After the official examination that day, Xuanfu Town soon fell into a boil, especially after the "two generals artillery question", also known as the "Wang's arithmetic problem", Xuanfu Town entered the wave of national problem solving. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

According to the fact that thousands of scholars in the exam, not to mention that some people could answer them, they couldn't even put forward ideas, and some people vomited blood in the exam, which caused many people to worry.

Fortunately, he was fine, and everyone was relieved.

If it is difficult, it will have the ability to fight, and who is not tempted to become the great master of the founding sect? Not to mention the primary, middle school, and university students in Xuanzhen, and even the officials, people, gentry, common people, and soldiers in the town, they all calculate on paper in their spare time, and all kinds of arithmetic books are selling hot in Xuanfu Town.

Even Li Banghua focused on Zhu Zhifeng, Ma Guoxi, Wu Zhi and others to discuss this topic.

Zhao Xuan is also famous now.

In fact, Zhong Xiancai is as famous as him, but Zhong Xiancai is now in Naturalized City, and he is not in the center of public opinion in the storm. Zhao Xuan is in Zhencheng, and many officials and generals will joke when they see him: "Brother Zhao...... As soon as I bombarded it, Eryun piled up all over it. ”

Zhao Xuan didn't care about everyone's jokes, his heart was intoxicated by the arithmetic problem designed by Wang Dou. He keenly felt that the general had a lot of good intentions on this problem, and he had a keenly premonition that this arithmetic problem was the key to strengthening his artillery battalion.

As the commander of the artillery battalion, Zhao Xuan also has a little study of arithmetic, and there are many soldiers and scribes under his command who are proficient in rough mathematics.

He gathered his elite soldiers and strong generals to study this "Wang's arithmetic problem" for days. Just looked at the dense font equations on the blackboard, and counted a few blackboards with chalk, and the quaternions on them were listed one after another, but they couldn't even touch the door to solve the problem.

Zhao Xuan had a splitting headache, and he was quick to cut through the mess, he keenly felt that he had to find out a key point first, but where was the key point?

Looking at the math problem blankly, he also felt like he was vomiting blood.

Soon, all the questions of this clerk's exam were on this issue of Xuanzhen Times. The "two-general artillery question" is impressively listed. In the middle of the test, the sergeant vomited blood, and the storm caused by it swept away like a hurricane outside the town.

Everywhere the newspapers went, it seemed to be boiling everywhere. When it was passed to the Kyoshi. The same city-wide commotion. The teahouses and restaurants are hotly discussed, and the illiterate Xiaomin will also mention a couple of sentences: "Do you know, the examiners of Xuanfu Town are doing arithmetic." A scholar can vomit blood......"

"Really, what's so hard?"

"I heard that the Marquis of Yongning personally set the problem, and now it is called Wang's arithmetic problem......"

Countless people have become interested in the exam questions in Xuanfu Town, and many people feel for the first time that arithmetic is also so interesting.

The official exam of Xuanfu Town, of course, attracted the attention of the hundreds of officials in Beijing, they all looked at the newspaper, one by one analysis questions, but the previous Mandarin exam questions were ignored by them, according to the questions from Xuanfu Town, how many questions can they answer correctly?

Could it be that he has studied hard for decades, and he is not even qualified to be a clerk in Xuanfu Town?

It's so devastating and too scary.

Also, the policy topic of Xuanfu Town is extremely sharp, just like the first one: "There is a state, at the beginning of the country, there were more than 340,000 mouths, more than 140,000 stone in summer tax and autumn grain, and now there are more than 600,000 mouths, and 50,000 stone in summer tax and autumn grain, why is this?" Please answer. ”

A discerning person can see that this involves the issue of the gentry, not the gentry's tax evasion and tax resistance, and the extensive occupation of land, how can the number of people increase and the tax and grain decrease?

People have exhausted their rhetoric, but in fact, it is not the land and population, and the financial problems have exploded to the extreme?

It's just that this kind of topic can be said to have been avoided for generations, and everyone knows it, and no one will raise it. Xuanfu Town appeared as an exam question this time, could it be that the Marquis of Yongning wanted to challenge the preferential privileges of the gentry for thousands of years? What is he playing?

And the latter questions are all like this, which makes many people dissatisfied.

But Wang Dou is now in full swing, his soldiers are strong and strong, who dares to challenge his majesty openly? I don't know that Li Banghua, the imperial history of the left capital of the Imperial Procuratorate, was sent to the border military town by His Majesty the Emperor because of the Yongning Marquis Wang Dou?

Therefore, the officials ignored these topics, focused all their attention on the arithmetic problems behind, and deliberately guided public opinion.

On the surface, they also disdain these arithmetic questions, emphasizing that the energy of the reader should still be placed on the scriptures, just as Zhou Yanru, the first assistant of the cabinet, said on behalf of the officials: "The number of books is just a small way, four books and five classics, and the sage's subtle words and righteousness are the right way." ”

His words were published in the Huangming Times, which was established not long ago, but in private, Zhou Yanru and his staff studied these arithmetic problems with great interest, especially the "Wang's arithmetic problem", the more he studied, the more he felt that this problem was unfathomable.

In order to solve the problem, he also took out the nine chapters of arithmetic and other books that he had long forgotten from the pile of old papers, and pondered them carefully.

Zhou Yanru is like this, and the hundred officials in Beijing are even more popular, and they will pull a few sentences of arithmetic terms in their spare time, it seems that if this is not the case, they will not be able to keep up with the trend.

……

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa......"

The sound of the abacus is like the sound of a rainstorm, and the mud gold plaque of "Clothes and Food" on the Dongnuan Pavilion is hung high, and Emperor Chongzhen in the pavilion has his hands behind his back, holding the Xuanfu Times in his hands, just staring at the outside in a daze.

In the cabinet, many eunuchs gathered, under the leadership of Wang Dehua, the eunuch who was in charge of the seal, and they were nervously calculating.

In front of them, there were strip-shaped desks, on which were placed a pair of abacus, all of which were the kind of black calculations used by the household. These large abacus are extremely long, each pair may reach five or six meters, and the counting unit is also very large.

It can be seen from the above numbers that from one, ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand and even all the way to the postscript, billion, trillion, Beijing, Yuan, Zi are included, and some are marked to the limit numbers such as Sui, ditch, Run, Zheng, and load.

Of course, the actual calculation is good if it can reach billions and trillions.

At this time, many eunuchs and calculations lined up, pulling out the calculations, which was extremely spectacular.

And these big abacus are also shared by several people. Enhance computing power.

There are also some eunuchs who write and calculate on the blackboard, and the blackboard and chalk in Xuanfu Town have also been introduced to Beijing, which is indeed more convenient in cursive calculation.

For the official examination of Xuanfu Town, how can Emperor Chongzhen not care? After the newspaper arrived, he studied it step by step, and Wang Dou's previous strategic proposition actually won his heart, because it reminded him of the recent events in Beijing.

Chen Xinjia proposed to train the new army in Beijing, and Emperor Chongzhen agreed very much, but the training of the army required food and salary, and the ministers had no plan. Zhou Yanru, the first assistant of the cabinet, proposed to let the rich and hundreds of officials help. There is also a yellow silk book.

Zhou Yanru's idea is perfect, at this critical juncture of the imperial court, presumably the gentry and wealthy families of the Beijing will be generous to meet the urgent needs of the country. However. Actually?

The officials blamed each other. No one was willing to donate, and in the end, under the hint of the emperor, Zhou Yanru, the first assistant of the cabinet, took the lead in donating 10,000 taels of silver. Then the cabinet minister, you donate 10,000 and 5,000 yuan, down to 100 officials, that is, you 1,000 and I 500 taels, and the final figure is also a drop in the bucket.

The emperor was very dissatisfied, and then the hundred officials said that they were rich, and they could be allowed to help, especially the relatives Jiading Bo Zhou Kui had just entered the marquis, and people said that Zhou Kui was rich, as a Qi minister, he should also take the lead. Emperor Chongzhen thinks that it is polite, Zhou Kui and others are also relatives, and he himself is his own father-in-law, so he will definitely help him with this.

So he sent the eunuch Xu Gao to Xuanzhao for help: "We are all related, and we should cooperate to set up a place in case of emergency." ”

Zhou Kui said: "How much gold does the old minister have? ”

Xu Gao cried three times, Zhou Kui had no choice but to donate 10,000 taels in the end, and then each of the relatives you 10,000 and I 5,000, the major eunuchs you 10,000 and I 5,000, the rich households in Beijing were in a hurry, and they paid out of their pockets, and the whole capital was boiling, and finally got 300,000 taels of silver, which was far from the first phase of the new army's investment, how to start training?

Because of this, Zhou Yanru was impeached.

There is also Hong Chengchou who was ordered to rectify the Beijing Division, although the means are mild and spicy, step by step, but there are always those whose interests are damaged and dissatisfied, and the impeachment storm is about to rise, and it is extremely difficult to say whether Hong Chengchou will follow in the footsteps of Li Banghua.

In addition, Cao Bianjiao and Wang Tingchen returned to the garrison at the beginning of the leap month and almost launched a rebellion, but they left their town for a long time and suffered a large number of casualties, and the nearby gentry took the opportunity to swallow the acres of land of the new army. Cao Bianjiao was furious and killed a large number of squires who had swallowed up the fields, which made the crowd feel over.

The attack on Cao and Wang came like a cloud, and there were even cold whispers: "The new army is really the scourge of the Ming Dynasty, so you know how to compete with the people for profit......"

Although Emperor Chongzhen did not send all the attacks, he was exhausted, and he had the intention to let the two continue to train the new army in Yutian and other places, but he had no money or food, so he had to give up. In the end, it was decided to transfer the two to Liaodong at the request of Cao Bianjiao and Wang Tingchen to guard Yizhou and other places.

All kinds of things made Emperor Chongzhen anxious, especially the lack of money in his hands, which made him extremely distressed, but did Daming really have no money? Pinching the Xuanfu Times in his hand, the emperor disagreed, and felt more deeply that Xuanfu Town had a good policy proposition this time.

It's just that I have to think about this matter in my heart, the Daming imperial examination is extremely mature, and scholars have been examined according to this for hundreds of years. Dou Ran changed will only make the situation more chaotic, the matter of the new army is already a headache, and Emperor Chongzhen doesn't want to add more troubles.

However, the emperor is still very curious about the "Wang's arithmetic problem", and he heard that this problem is very difficult, and all the officials and students in Beijing have calculated it privately, but no one can solve it.

Emperor Chongzhen didn't believe it, he had hundreds of millions of subjects and countless talents, and he couldn't even solve the arithmetic proposition of a warlord in a border town, so he asked Wang Dehua to find a eunuch in the palace who was proficient in arithmetic and decided to solve this problem.

However, after a long time, everyone still has no trace of stopping the calculation, and the sound of abacus like a rainstorm still rings non-stop.

Emperor Chongzhen frowned, paced back to the case, and flipped through the Huangming Times on the table. Compared with the Xuanfu Times, the Huangming Times is a copy of the Di Newspaper, which is more boring and boring, and there are few people who voluntarily buy it, so after it is issued, it is apportioned by each ministry and household, and a monthly newspaper fee is deducted from the heads of hundreds of officials.

After a while, the sound of abacus in the pavilion was still not stopped, Emperor Chongzhen became impatient, just an arithmetic problem, so many people still can't figure it out?

"How's it going, haven't you had any results yet?"

The emperor's brows furrowed even deeper, he was impatient and more curious at the same time, this "Wang's arithmetic problem" is really so difficult?

Wang Dehua smiled bitterly and pleaded guilty: "The slave is incompetent, please ask the emperor to punish the crime......"

He rubbed his forehead and said, "It's really Yongning Hou's question, this question ......"

On a cold day, dense beads of sweat appeared on his head. made his oily and slippery face shine, obviously because of excessive intentions, he finally gave the emperor an idea: "Why don't you send this question to Guozijian, after all, they are serious readers, especially those who specialize in arithmetic." ”

……

Jingshi Guozijian is located in the Anding Gate in the east of the city, although it is not as vast as Nanjing Guozijian, but there are many prisoners, in addition to learning the Four Books and Five Classics, they also have to study the "Sex and Reason", as well as the law, the number of books and other courses. There are also special doctorates in law, calligraphy, arithmetic, etc.

But let's be honest. These people have a low status, even if the highest doctor is only from the ninth grade, which is like the doctor of the Five Classics, all of them are above the fifth grade. It can also be seen from this that the three disciplines of law, calligraphy, and arithmetic have a low status in the Ming Dynasty.

Yet today. The doctor of arithmetic suddenly received a holy decree. Let them calculate the "Wang's arithmetic problem", and be sure to calculate it, reflecting the strength and majesty of the imperial court.

This whole country was a sensation. The doctor of arithmetic did not dare to slack off, and immediately gathered all the teaching assistants, direct lectures, and elite students in arithmetic, and was ordered to calculate.

However, they tried their best to encounter the same problems as Zhao Xuan, where is the entry point? Dynamic stereo geometry, where to start?

Seeing that the doctor of arithmetic was at a loss, he was pale and staggering, and the waiting Guozi priest and the priest were surprised, is this question so profound? Even the doctor of arithmetic in this supervision is at a loss?

When it came to the Holy Decree, they did not dare to relax, and constantly invested in the inmates who were proficient in arithmetic to enter the calculation, and in the end, the entire Guozijian was mobilized.

……

"Priests, our chance has arrived......"

He was about fifty years old, with thick cheeks and long beards, and the light of wisdom appeared from time to time in his deep eyes, but it was John Tang, a Western missionary serving in Qin Tianjian at this time.

This German, born in the twentieth year of Wanli, whose real name is John and whose surname is Adam, studied at the Three Crowns Middle School founded by the Society of Jesus, and after studying at the German Institute in Rome and the Lingcai Research Institute, he crossed to Daming in the last years of Wanli with Deng Yuhan, Luo Yagu and many other missionaries in the name of the Portuguese government.

At this time, the missionaries continued Matteo Ricci's missionary methods such as "exorcising Buddhism and supplementing Confucianism" and "combining Confucianism and super-Confucianism", and all people had to study Chinese and Chinese language culture and study Chinese scriptures and ethics after setting foot on Chinese soil, in order to find a breakthrough point in their mission.

Matteo Ricci's method was once very successful, and the literati and doctors at that time had a great affection and trust for these Western missionaries who took Chinese names, wore Hanfu, learned astronomy, geography, and were familiar with Chinese classics, and even had high-ranking Jesuit members like Xu Guangqi.

However, after Matteo Ricci's death, some fanatical missionaries believed that Matteo Ricci's ideas were too accommodating to the Chinese, affecting the "purity" of Catholicism, and the development of followers was too slow, so they began to change Ritchie's missionary line and adopt a more radical missionary approach.

They resolutely rejected Confucianism and strictly forbade the Chinese people to worship heaven, ancestors, and Confucius, which aroused great disgust and suspicion among the people at that time. ”

He also said: "This generation steals beams and columns, and secretly changes my holy religion God, the Bible, etc., which is the delusion of changing the summer with Yiyi." Moreover, Catholicism is not allowed to offer tablets to the monarch's relatives, and it is not allowed to worship the ancestors and parents. ”

Determined to change the situation after the Nanking Case, all the missionaries were expelled and had to live in Macao, John changed into Hanfu and chose the name from Mencius, took the Chinese name of John Tong, and took the opportunity of the battle against the Houjin to go to Beijing with the missionaries in the name of military advisers.

Since then, John Tong has continued Matteo Ricci's line, gently proselytized, and allowed believers to worship their ancestors and worship Kong, and great progress has been made in the work. He alone paid as many as 50 baptists, including many of the papal families, the clans, and the eunuchs.

Because of his achievements, Chongzhen was appointed by the church as the head of the Beijing Mission District for thirteen years. Because Tang Ruowang was proficient in mathematical astronomy, he was appointed by Emperor Chongzhen as an official of the Qin Heavenly Prison, translating almanacs, pushing astronomy, and making instruments.

Taking this opportunity, he developed followers such as Pang Tianshou, the eunuch of the imperial horse, and recommended many missionaries to serve in the prison. At this time, there were many blond-haired and blue-eyed Westerners gathered around him, all wearing Ming official uniforms.

Tang Ruowang and other missionaries secretly paid attention to Wang Dou very early, especially after Wang Dou was crowned the marquis, Tang Ruowang and others were more concerned, the Jingbian army went to Liaodong, and after the class returned to the court, they also went to see it secretly.

Afterwards, John Tang sighed to the people around him: "What an elite young man, he will not be inferior to our Europa soldiers in the slightest, and the future of the Ming Dynasty lies in them." Priests, be sure to throw this Ming warlord into the arms of the Lord. ”

But to the disappointment of John Tang and others, Wang Dou has always been salty and indifferent to them, and even did not allow missionaries to enter his territory.

Moreover, to the surprise of John Tang and others, Wang Dou seemed to know the world very well, and he also knew them very well as missionaries, and even knew Europa very well. This made Tang Ruowang and the others puzzled, how could a warlord who started as an ordinary soldier know so much?

Tang Ruowang was even thinking: "The Oriental people have a saying, the saint who descends from heaven knows the heavens, is the marquis of Daming a saint from heaven?" ”

In addition, he couldn't explain the "supernatural" on Wang Dou's body, and it also made them work more and more tirelessly, hoping to gain Wang Dou's favor, and it was best to finally join the church.

At this time, John Tang smiled at the people around him and said: "Priests, the opportunity has come, show your talents, the knowledge accumulated by our Europa, the crystallization of Archimedes, Euclid and other wise people, let the people of this eastern country be surprised." ”

A missionary beside him smiled and said: "Yes priest, yesterday the news of the Guozijian came, they concentrated the strength of the whole school and still couldn't solve it, it seems that the problem of Lord Marquis still needs to be solved by us, after all, mathematics is a rigorous doctrine." ”

Another priest also laughed and said, "The Orientals are logically full of romantic fantasies, and we Europa are like Jews counting gold coins...... However, because of this characteristic, it is time for us to study rigorous and logical knowledge, and it is time for these Khitan people to open their eyes. ”

Tang Ruowang said: "Father, I must correct you a question, after my careful study, the Ming people have nothing to do with the Khitan people. When it comes to relationships, the Khitans are as complicated as the barbarians in Europe in the past, and the Han people and the barbarians in the Northeast now. Even the old Khan Balik City is only the Tatar name for the city of Beijing. The name of the Khitans, we should not say it to them, otherwise it will cause them to be angry, after all, it is a barbarian branch, and now they consider themselves civilized. ”

"We can call them Silk People, or Serisians, of course, their names are complicated, now they are called Ming Guoren, also called Chinese," he said. The more I studied the country, the more I was confused. ”

Another priest said: "China is the self-proclaimed name of the Central Empire, and I think they are too arrogant. ”

John Tong said: "This is a rich and powerful country, and they have the qualifications to be arrogant...... Priests, it is a matter of insignificance, and we should use our intellectual weapons to show our grace well, so that these heathens will eventually look up to the arms of the Lord. ”

All the priests drew the cross together, all full of passion, the emperor had given a holy decree, but the students of the country could not solve it, if they calculated that math problem, what kind of tide would it cause, and how many people looked up to it?

At that time, they can also send a person to Xuanfu Town to serve as the Grand Master, and take the opportunity to get closer to the Marquis.

Tang Ruowang looked serious, took out the Xuanfu Times in his hand, and said, "Okay priests, let's start calculating and solving these math problems in the newspaper one by one." (To be continued.) )