou, why don't we take these small wooden sticks in your hands and study them first." ”

Lishou picked up a small stick and put it vertically in front of Cangjie. He pointed to the stick on the ground and said, "How can this little stick represent numbers?" ”

"Lishou, you don't understand, doesn't this little stick you hold represent 'one'? You see, we draw a path vertically on the ground, and let's call it 'one'. ”

"What about 'two'?"

"Two are 'two'."

"What about 'three'? Oh, I see, three of a kind is a 'three'. ”

"Chief, count yourself smart!" Cangjie smiled.

"Cangjie, what about 'four'?" Is the 'four' also a four? Is this still called research? A few direct means a few, and a hundred is a hundred. No, such a number is still the same as not being made! ”

The head of the subordinate said, laughing at himself, and he threw a whole stick on the ground.

The subordinate sneered a little unnaturally: "One hundred! One hundred, Cangjie, we don't have to count it, it's called 'one hundred'. ”

"Look at you, the chief, what kind of temper do you have when you ask for help. Do your own thing, and you have to come up with more ideas. ”

Cangjie straightened his voice and shouted, his words a little rushed.

The subordinate smiled embarrassedly at Cangjie, and he picked up two small sticks and gestured on the ground. After fiddling with it for a long time, the head of the subordinate didn't make a look. He threw the stick on the ground again, and hey! The two sticks naturally crossed over.

When the head of the subordinate saw that the wooden stick looked like a word, he shouted: "Cangjie, look! It's not like a 'four'."

"Chief, you say it's like. From now on, the word will be pronounced 'four'."

"What about 'five'?" How do you write 'five'? Five-five-five-five! ”

The head of the subordinate couldn't think of how to write the word "five", so he drew indiscriminately on the ground. Drawing and drawing, he muttered "Gourd!" Bottle gourd! Five! He muttered as he drew a gourd-like pattern.

"Cangjie, this is 'five', the gourd's gourd, not the 'five' of four or five."

"Subordinate to the head, a number is a symbol, any shape can be done, as long as it is easy to remember."

"What about 'Six'? How do you write six? ”

"Lishou, I will write it horizontally when I see 'six'. You turn the little stick sideways and draw a little bit on it, and that's a 'six'. ”

"That's good! Cangjie, I think 'seven' and 'eight' are both written like this. Add two dots to the top of the seven, and add three dots to the top of the eight. And what about 'nine'? How do you write nine? ”

"What's this 'nine'? Nine means more, and we have to change the look. I think we'll use half of the more for 'nine', right? ”

"That's okay, that's okay, 'nine', nine write that."

"What about 'ten'? How do you write ten? ”

"Lishou, in my opinion, this cross and the four characters are almost the same pronunciation. Let's straighten the word 'four' and make it horizontal and vertical, with the two phases crossed. ”

Ten numbers were finally made, and they were all at once excited. The head happily wrote the ten numbers he had just made on the ground. The ten numbers are written like this: 〡, 〢, 〣, 〤, 〥, 〦, 〧, 〨, 〩, ten.

Cangjie looked at that line of numbers, and he couldn't keep his mouth shut, he wanted to take the test first.

Cangjie thought for a while and asked him, "Lishou, I have forty-five mountain fruits here, you can use numbers to express them now." ”

The head hurriedly wrote on the ground "〤〥 mountain fruit".

"I have twenty-nine more?"

The head of the subordinate wrote: "〢〩 mountain fruit".

"Seventeen hares were handed in today."

"Ten hares."

"Today, a tribe sent thirty-eight scoops of millet."

"〣〨〨瓢級子"

"Subordinate head, that's it, in the future, you can use these numbers to keep accounts."

"Cangjie, I really admire you so much! Thank you for your help! You deserve to be an expert at making words. In the future, with these figures, it will be much more convenient for all of us to keep accounts. ”

With numbers, it is much more convenient to keep accounts. However, the numbers on these accounts accumulate more and more over time, and they must go through complex calculations to calculate the comprehensive accounts, which makes the head of the subordinate very headache.

Lishou wanted to go to Cangjie again to help, but Cangjie went far away. There is no way, the head of the subordinate will study the countermeasures on his own.

Once, the head of the subordinate hid in the mountains and meditated on how to calculate the number. It happened that the two ministers of the wind queen and the two ministers of Limu hit this. Li Mu and the others were going up the mountain to cut wood to make a guide car this time, and they were a little puzzled when they saw that the head of the subordinate was holding a few strings of chestnuts threaded with small wooden sticks in a daze.

Li Mu was very curious and asked: "Litou, you are so busy with work, why do you have time to hide here and play?" What are you going to do with these chestnuts? ”

Li Shou scratched his scalp: "Li Mu, I'm thinking, when the number of accounts is very small, it is easy to calculate a few knots and count a bunch of small stones." If the number is tens of thousands, you have to get a lot of stones to count, which is really troublesome. No, I want to use these little sticks and a few small chestnuts in my hand to study it. Let's see if we can use them to find a faster calculation method. ”

Li Mu admired the idea of the head of the subordinate, and he looked around these bunches of chestnuts for a long time, with a rare smile on his face. So he asked his head to fold ten small sticks that were thinner and longer. Then, ten chestnuts are threaded on each stick and arranged in a row on the ground.

Li Mu saw that Lishou was thinking intently there, so he asked Lishou if he understood. Lishou stared at the ten bunches of chestnuts for a long time, and he thought about it for a long time before he suddenly realized.

Lishou stretched out his thumb and praised: "Limu, you are so smart, you are my teacher in this regard." I understand, it turns out that you want me to use the way of borrowing the position to be motivated, and replace the top number of chestnuts with the number of ten chestnuts. In this way, no matter how large the number is, it can be solved with these few small sticks and chestnuts. ”

When Li Mu saw that the head of the subordinate was clear, he nodded approvingly.

Later, in the process of actual operation, the head of the subordinate saw that the small wooden stick and the chestnut were not easy to fix, and they often rolled, so he considered a way to solve this problem. Li first found a few small pieces of wood to tie around the wooden skewers, and reinforced the four sides of the wooden skewers.

As soon as the head was done, a rectangular wooden frame and ten strings of wooden sticks were quickly secured. And the chestnut in the middle can also slide, which is really good to look at, and it is also very easy to play.

Because it is a number-counting object, and it looks like a generous plate, the head of the department gave this little thing an apt name, called "abacus".

When the Yellow Emperor heard that Lishou had invented an abacus for calculation, and that he used this abacus to count and calculate very quickly, he personally came to appreciate and verify it. The head of the subordinate is naturally full of confidence and is very confident to let the Yellow Emperor solve the problem.

The Yellow Emperor said without thinking: "Subordinate head, you listen well." Someone hunted seven rabbits the day before yesterday and handed them all over to the treasury, and yesterday he handed over eight rabbits, and today he still handed over eight rabbits. ”

I saw that the head of the subordinate put the abacus on the stone table, and he let all the abacus slide to the bottom, and then lay it flat again. He holds the frame of the abacus in place with one hand, and places the other finger on the abacus to prepare for the calculation.

I saw that Li first dialed seven chestnuts up on the single digit, and then three chestnuts up, so that all ten chestnuts reached the upper part. He dialed the ten chestnuts back to the bottom and one chestnut up in the ten position. And continue to add enough chestnuts in the single digit to make five chestnuts in the upper part of the single digit.

Continuing to add eight more chestnuts, two chestnuts went into the top ten digits, and three chestnuts went in the upper single digits. In this way, seven plus eight plus eight is exactly equal to twenty-three, which is exactly the same. After the calculation, the head of the subordinate wrote the number on the ground again.

The Yellow Emperor was overjoyed when he saw it, and he came up with a lot of arithmetic problems in a row, including tens of millions of numbers, and he did not stump the head at all.

The Yellow Emperor was really satisfied with it, so he continued to assign tasks to his subordinates. With the help of the abacus, the calculation was much easier, and the subordinate accepted the task very happily.

Later, in the process of using the abacus, he finally improved the abacus after a long period of research. The improved abacus is more beautiful and practical.

This kind of abacus has become a new appearance with a wooden frame around it, a beam in the middle, five beads on the bottom, a plant on the top, and a plant on the top can top five beads. Such an abacus is more convenient, faster and more efficient to use.

Later, in order to measure the mass of different objects, the head of the subordinate invented a scale that was more convenient for calculating the mass of objects. This type of weighing scale is widely used to measure the weight, length, quantity, size and so on of an object.

With the development of society and the increasing demand of people, weights and measures and abacus are widely used in people's daily life. The contribution of the head of the Chinese nation to counting, arithmetic, abacus, and measurement has made him more and more famous in the arithmetic world.

Whenever the name of Lishou is mentioned, people will think of the arithmetic he invented, because Lishou is our "first person in Chinese arithmetic".