Chapter 58 Section 9 Song Yingxing and "Heavenly Creation of Things"

Song Yingxing (1587-1665 A.D.), styled Changgeng, was born in Fengxin County, Jiangxi Province.He became famous for his compilation of "Tiangong Kaiwu". "Tiangong Kaiwu" was first engraved in 1637. It has 18 volumes, including crop cultivation, sericulture, weaving, dyeing, grain processing, salt boiling, sugar refining, wine making, porcelain firing, smelting, hammering, boating and carting. Manufacture, lime burning, oil extraction, papermaking, mining, weapons, pigments, pearl and jade collection, etc., is a conclusive work on production techniques in all aspects of Chinese agriculture and handicrafts.

The reason why the book is named "Tiangong Kaiwu" reflects Song Yingxing's scientific thinking. It emphasizes the cooperation of "Tiangong" (natural forces) and artificial, the coordination of natural behavior and human activities, and the human beings from nature through technology. Products are developed from resources to meet the needs of human survival and life.In other words, "Tiangong" is the behavior of nature corresponding to human behavior, and "opening things" is the artificial development of species contained in nature according to the interests of human survival.The book said: "The reality of vegetation contains ointment (grease) and cannot flow by itself. The false medium of water and fire relies on wood and stone (wooden press and stone mill), and then pours out. This person is clever..." (" Ointment "Volume) is the embodiment of this idea.Under the guidance of this idea, the whole book runs through the harmony and unity of man-made and nature, which is highly scientific and academic.

In addition to text descriptions, the book has 123 illustrations, showing the process of industrial and agricultural production.Except for a few chapters citing predecessors' works, most of the content in the book is the data of Song Yingxing's field investigations in various places in the north and south.While describing the production process and specific technology, Song Yingxing also "studied the experiment thoroughly" and tried to give a theoretical explanation. In addition to describing the traditional science and technology in the past, the book also records many advanced scientific and technological achievements at that time, and uses technical data to give quantitative explanations.For example:

In the volume of "Nai Li", it is proposed that the ratio of seedling field to Honda is 1:25, and it is proposed that there are three buckets of water for early rice, five buckets of water for late rice, and dryness after water loss. Not described.At the same time, it also discusses the relationship between crops and the environment, the impact of changes in the external environment on the variation of crop species, and points out that drought-resistant rice varieties can be bred through artificial selection.In addition, technical achievements such as using arsenic as a pesticide to dress seeds to prevent pests and diseases, and using lime to neutralize acidic soil were also introduced.

The water pestle described in the volume of "The Essence" uses water power as the energy source, drives various parts through the vertical spindle, and has three functions of irrigation, threshing and grinding. It was the most advanced agricultural machinery in the world at that time. The use of artificial hybridization to breed new silkworm eggs described in the volume of "Nai Fu" was a new invention at that time and an important achievement in biology. In the volume of "Wu Jin", the description of the smelting method of raw and wrought iron was an innovation of the traditional smelting method at that time.In this method, the equipment for smelting pig iron and wrought iron is connected in series, so that the molten pig iron obtained directly flows into the wok iron furnace to smelt mature iron.This continuous operation smelting method reduced the cost and the time for frying iron, and improved work efficiency. It was the most advanced wrought iron smelting process in the world at that time.The description about the extraction of metallic zinc ("Japanese lead") from calamine, and the accompanying "Smelting Japanese Lead Map" are the earliest zinc smelting records in China and even in the world, indicating that China is the first in the world to extract metallic zinc s country.

It is precisely because of the extremely rich content of "Tiangong Kaiwu" that it is regarded as an encyclopedia-like work. Dr. Joseph Needham of the United Kingdom even called Song Yingxing "China's Diderot" for this reason.