Missionaries brag, loopholes shake the foundation
Many people think that ancient China did not pay enough attention to natural sciences, and they did not even know that Ruan Yuan was an outstanding scientist and educator. Today, however, we will delve into this figure and his contribution to the field of science.
Ruan Yuan (1764-1849), known as Boyuan, was a native of Yizheng, Jiangsu, and was a scholar of economics and history, but also widely involved in the field of natural sciences.
He founded academic institutions such as the Sutra Monastery and Xuehaitang, and cultivated a large number of outstanding talents for the country. In the 54th year of Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty, he was admitted to the Jinshi, and successively served as a squire in the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Rites, and the Ministry of Households, the governor of Youjiang, Henan, and Jiangxi, and the governor of Huguang, Liangguang, and Yunnan and Guizhou.
Ruan Yuan believes that mathematics is the most important of the six arts, and believes that "the learning of Confucianism is the greatest". In his early years, he wrote "Examination of the Engineer and the Car System", which expressed his unique views on the manufacture of ancient vehicles.
He also wrote a variety of works such as "Survey of the Thirteen Classics", "Liangzhejiang Jinshi Zhi", "Jigu Zhai Zhongding Doubts", "Wenxuanlou Series", "Huaihai Yingling Collection", "Sutra Room Collection", "Scripture Compilation", "Huangqing Scripture Interpretation" and other works.
During his tenure as governor of Cao Yun, Nguyen Nguyen created a new method of measuring the amount of grain transported by ship, which reduced the workload by half the work of the old method, and spread this method to all parts of the country.
The Manuscript of the History of the Qing Dynasty and the Biography of the History of the Qing Dynasty both set up biographies for him. "The Biography of Chou Ren" is an important work of Ruan Yuan, which specifically records more than 270 astronomers and mathematicians who died from the Yellow Emperor period to the fourth year of Jiaqing, and a total of 41 missionaries who introduced Western astronomy and mathematics since the end of the Ming Dynasty, as well as Western astronomical arithmeticians introduced in the missionary books.
This book is the only scientific biography in ancient China, and it has important reference value for the study of the exchange between ancient Chinese science and Western science.
Ruan Yuan is a scholar who has conducted in-depth research on traditional Chinese mathematics and Western mathematics, and he discovered the connection between traditional Chinese mathematics and Western mathematics, and expressed the idea of "the source of Western learning" in his writings.
This view caused controversy at the time, and the missionaries rejected it, arguing that ancient China was completely lacking in original geometric ideas, and that the knowledge of heavenly calculations came from foreign cultures.
However, the Japanese scholar Yoshio Mikami took a different view, and wrote an article to refute and correct the popular Western interpretation of Chinese mathematics.
The Biography of the Universe is a compilation of ten Western celestial arithmetic scholars before Copernicus, nine of whom are derived from the New Western Arithmetic. The records of these Western celestial arithmetic writers are mainly missionary books, but unfortunately, these books only focus on the dissemination of knowledge, but rarely present the life stories of the relevant people.
How did the image of the missionary scientist come to be? In fact, these missionaries (such as Long Huamin, Tang Ruowang, Luo Yagu, Deng Yuhan and 17 others) did not make too many original contributions to science, and they were regarded as "scientists" just because they translated and introduced scientific knowledge.
The New Western Law Calculation Book, also known as the "Western New Law Calendar", "New Law Calculation Book", "New Law Calendar" or simply "New Calendar". But its real name is the Chongzhen Almanac.
The book was edited by Xu Guangqi of the Ming Dynasty in the second year of Chongzhen, and was later completed by Li Tianjing after his death, which lasted five years. The book first introduces the reasons for the revision of the calendar and the controversy between the old and new calendars in the Chongzhen period, and then attaches the "New Biography of the Calendar" and "The New Law Expression".
This book was not adopted during the Chongzhen period and was not adopted until the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty. There are 97 volumes of Chongzhen, 100 volumes of Shunzhi of the Qing Dynasty and 137 volumes of hereditary biography.
In the early years of the Qing Dynasty, the German missionary John Tang deleted the "Chongzhen Almanac" into 103 volumes, and renamed it "Western New Law Calendar", which was later included in the "Siku Quanshu", and then cut down to 100 volumes.
Let's take a look at the description of the "Western New Law Calendar" by the Chinese ** Education Archives: "The "Western New Law Calendar" was compiled and translated by Xu Guangqi and others at the end of the Ming Dynasty, including the participation of Jesuit missionaries such as Tang Ruowang, Luo Yagu and Deng Yuhan.
The appearance of this book is due to an error made by the Ming Dynasty Qin Tianjian in calculating the eclipses of the sun and the moon, which led to the proposal for a calendar reform. Although Chinese astronomers engaged in a campaign to change the calendar, progress was slow until the missionaries introduced the new Western method, which led to significant changes.
The Almanac of Chongyu is a masterpiece of Western law, which systematically introduces the knowledge of European astronomy, mainly discusses the calendar and astronomical theory and calculation methods as the basis of the calendar, adopts the cosmic system of the Danish astronomer Tycho, and also introduces the astronomical data and scientific achievements of Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler. ”
Although missionaries John Tong, Luo Ya Gu, Deng Yuhan, and the then Jesuit President Long Huamin were "short-term participants," they still contributed to the spread of the faith.
Short-term engagement"What can be achieved? It's nothing more than satisfying your own needs and giving guidance. Subsequently,"Short-term engagement"It became the main revision of the calendar: John Tong translated it, and Luo Yagu revised it.
As for the late Xu Guangqi, we will give him one"Superintendent"of the title. What does it mean to be overseer?Isn't it just standing by and supervising?From this, it can be seen that in fact, all the work was done by the missionaries, and Xu Guangqi was just a bystander.
The rest, all followers of Jesus, simply passively accepted, were called"Subject to law", and didn't play much of a role.
The title of this book is "The New Western Calendar", but the content is full of Chinese elements, and it can even be said that it is composed entirely of Chinese history and traditional astronomical terms. For example, the book mentions the 30 degrees of the North Pole, a term that has been used in China for thousands of years, and is not called that in the WestThere are also twenty-eight nakshatras, which is also the Chinese astronomical term.
What's more interesting is that the book also mentions the six measurements of the Yuan Dynasty before and after the ancient and modern times, such as Han Luoxiahong, Tang Seng and his entourage, Song Emperor Yu Yuanfeng Chongning, Yuan Guo Shoujing, etc., which are all important figures and events in Chinese history.
This begs the question, since this book was translated from the West by missionaries John Tong and others, is the history of the West also the same as that of China?
The zodiac signs from Babylon are actually divided into the 12 houses according to the "meridian (Chinese term)......Depolarization 23 degrees (Chinese term) ......It is deduced from the principle that the ecliptic curve reaches the boundary and the ecliptic longitude is also divided into twelve signs.
Interestingly, Westerners also agreed with this Chinese method of calculation, and called it "the number of days of the week, called the number of days......"This blend of Eastern and Western cultures is truly breathtaking.
The term "one of three hundred and sixty-five degrees and a quarter of a degree" originated in ancient China and is described in detail in the volume of the Zhou Ji Sutra. It represents a quarter of a week, i.e., 365 degrees 15 minutes, and is a traditional Chinese term.
The sixth volume of the Annotations on the Collection of Sun Tzu, written by Sun Tzu and compiled by Ji Tianbao of the Southern Song Dynasty, is now based on the engraving of the 34th year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty, and is inherited by the photocopying technology of four periodicals.
There is such a record in the Yellow Emperor's Neijing Su Wen: "The emperor said, good. I would like to know what the walking pattern isHe replied that the law of walking was that there was a remainder every sixty degrees, and that the remainder was eighty-seven quarters, which was one-fifth of a tenth.
Therefore, twenty-four steps can make up a day, which is the degree remainder of the day. As for the degree of the week, it is one and a quarter of three hundred and sixty-five degrees. And twenty-four steps represent four years old.
A quarter is twenty-five quarters. At the age of four, the movement of Qi has already constituted a day, that is, the day has passed. The emperor asked, how do the six qi respond to the changes in the five elements?
Qi Bo replied that the position has a beginning and an end, and the qi also has a beginning and a middle, and the solution is different if the upper and lower levels are different. Location, which refers to the position of the earth. Qi, refers to the weather.
Qi and position are different from each other, so the beginning stage of Qi is dominated by the weather, and the middle stage of Qi is dominated by the earth. When the earth is dominant, qi will flow on the earth, and when the weather is dominant, qi will churn in the sky.
Both the elementary and middle schools are calculated according to the step size and scale of the day. The number of days in the first and middle days is thirty days, and the remaining forty-three quarters are three times as many as quarters. This is the annotation of Wang Bing of the Tang Dynasty, and the nineteenth volume of the "Chongguang Supplement to the Yellow Emperor's Neijing Su Wen" corrected by Lin Yi of the Song Dynasty.
The Chinese term "one of three hundred and sixty-five degrees and four quarters" is presented again, so why bother looking for a translator in the West? In the star chart of the "Western New Law Almanac", the twelve earthly branches "Zichou Yinmao, Tatsumi Wuwei, and Shen Youxuhai" correspond to the twelve star times "Xingji, Xuanqi, Jiaozi, Jianlou, Daliang, Shishen, Quail Head, Quail Fire, Quail Tail, Shouxing, Dahuo, and Ximu", which are also closely related to the zodiac signs.
This southern diagram also has similarities, and the part of the text that can be noticed is surrounded by two black lines in a circle.
In ancient Chinese traditions, the twelve stars were used to correspond to the twelve hours of the day.
China's cultural heritage is very rich and contains many unique elements. For example, the 12 stars and the 12 earthly branches (12 hours) are both derived from the traditional Chinese calendar system, while the 28 nakshatras are an important part of ancient Chinese astronomy.
These cultural heritages not only represent the history and culture of China, but also the pride and pride of the Chinese people. Therefore, it can be said that the 12 stars, the 12 earthly branches, and the 28 nakshatras are all valuable assets of China.
For the 9 Western celestial arithmetic scholars announced in the "New Western Law Almanac", many people will have questions, what are their contributions? If they didn't exist, how did their knowledge pass on to later scientists such as Copernicus, Tycho, and Kepler?
In the Chongzhen Almanac in the collection of the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, we can see that during the Ming Dynasty, He Ruchong, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, recommended Xu Guangqi, Li Zhizao and others to carry out the reform of the calendar, and they believed that it would be more effective to use Western methods.
Xu Guangqi was a waiter in the Ministry of Rites at the time, and he felt that his ability was limited, so he presented his humble opinion to Emperor Chongzhen, and hoped that the emperor would finally make a decision. On July 26 of the same year, Xu Guangqi put forward a proposal to amend the three articles of the four articles of the employment system, including the recommendation of Tongqing Li Zhizao, the missionaries Long Huamin and Deng Yuhan, and hoped that the emperor would visit and promote more talents.
Missionary Deng Yuhan died of illness before he could begin revising the calendar. On May 16, the third year of Chongzhen, Xu Guangqi reported the news to the imperial court and asked Tang Ruowang and Luo Yagu, two Western Confucians, to come to Beijing to assist in revising the calendar.
However, a review of Deng Yuhan's biographical information reveals that he was born in 1576 and died on May 11, 1630, which corresponds to the third year of Chongzhen's reign, but this contradicts Western narratives that he briefly participated in the revision of the Chongzhen calendar.
This makes people confused, how can this be revised before the calendar is revised, and people have already passed away before they have begun to revise the calendar?
Despite this, there are still some scholars who blindly follow the trend, claiming that Deng Yuhan participated in the work of the bureau, and hailing the Chongzhen Almanac as an "encyclopedia of classical European astronomy", giving all the credit to the missionaries John Tong and Luo Yagu, as if their work was the only thing that mattered.
The following new copy maintains the core idea of the original text, that is, how Xu Guangqi expressed the process of revising the calendar in the "Thirty-three Articles" played to Chongzhen. Xu Guangqi believed that the calendar should be revised in accordance with the "24 qi of the five elements of the year", and use Chinese instruments such as leaky pots and gui watches to measure the sun and moon and fix the hope.
And the so-called Western method (if any) is only used as a reference, not as the main method of revising the calendar. Therefore, the author questions the content of the so-called "New Western Law Calendar" and believes that there is really a Western law in it.
The "Five Elements of the Twenty-Four Qi" is derived from the traditional Chinese calendar, but why was it translated from the West by missionaries? This is a question worth pondering. There are many famous figures in history, such as Ruan Yuan, the author of "The Biography of Chou Ren", who has studied the past and the present and looked at China and foreign countries, and he insisted on the view of "Western learning from the source", which was questioned.
Wang Xixi, known as the "last watchman of the Chinese astronomical tradition", expressed his dissatisfaction with the superiority of China and France over Western methods, believing that Chinese traditional methods are no worse than those of the West, but they have not been mastered and applied.
His books such as "The New Law of Xiao'an" and "The Solution of the Five Stars Xingdu" are important references for the study of traditional Chinese astronomy. Mei Wending believes that Wang Xiyan should be the first to recommend the calendar in the early Qing Dynasty, and his contributions have made important contributions to the development of calendar science in the traditional calendar calculation methods and the discovery of new methods such as the transit of Venus and the transit of Mercury.
If you are an astronomical and calculator, you may not be convinced by us, but we believe that as long as you pay attention to the tetralogy of "Kunyu Jisheng", pay attention to literature, history and life information, you will find a different and interesting world from your imagination.
So, please don't hesitate, ** it!