Chapter 28 Section 16

In May of the third year of Xining, the emperor's envoy came to Sang Mansion again and repeated the scene in March.Although the emperor's edict was more sincere than last time, and Shi Yue had a higher evaluation, Shi Yue still refused with old reasons.And the most exaggerated thing is that what the messenger said before he left was exactly the same as the one who said last time—of course, he also had the same copper coins in his pocket. Su Shi and Wang Anli came to Sang Mansion at the same time to persuade Shi Yue to leave the mountain, but found that Shi Yue's attitude was very firm. Although they had no choice but to do anything, they still refused to give up. They just chatted with Shi Yue.In order to deal with these two lobbyists, Shi Yue, who was overwhelmed, had to take out the drafts of several books he was writing and asked them for advice.

Sure enough, these books immediately attracted the attention of the two of them. After reading it for a while, Wang Anli asked: "Zi Ming, although these strange skills and obscenities are quite subtle, what's the use in the hearts of the world?" Su Shi also looked at Shi Yue, and it was obvious that the two had the same doubts. Shi Yue memorized a passage of classics with a smile: "Fuxi made the Qin and Se, Mang made the outline, Mang made the Luo, and Nuwa made the reed..." This is the content in "Zuo Pian", which tells the story of the inventions and creations of the ancient sages .After reciting it, Shi Yue said: "If strange skills and obscenity are useless, why did ancient saints such as Fuxi, Nuwa, Huangdi, Shun, and Yu all invent them? This is the work of saints. Where is the strange skill and obscenity?" ?Among the "Zhou Li", only "Dongguan" does not exist, so people today think that such things are nothing more than the learning of villains, and gentlemen despise them. I think this is the reason why they are not as good as before. "

Although I feel that Shi Yue's statement is a bit unreasonable, but there is indeed this article in "Shiben", which tells the story of the invention and creation of ancient sages. According to Shi Yue's statement, it is not unreasonable.Although both of them are good at eloquence, they couldn't think of anything wrong with Shi Yue's point of view. Wang Anli smiled kindly, and said: "Zi Ming's words are really shocking, but they are really hard to refute. I just treat the workers' affairs as saints' affairs, I am afraid that scholars will not be convinced. And these things, even It's not about workers, it's about miscellaneous learning."

Su Shi said with a bright smile: "Miscellaneous learning is miscellaneous learning. The ancient gentleman, besides the classics, knows everything about horseback riding, archery, natural history, astronomy and arithmetic. There may not be no one who is also a master of mathematics today. It's just like Ziming is so knowledgeable, it seems that he knows everything about astronomy and geography, and he is so young, he is really a so-called person who is born with knowledge." Many Confucian scholars at that time were quite proficient in astronomy and geography, arithmetic plants, and divination. The influence of "a gentleman is not a tool", most people are not willing to devote all their energy to study these, just as a kind of amateur cultivation, which is quite different from Shi Yue's intention. Once Shi Yue points it out, Su Shi's eyes suddenly open.

The manuscripts that Shi Yue showed Wang Anli and Su Shi were called the beginning of "Stone Studies" by later generations, and were also called "Miscellaneous Studies" by some people.These books are "Elementary Arithmetic", "Elementary Geometry", "Elementary Geography", "Elementary Logic", these four books plus the following "Elementary Physics", "Elementary Chemistry", "Elementary Biology", Also known as the "Seven Books of Stone Studies", they were published successively in June of the third year of Xining.

The content of these books can be said to be quite shallow. They are valuable in that they put forward some theoretical points, and it is the first theoretical summary and induction of science and technology in Chinese history.At that time, the technological accumulation in the Song Dynasty had reached a considerable height, and various technological inventions made modern people dumbfounded. For example, in the weapon spectrum of the Song Dynasty, there are thousands of gunpowder weapons!Various other inventions and creations almost make people doubt that it is a modern society—but what is missing is the emergence of scientific theories, which can also be said to be the inherent defects of Chinese civilization in this regard, or it can be said that history has not Give Chinese civilization this chance—but no matter what, if there is a door between Chinese civilization and modern science, and the key of those doors is called "scientific theory", then Shi Yue undoubtedly told the Chinese people about the door Existence told them the world they would find after opening the door, and told them the key to making keys. The next thing is that the Chinese people use their own intelligence to make keys and push the door open.

This is the meaning of "Seven Books of Stone Studies"! Since then, Chinese scientists no longer devote all their energy to solving technical problems one by one, but start to summarize and discover scientific theories, and then use theories to guide technological innovation-this is a completely different path. After studying the "Seven Books of Stone Science", in a limited time, for an ordinary person, he only knows some "miscellaneous knowledge", which seems useless, but for those who have reached a certain height in the field of science Said, undoubtedly let their eyes suddenly see.

But Shi Yue was always just a liberal arts student.Among the seven books, "Elementary Arithmetic" is slightly better, and it is only at the level of junior high school; while "Elementary Geometry" is really too simple, it is called a "book", but the whole book is only 10,000 words, and it only talks about some simple things. formulas; "Primary Physics" is only a part of the theory in junior high school; the worst is "Primary Chemistry", which is completely a theoretical book. Shi Yue can't remember those molecular formulas at all, so he has to list various theories and chemical phenomena in the book. Ten articles, raising nearly a hundred various questions, and a length of only more than 20,000 words, it is impossible for ordinary people to understand; Persecution, as far back as the Han Dynasty, there are many hypotheses about it, but whether people believe it or not is another matter-"Primary Geography" is indeed often read as a second book by people; in "Primary Biology", in order to avoid Too much trouble, Shi Yue did not talk about the origin of species, but only introduced the function of fossils, and also talked about the structure of the human body. This is the most difficult book to write, and there are too many scruples; the best One of the books I wrote was "A Preliminary Logic", which is a purely philosophical book.

In the "Seven Books of Stone Studies", Shi Yue unceremoniously used letters and letters.These two appeared majestically in the publications of the Song Dynasty, so Shi Yue had to write a special "Fan Li" to explain it in detail.The number of words in this example is actually longer than the content of a book—although there is no way to replace it with alphabetic words, but Shi Yue is educated in modern times after all, and asked him to change it into another thing to explain some formulas. Science minds that don't quite understand it will definitely be more confused, not to mention introducing some symbolic words, which is not a bad thing.It's just that the destiny of Dashi's numbers and alphabetic characters was very different later. The former was quickly adopted widely, while the latter was only used by some elites for learning.

The "Seven Books of Stone Studies" published in the summer of June did not cause a big sensation-people have gradually become accustomed to the surprises brought by Shi Yue.Various rumors about him began to spread among the market. The best version said that he was "the reincarnation of Wenqu Xing", so he was so young and had such good knowledge that even the emperor ordered him twice; A big liar, he lied to a dying scholar's manuscript, and then published it in the world to gain fame, so he dared not answer the imperial edict because he was afraid of showing his feet...

However, the "Seven Books of Stone Studies" still attracted attention in relatively small circles, and most of the praiseworthy comments came from these small circles.There are also quite a few scholars who obviously don't understand much, and they still want to buy a few books back to make up for their prestige—of course, "Preliminary Geography", "Preliminary Biology", and "Preliminary Logic" are exceptions.As expected by Shi Yue, only a few people knew about "Primary Geography", and most of them regarded it as an overseas legend - the real Song Dynasty version! The result of "Primary Biology" is surprise, the human heart is only for blood?Do we think with our brains?This is really unbelievable... In the eyes of learned people, "A Preliminary Logic" is considered "although it is not unreasonable, but it is also the words of famous scholars, slightly better than the ancients, and not the right way of learning".These three books are the main reason why the "Seven Books of Stone Studies" is also called "Miscellaneous Studies". But no matter what, the imperial court issued a decree in late June that "punctuation marks" must be used in official documents and examinations in the future, and "big food numbers" are allowed to be counted, all of which are recognition of some of Shi Yue's proposals.It cannot be said that the third edict against Shi Yue had nothing to do with the publication of the "Seven Books on Stone Studies". However, Shi Yue still used an old reason to reject the edict again, completely ignoring the emperor's euphemistic criticism of the reason he had used twice in the edict. "This Shi Yue really doesn't want to be an official?" The young emperor couldn't help but feel a little strange. It's really rare that he doesn't want to be an official in his twenties, but the court rarely recruits a "Maocai" who is in his twenties. "Your Majesty, I dare not speak in vain, but Shi Yue is definitely not a person who has no intention of fame, otherwise he would not have published ten books within half a year." Wang Anshi actually understood Shi Yue very well. If you want to be a hermit, what book would you publish? "Then why don't you want to accept the imperial edict?" Zhao Xu was even more surprised. "Yichen speculates on his own, or he doesn't take Maocai's department seriously." Wang Anshi said irresponsibly. "Why do you see that?" Zhao Xu was a little upset. You didn't even come to take the exam for the Maocai Department, and you, Shi Yue, are not a person of fame. Do you want me to give you an official position directly? "This minister is just speculation."

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