Chapter 25 Section 2 Precious Records of Science and Technology

my country's science and technology has a splendid and brilliant history, and it has been at the forefront of the world for a long time. It is only in the last two or three hundred years that it has gone downhill.The old annals of the feudal era, because they were mainly books on "government by resources", did not pay much attention to recording the inventions and creations of laborers.Despite this, there are still many vivid records of science and technology in the books of Chronicles. The local chronicles of the past dynasties recorded a large number of "abnormal" phenomena in nature, such as solar and lunar eclipses, comets, meteorites, abnormal climates, various natural disasters, plant variations, and rare birds and animals.People in ancient times could not explain these phenomena scientifically, and often regarded them as bad omens or good omens shown by heaven to human beings, and recorded them in the category of "disasters" or "auspicious disasters" in local chronicles, mixing them with some superstitious nonsense.But from the perspective of modern scientists, these local observation records at that time are extremely rare scientific data.

The Beijing Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has compiled several records of sunspots, auroras, meteorites, eclipses, supernovae, comets, meteors, and astronomical figures, works, theories, institutions, and instruments based on thousands of local chronicles and other historical records. With millions of words, it was compiled into "A Collection of Ancient Chinese Astronomical Records" and "A Collection of Chinese Astronomical Historical Materials".For a while, Chinese and foreign scholars discussed the "Maunder Minimum of Solar Activity" very enthusiastically.Due to the lack of data on sunspots from 1645 to 1715 in historical books, some foreign scholars believe that during this period, "solar activity actually stopped".However, according to the "General Collection of Astronomical Records in Ancient China", there are as many as 12 records of sunspots in this period in the local annals of seven provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions in my country. activities ceased" false assertion.

Earthquakes seriously endanger the safety of people's lives and properties, and are recorded in local chronicles in detail. In 1954, Li Siguang, a famous geologist in my country, suggested sorting out historical earthquake data for reference in selecting factories and mines.Therefore, under the auspices of the Earthquake Working Committee of the Academy of Sciences, the "Chronology of Earthquake Data in China" was compiled, which was published in 1956, and was verified and supplemented in 1980 to become the "Compilation of Earthquake Data in China".It brings together records of 1,180 major earthquakes from the 12th century BC to 1955, of which eight earthquakes can be determined to be above magnitude 8.Such a rich and complete earthquake historical masterpiece is unique in the world.Of the more than 8,000 documents on which it is based, local chronicles account for 5,600.

Local chronicles record earthquakes, including time, place, and descriptions of specific situations.There are precursors before the earthquake, and disaster statistics after the earthquake.A major earthquake is often recorded everywhere it affects, as if many observers were sent to observe and record all over the place at the same time.For example, on December 12th in the thirty-fourth year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty (January 23, 1556 AD), there was a major earthquake centered on Huazhou (now Huaxian), Shaanxi, which was recorded in more than 200 state and county chronicles. Volume 10 of "(Longqing) Huazhou Chronicles" records the situation in the epicenter area:

"At noon on December 12th in the thirty-fourth year of Jiajing, I felt that the earth was spinning, so I was dizzy and the sky was dark. In the middle of the night, the moon became darker, the ground stood upside down, and the garden trees fell to the ground. Suddenly the southwest was like a thousand The car was startled, and it came out of the ground like thunder, the people were terrified, those who got up and those who were lying down were all at a loss, and the houses collapsed without a sound. Suddenly, the sky in the southwest was cracked, shining with light, and suddenly it closed again, and the ground was in All cracks, big cracks, water and fire, strange... The original mounds rotated, and the heights of the ground completely changed the old traces. Afterwards, tens of thousands of people were crushed and injured..."

Jingling County (today’s Menshi) in Hubei Province was far away from the epicenter during the earthquake. The scene of the county’s earthquake feeling recorded in Volume 2 of "(Kangxi) Jingling County Chronicles" is as follows: "There was a sound of the earthquake, from the northeast to the southwest, the houses were shaken, and the people were horrified." Even today, hundreds of years later, the earthquake can still be comprehensively inspected based on these records, and its epicenter, magnitude, intensity, and scope can be judged. The records of these 1180 major earthquakes have provided an important basis for my country to divide earthquake zones, plan the layout of national economic construction, and carry out earthquake prediction work.

Other records related to geology and geography in local chronicles are also important sources of information for scientific workers.Hou Renzhi, a historical geographer, used a large amount of local chronicles to study the rise and fall of ancient cities, and concluded that the Mu Us Desert in Inner Mongolia has changed from ancient farming and animal husbandry to a desert. Contributions have been made both theoretically and practically.Historical geographer Chen Qiaoyi once excavated materials from local chronicles to study the rise and fall of lakes in ancient Shaoxing, the destruction of natural forests, and their impact on agriculture. On June 12, 1985, a large landslide occurred at Xintan in the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River.Since the scientific and technical personnel have consulted a variety of old records, and after scientific analysis and research, they have basically mastered the law and scope of the landslide in this area, and made accurate predictions on the time and location of the landslide, so no major losses were caused. .

Our country has been founded on agriculture since ancient times, so there are many records about meteorology and natural disasters in local chronicles.Zhu Kezhen, a famous meteorologist and geographer, once studied the law of climate change in China in the past dynasties based on the distribution of plants and the change of flowering and falling time recorded in local chronicles.His masterpiece "A Preliminary Study on Climate Change in China in the Past Five Thousand Years" divides the 5,000-year climate change into four periods, one of which is called the "local history period" (1400-1900 A.D.). Numerous local chronicles of the Ming and Qing dynasties discuss the climate changes in the Yangtze River and Yellow River basins during the 500 years of the Ming and Qing dynasties.Since then, the Central Meteorological Administration has also compiled "Climate Changes in China in the Past Five Thousand Years" and "Drought and Flood Data in my country in the Past Five Hundred Years" based on local chronicles.Shandong, Anhui and other provinces have compiled and compiled records of natural disasters such as floods, droughts, storms, frost and snow, locusts and other natural disasters from their local records.These records are not only precious research materials for meteorology, hydrology and other disciplines, but also play a very important role in disaster prevention and mitigation in our country.In 1981, Neijiang City, Sichuan Province encountered a catastrophic flood that had not happened in a century. After the flood, they studied the historical flood disaster records provided by the Municipal Chronicle Committee, and decided to adjust the layout of municipal construction and changed the construction plan along the river.

Geographer Chen Zhengxiang said in his article "The Geographical Value of Chinese Local Chronicles": "In the past few years, there have been several special committees in the international academic community, such as the Agricultural Meteorological Committee, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and the Land Use Committee. Ask me to provide a map of the distribution of locust disasters in China. But in fact, there was no such ready-made map in China in the past.” What should I do?He spent eight months searching more than 3,000 local chronicles, counting the Bawa temples that worship locusts and the temple of General Liu Meng, the god of repelling locusts (the places with these temples are of course places with severe locust plagues) , and marked them one by one on the map to make the "Distribution Map of Locust Temples in China".Combined with the records about locust plagues in the chronicles, we will study the distribution range of locust plagues in China, and make a scientific explanation for this distribution situation.He also used the same method to study the distribution area and law of hail disasters in my country through the Hail Temple recorded in the annals.

The records of production technology and scientific inventions in local chronicles are relatively scattered, but they are often not found in other historical records.The most abundant records are agriculture and water conservancy.Almost all chronicles list water conservancy as an important content, and describe in detail the advantages and disadvantages of local rivers and lakes, the distribution of wells, canals, ponds, weirs and sluices, and the water control measures of the past dynasties.Many local chronicles describe in detail the varieties of local crops, farming systems, and farming techniques, and some have illustrations of farm tools and their usage methods. "(Republic of China) Lingshi County Chronicles" collected 140 agricultural proverbs, which were divided into 10 categories, including "cultivation and fertilization method", "inter-cultivation and thinning method", "weather accounting method", "irrigation and pest control method", all of which are local farmers Summary of production experience.American agricultural and forestry scientist Shi Yongge used the records of the local annals of Fujian and Guangdong to study the growth law of citrus in the 1920s, and achieved remarkable results.He found that the records about soil and plants in local chronicles were extremely useful for his research projects, so he advocated the collection of Chinese local chronicles by the Library of Congress, and for more than 10 years, he also directly and indirectly helped to visit and purchase, thus establishing the foundation of the American Congress. The foundation of the library's collection of local chronicles of China.

Local chronicles also preserve many historical materials of folk creations and inventions.As recorded in the local chronicles of Sichuan, during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, Cao Zhen, a native of Hejiang, created the "Daicao Luzhou" in northern Shaanxi, and drove it in the Yulin desert, which was far more efficient than animal power.According to the local chronicles of Suzhou, Sun Yunqiu, a Suzhou native in the late Ming Dynasty, was good at making optical instruments. He used his "telescope" to look at the city of Suzhou from Huqiu on the outskirts of Suzhou. Visible all the time.According to the "(Qianlong) Fengrun County Chronicles", the folding fan commonly used by people today originally came from the country of Korea, but it was improved by the people of Fengrun, Hebei before it became popular in China.At that time, the Koryo tribute envoys had to go through Fengrun every winter and spring, and the attendants often brought some fans to sell, but because they were poorly made, most people didn't like them.Later, Fengrun people imitated its style and used mottled bamboo, cloud bamboo, and palm bamboo as bones, and invited famous artists to paint landscapes, flowers and birds, so "Fengrun fan" became popular for a while.This type of record is sufficient to make up for the deficiencies of other historical records. No wonder the British science and technology historian Joseph Needham specially introduced Chinese local chronicles in his masterpiece "History of Science and Technology in China", and quoted another British sinologist William Williams as saying: "A series of local chronicles that appeared in China, no matter from Their breadth, and their systematic comprehensiveness, are unmatched by similar documents in any country."