Chapter 329 Chapter 94: Abacus

After listening to grandma's story, I couldn't help admiring. Grandma laughed and said, "Feng Hou is the first prime minister of our Chinese nation. But before the Yellow Emperor met him, he was an ordinary farmer, but he was very familiar with "Book of Changes." When my grandma and I were talking in the house on this side, I heard the bumping sound of grandpa rummaging through things in the other house.Grandma turned her head and shouted to Grandpa: "Did you find it? Don't mess up all the things I put away! I'm too lazy to clean it up again for you old man!"

I leaned over and rubbed my feet, my legs and feet ached from standing there for too long in Wenhuan with my grandfather.I rubbed my feet and asked, "Grandma, isn't it just an abacus? Why did Grandpa look for it for so long?" Grandma shook her head and said, "I just said that your grandpa is not half as smart as your grandpa. He doesn't know where the things in the house are, and if they are placed in front of his eyes, he has to turn around and look for them." Grandpa's indifference to family affairs is indeed obvious to all. , but it is not as exaggerated as grandma said.I know that grandma is used to bickering with grandpa, which has become a necessary thing in their lives.If I don't see my grandma saying this and that to my grandpa for a day, I will feel uncomfortable standing next to me.

In order to let grandpa have enough time to find the abacus, and for my curiosity, I grabbed my grandma and asked, "You haven't said how the abacus was invented!" Grandma chuckled, and as expected, she stopped caring about grandpa’s rummaging through boxes and cabinets, and turned to me and said, “The Lishou who invented the abacus is with your grandpa.” "Are you walking with grandpa? Is he also an alchemist?" I asked in surprise. Grandma shook her head and said, "They are all accountants, haha." "Accounting?" "Yes. Your grandpa is the accountant of our village, and the chief is the accountant of the Yellow Emperor. It is said that after the Yellow Emperor unified the tribe, the ancestors fished and hunted all day long, made clothes and hats, and built boats and carts. Production was booming. There were more and more materials. Accounting and accounting have become frequent encounters in every household. At the beginning, they had to use the method of knotting ropes to record events and engraving logs as signs to deal with daily accounting problems. Once, Yu Ze, a hunting expert, returned seven The person who kept the prey only admitted to returning one goat, but after checking the facts, it happened to be seven. Why only one goat was recorded? It turned out that the person who kept the prey heard seven as one, and only tied a knot on the grass rope Another time, Heiying, the granddaughter of the Yellow Emperor, received nine tiger skins for Leizu. Leizu was the concubine of the Yellow Emperor and the person who invented silkworm farming. The keeper only tied six knots on the straw rope. Three. So the number of real objects coming in and out is getting more and more chaotic, and false claims often happen. The Yellow Emperor was very annoyed by this matter."

When grandma talked about this, I couldn't help sighing for the era of the Yellow Emperor.Fenghou invented the compass cart, Leizu invented silkworm rearing, and Lishou invented the abacus. These capable people who are comparable to the four great inventions were all born in the same era!And the science at that time only relied on a few books like "Book of Changes"! Grandma was dumbfounded when she saw me, she just thought I was listening to the story with relish.She continued: "So the Yellow Emperor ordered Lishou to manage all the property accounts in the palace, and he was to be the chief 'accountant' of the Huangdi Palace, and asked him to handle the accounts well."

I thought to myself, this is the advantage of being a leader. I don’t have to think about things myself, just leave it to someone to do it.If it can be done, it proves that the leader is wise, but if it can't be done, it means that the subordinates are useless. "Lishou had no choice, so he had to find a way. First, he came up with a way - the sack fruit represents the goat; the chestnut fruit represents the wild boar; the mountain peach fruit represents the bird; the papaya fruit represents the tiger, etc., according to the category of wild fruit Count different items. This method is good, but it will not work after a while."

"Why?" I asked. The grandma spread her hands and said: "The wild fruits have been stored for a long time, and all of them have changed color and rotted. For a while, the colors of the various wild fruits are not clear, and the accounts are all confused. Li Shou stomped his feet in anger. Finally, he finally came up with a plan. He went to the river beach to pick up a lot of stone slices of different colors and put them into ceramic plates. Now that the bookkeeping is no longer afraid of discoloration and decay. Because Lishou was happy for a while, he did not keep it strictly. One day, he was out on business, and he The children attracted a group of playboys. When they saw that there were many plates in Lishou’s house, there were beautiful stone flakes of different colors inside. All scattered. Lishou's accounts were messed up again. He squatted on the ground alone and had to pick them up one by one. Lishou's wife came over and pointed at Lishoutou with her finger and said, "You are so stupid! You gave Shi Put an eye on the piece, and it’s safe to string it up with a rope!’ The head of the scorpion opened suddenly, and he put an eye on each stone piece of a different color, and threaded it one by one with a thin rope. Each time it is enough to wear ten or a hundred pieces Counting, wearing a stone piece of a different color in the middle. This will save a lot of trouble in the liquidation. Li Shou himself often knows it well. Since then, there has been no false report and false claim in the palace. With the continuous development of production, the variety of prey, skins, and numbers obtained are getting bigger and bigger, and the varieties are getting more and more. We can't always use stone flakes to keep accounts. It seems that Lishou can't think of any good way anymore. Once, he went up the mountain to look for children, and found ripe red chestnuts all over the mountain. There were only ten seeds on each plant, all of which were bright red, and they were very beautiful. The red chestnut was used as a tool to settle accounts, but after thinking about it again, no, it has already failed in the past. Li Shou sat on the ground alone, and the more he thought about it, the more he lost his mind."

At this time, Grandpa asked loudly in the room over there: "The one wrapped in oil paper next to the sickle is the abacus, right?" Grandma replied angrily, "You won't know until I say it ten thousand times!" I hurriedly interrupted their unfriendly conversation, tugged at grandma's sleeve, and hurriedly said: "Grandma, you haven't finished yet!" When grandma was facing grandpa, she had a resentful expression on her face, but when she turned to face me, she immediately looked amiable.Years after her death, I often think of the change in her expression that night.She is the only person in this world who can make such an expression change for me.

At that time, the smile on grandma's face was like the epiphyllum that secretly bloomed at night. She touched my head and said, "At this time, Qibo, Fenghou, and Limu went up to the mountain to collect herbs, and found that Lishou was holding a few bunches of herbs in his hand. Hongouzi sat on the ground in a daze. Fenghou asked Lishou what he was thinking. Lishou turned his head and saw that it was the three veteran officials of the Yellow Emperor. After listening to Li Shou's thoughts, Feng Hou took Li Shou's words and said, "I don't think so many stone flakes will be used for accounting in the future. Only one hundred stone flakes can be used to count hundreds of thousands of stone flakes." Li Shou hurriedly asked, "What is the top method?" After the wind, Li Shou asked Li Shou to pick off all the red European millet, and then broke off ten thin bamboo sticks, and put ten on each stick, ten strings in a row. And put it on the ground, and then went to gather herbs by myself."

"I found the abacus." Grandpa suddenly appeared in front of us holding an abacus with a rancid smell, with an unpredictable smile on his face.Several beads on the side of the abacus were bitten by mice, revealing the original color and grain of the wood.