■ Liu Hui
Jingyushu (1933-2021)
Born in Linyi, Shandong Province, he is an abacus expert and honorary chairman of the Abacus Mental Arithmetic Cultural Inheritance Committee of the Chinese Children's Culture and Arts Promotion Association.
In 1942, Jing Yushu studied in Moshigou Village, Linyi. In 1944, he began to learn and teach in the self run dealer. In 1951, he worked as an accountant in Liuzhuang Supply and Marketing Cooperative in Linshu, Linyi City, during which he began to collect ancient calculation books and collected more than 80000 books in his life. In 1982, the first abacus history museum was established in China.
He has published more than 50 academic papers on abacus, compiled the Abacus Textbook and Abacus Exercises for colleges and technical secondary schools, and compiled the Integration of Chinese Computing in Past Dynasties (I, II, II).
In 1995, he became an expert enjoying the special allowance of the State Council; He was a member of the Chinese Association for the History of Abacus, a member of the Chinese Association for Computing Algorithms, and a director of the Chinese Association of Abacus; In 2007, he became an expert in demonstrating the list of representative works of Chinese abacus culture applying for human intangible cultural heritage; In 2013, abacus was officially included in the list of intangible cultural heritage of mankind, and Jingyushu became one of the inheritors of abacus in China.
Jing Yushu's life was "restrained first and then raised". In his early years, he lived in a corner and accumulated silently. Later, he became famous overseas with his in-depth research in the field of abacus.
1. Devote all to collecting ancient arithmetic books
Jingyushu, with the word Boying, is from Linshu County, Linyi City, Shandong Province. He was born in Liuzhuang Village, Linshu County in October 1933, ranking third in his family, with two brothers and two younger brothers. Jing Yushu, whose father is Jing Keshan, has a family background. When he was young, he lived by teaching. He was open-minded and loved collecting ancient and modern books. He was known as a prodigy. Jing Yushu was enlightened by his father in his childhood and learned ancient poetry and prose, laying a solid foundation for later study of ancient calculation books.
Jing Yushu did not receive systematic education due to his precarious life in troubled times, but he was optimistic and positive, seized every opportunity to read and read, and passed on his knowledge to others.
In 1942, Jing Yushu entered the Anti Japanese Primary School run by the Eighth Route Army in Moshigou Village, and then joined the Anti Japanese Children's League, and was elected the head of the Children's League in Qingyun District. Jing Yushu has only received formal primary education in the past two years. After the school was disbanded due to the war, the teacher taught them not to give up learning before joining the army, and those with more literacy should teach those with less literacy and those without literacy.
After returning home, Jing Yushu, adhering to the teacher's instruction, began to mobilize other students to participate in the literacy class run by him. At the age of only 11, he became a teacher on the platform. Now many people in Liuzhuang's 80s have learned to read with the "little teacher" of that year.
In 1947, Jing Yushu followed the "Linyi Administration Promotion Society" to Zhenjiagou, Junan County, spinning and knitting socks to support the front line. In the midst of war, Jing Yushu still has an optimistic attitude and a love of knowledge. He insists on running a school because only continuous learning can serve the motherland and not be bullied by foreign countries.
In 1951, Jing Yushu joined Liuzhuang Liancun Supply and Marketing Cooperative as an accountant. At the beginning, he didn't know how to calculate. An accountant saw him using a pen and said, "Why should he be an accountant when he can't calculate?" This sentence aroused Jing Yushu's unyielding enthusiasm.
After that, he practiced day and night, and after only two months, his level of planning was far higher than others. In 1952, Jing Yushu attended the accounting training held in the county. The next year after he mastered the principles and methods, he set up a free accounting training class in the supply and marketing society, giving lectures every night.
Jing Yushu loves collecting books, especially ancient calculation books. At first, it was to improve my abacus skills. Every time I went to a place, I collected books and consulted local experts to improve my abacus skills.
From the beginning of the waste purchase station to the antique bookstore, Jing Yushu has more and more books. Unfortunately, these early collection of abacus classics later suffered a "catastrophe". At that time, many people advised him not to collect any more, but he said, "It's OK for me to suffer a little. I'm afraid that this invention will be killed, and I'm ashamed of our ancestors.".
Since some valuable classics such as the Enlightenment of Arithmetic, the Detailed Algorithm, the Mathematical Routines, and the Panzhu Algorithm in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties have been lost in China, he asked his friends in Japan to help him copy them. It can be said that he did his best to collect the ancient calculation books.
With more and more books collected, in 1982, Jingyushu established the first abacus history museum in China and opened it to the public free of charge.
The Abacus History Museum soon became famous, attracting mathematics and abacus research experts from all over the country to verify the data. In 2004, Hong Jianrong, president of Taiwan Abacus Mental Arithmetic Society, visited the Abacus History Museum and established a long-term friendship with Linyi Abacus Association. In July, Jing Yushu organized the "Academic Seminar on Abacus and Mental Arithmetic on Both Sides of the Taiwan Straits", assessed the skills of Taiwanese teachers on the spot, and awarded them the certificate of abacus and mental arithmetic instructor.
From the Western Zhou Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty, most of the ancient books on mathematics in the museum have been collected, except for some books that have long been lost. The total number of books has reached more than 80000, and there are more than 3000 thread bound books before the Qing Dynasty alone. Many of them are woodcut and early copper movable type versions, which can be called the only surviving books. These calculation books have become valuable materials for Jingyushu's future teaching and scientific research and the success of China's abacus "World Heritage" application.
2 "He has no educational background, but his knowledge is not shallow"
In 1979, Jing Yushu joined Linyi Supply and Marketing School as a teacher because of her outstanding achievements in accounting in the supply and marketing cooperatives. At the end of the 1970s, domestic colleges and technical secondary schools were short of abacus textbooks. Jing Yushu, based on his collection of ancient and modern abacus algorithms and popular algorithms, combined with modern advanced methods and their practical creation, for example, changed "two five beads" to "one four beads", used the "public positioning method" to carry out multiple, division, multiplication and division hybrid joint calculation, and the "cut-off positioning method", It is classified into "Abacus Textbook" for college and technical secondary school teaching.
This textbook comprehensively and systematically summarized and elaborated the abacus discipline, which was published in 1985, and was accompanied by the Abacus Exercises Collection, which solved the problem of the lack of teaching materials in the abacus teaching at that time. This textbook was included in the new national science and technology bibliography.
In the early 1990s, the Press and Publication Administration (now the State Press and Publication Administration) determined that the key books of the "Eighth Five Year Plan" included the compilation of a set of "Integration of Chinese Ancient Calculus". Because Jing Yushu has accumulated a lot of data, Mei Rongzhao, a researcher of the Institute of Natural Science History of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Bai Shangshu, a professor of the Department of Mathematics of Beijing Normal University, all pushed Jing Yushu to edit this book.
Jing Yushu searched all over his collection of good books, visited famous figures in the field of calculation, and compiled them day and night. It took nearly four years to complete the first, middle, and bottom three books of 12 million words of "The Integration of Chinese Computing in All Dynasties", which was published in 1994. This is a special series of literature on the history of Chinese mathematics, which collects various ancient mathematical data from the Western Zhou Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. Together with the Chinese Science and Technology Classics, Mathematics Volume edited by Guo Shuchun in 1993, it has become a required reading for related research.
In addition, Jing Yushu has also compiled many textbooks related to supply and marketing. In the words of Jing Yushu's student, "he has no educational background, but he has a lot of knowledge".
In addition to writing textbooks and publishing research articles, in practice, he can "see ten lines at a glance", use both hands to calculate, and both hands are equally fast. Once in class, he checked the students' abacus playing. After reading the numbers, he asked them to play. After playing, he immediately pointed out that several students had made mistakes. The students thought it was amazing. Among the large number of professional talents he has trained, there are those who can achieve "three lines of vision", or even "ten lines of vision".
Jing Yushu often sighs that abacus education should start from a child, and after leaving, she has devoted herself to cultivating China's "child prodigy". According to him, child prodigies can be divided into congenital and acquired, and the acquired child prodigies can be cultivated by mental abacus. He believes that mental abacus calculation is most suitable for children, which helps to develop children's intelligence and improve their quality. This is more meaningful for China's scientific and technological development.
In 1996, Jing Yushu was invited to participate in the first World Abacus Conference, which was attended by 190 official representatives from 11 countries and regions. After the conference, he strengthened his determination to train children to do abacus.
In 1999, he founded the child prodigy abacus school to train children to learn abacus and abacus. At the same time, he recruited accounting students for abacus training and trained a number of abacus teachers. Beijing, Tianjin, Hainan, Sichuan, Guizhou, Guangxi and other places sent teachers to participate in the training.
Although the school running time is not long, there are many talents. For example, Shenmo Education, founded by Li Mianjun, an abacus teacher trained by the school, has successfully developed into an international training school, and its influence has spread to Singapore, Malaysia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and other countries and regions.
On the whole, the craze of abacus and mental abacus continued from the late 1990s to 2006. Although it declined later, Jing Yushu always believed that China's abacus culture has a broad foundation. As long as more efforts are devoted to protecting it, it will be passed down from generation to generation.
Through decades of academic practice, Jing Yushu has won a lot of awards and honors, and has been successively named as the National Excellent Abacus Teacher, Shandong Science Popularization Activist, Shandong Excellent Scientific and Technological Worker, and Shandong Self study Talent Award.
3. Help China apply for the World Heritage by abacus
Abacus is known as "the oldest computer in the world" for its simple computing tools and unique mathematical connotation. In December 2013, the eighth meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage of UNESCO, held in Baku, the capital of the Republic of Azerbaijan, adopted a resolution that officially included the Chinese abacus project in the list of representative works of intangible cultural heritage of mankind.
The road of applying for the World Heritage of Chinese abacus is not smooth, and the establishment of the inventor and birthplace of abacus is an important link. Jing Yushu, as a member of the expert group of China's abacus application for the world intangible cultural heritage, faced the dispute over the origin of abacus in Rome, Italy, Japan and other places, and proved that Liu Hong, a mathematician and astronomer of the Eastern Han Dynasty, was the inventor of the world abacus and the origin of abacus in China, which was finally recognized.
In fact, there are many opinions about the time when abacus came into being in China.
In 1982, pottery balls were unearthed in Shaanxi, and the abacus circle put forward the theory of "pottery balls count ancestors", which believed that the counting beads evolved from pottery balls. Jing Yushu wrote an article to refute that in the article "From non porous beads to porous beads, abacus beads", he compared and analyzed various kinds of non porous beads and porous beads that appeared in Chinese history, and believed that pottery balls were non porous beads, while abacus was more likely to develop from porous beads, thus refuting the "theory of pottery balls as ancestors".
However, the abacus circle agreed with this view at that time. People's Daily and China Youth Daily published it, and newspapers in Japan, the United States, Britain and other countries reprinted it, and even compiled it into various textbooks and dictionaries.
In 2008, China Abacus Association submitted for the first time to UNESCO the materials of "applying for the World Heritage" of abacus, taking the relevant materials of "Tao Wan Shu Zu Lun" as an important theoretical basis, but the results were not approved.
In June 1982, when Tao Wan was unearthed, at the first abacus history research conference held in Mengyin County, Shandong Province, Jing Yushu put forward the statement that Liu Hong was the inventor of abacus, and based on Liu Hong's student Xu Yue's "Records of Mathematic Arts" (Song edition). At that time, experts and scholars from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Abacus Association and some provinces attended the meeting. The abacus circle does not agree with his view.
Jing Yushu insists that Liu Hong is the inventor of abacus, and further wrote papers such as "About the Time and Relationship of Liu Hong and Xu Yue's Activities", "About the Mathematical Level of Liu Hong, the Saint of Computing, and the Value and Contribution of the Abacus Invented by him", "Xu Yue's Life and Achievements", "Historical Contribution of Abacus from the Perspective of Astronomical Calendar Calculation in Past Dynasties", and "Liu Hong's Chronicle", More detailed information proves that Liu Hong is the inventor of abacus.
He cited that the word "abacus" first appeared in the book "Records of Numerology" written by Xu Yue at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. It is recorded in the book that "Liu Kuaiji is knowledgeable and inclined to mathematics... There are still many kinds of methods of clerical head annotation, one of which is abacus." This argument has finally been unanimously recognized by the abacus community.
In 2013, China Abacus Association re declared abacus as an intangible cultural heritage to UNESCO. Jing Yushu's "Integration of Chinese Computing in Past Dynasties" and the paper confirming Liu Hong as the founder of abacus were included in the application materials.
It was a success this time. The Committee of Intangible Cultural Heritage commented that abacus is a major invention in ancient China, which has accompanied the Chinese people for more than 1800 years.
4 Clarify the "mystery" of abacus history
It can be seen from the above that Jing Yushu does not follow blindly in his research. He has published more than 50 academic papers on abacus. He has repeatedly pointed out the fallacies of some studies in the history of abacus at home and abroad through research and explained the doubts, and constantly innovated the theory and practical skills of abacus.
For example, the interpretation of the word "line" in the "Lu Ban Mu Jing". At that time, Li Yan, a member of the academic department of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a historian of mathematics, and Qian Baocong, a historian of mathematics, interpreted the word "line" in the Luban Wood Sutra as the original meaning, but left a question at the same time.
To understand this problem, it is necessary to find out the "Luban Wood Sutra", which was carved by the royal court when Beijing was built in the Ming Dynasty, and only a few were kept by craftsmen at that time. Jing Yushu, on the one hand, sent letters to major bookstores across the country, on the other hand, visited various ancient bookstores in Beijing, and finally found this book in China Bookstore.
After research, he wrote the article "On the 'Line' in the Luban Wood Sutra", which was published in the Chinese Abacus, eliminating the misunderstanding that the beam in the ancient abacus is a rope at home and abroad.
Jing Yushu analyzed a number of "old cases" with doubts in abacus research at home and abroad. In June 1994, he published the article "Quest for Truth in the History of Chinese Abacus" in Heilongjiang Abacus magazine, which was later reprinted by two Japanese journals: Research on the History of Abacus and Political and Economic Essays.
Jing Yushu has analyzed and explained three old doubtful cases in the history of Chinese abacus, namely, the Song Dynasty abacus unearthed in Julu, Liu Yin's "abacus poem", Fang Zhongtong's "Shudouyan" and Yang Hui's "Yang Hui Algorithm".
In September 1994, Jing Yushu published the article "The Nine Return Ancient Kuo" and the "New Kuo" in the Southern Song Dynasty cannot be reversed "at the National Annual Conference on the History of Chinese Abacus. He used a large amount of conclusive evidence to clarify that the method of division began in the Northern Song Dynasty, thus pushing the time up nearly 200 years, which was widely recognized by the academic circles at home and abroad, and corrected the assertion that the ancient books and reference books at home and abroad in the past believed that the "method of division" began in Yang Hui of the Southern Song Dynasty.
It is worth mentioning that Yasukuni has corrected the theory proposed by Japanese scholar Keiichi Hatoyama. In the early 1980s, Hugu Qingyi put forward the view that "the incremental method is the initial division method". Jing Yushu believes through research that Shen Kuo's "Zengcheng Yifa" in the Northern Song Dynasty and Xu Renmei's "Zengcheng Xuanyi Algorithm" in the Tang Dynasty are algorithms of the complement system, and this algorithm can only come from abacus, so it is concluded that "Zengcheng Yifa" is not "the initial division method".
In order to prove his point of view, he mixed the complement method of the famous mathematician Zhu Yongmao with the "five character multiplication and division method" of Li Xin, one of the main founders of the Chinese Abacus Association, wrote a variety of positive and negative peeling methods, and worked out 10 kinds of multiplication and division of the complement system, so that the abacus complement has its own system and comprehensively mixed with multiple methods, Theoretically, it negates the view of Hoku Kiyoshi.
He was the chairman of the National Abacus Education League in Japan at that time. After reading Jing Yushu's paper, he did not refute it, but let the Japanese abacus journal reprint it.
Jing Yushu's love for abacus made him innovate many times in abacus practice. The paper "Seven Positioning Methods of Abacus" written by him proposed for the first time the combination formula of multiplication, division, multiplication and division of the "formula positioning method" on the abacus, especially the "cut-off plate positioning method", which is widely used by abacus experts nationwide.
In 1981, Jing Yushu published an article entitled "On the Five Rounds of Chinese Abacus" at the Chinese Association for Arithmetic Research, which was later published by the Qilu Pearl Altar. It was the first time that Jing Yushu proposed the definition of abacus in China, which was recognized by most domestic scholars, and won the second prize awarded by the Shandong Pearl Association.
Jing Yushu has a wide range of hobbies, "civil and military". He dabbles in traditional Chinese medicine and can write prescriptions; He can punch and whip, and can make rope whip, nine section stick and double section stick; He learned from his family when he was young. He can write regular poems and write good characters. Jing Yushu likes reading history books and is good at looking at problems dialectically. The secular world never paid attention to the measurement of success, and he also wrote the seven laws of his ambition: "My father has already become a dragon bell, and the history of books at the bedside is full of love" "Whose luxury house is better than the royal palace, I have access to books in all lanes".
Jing Yushu has been obsessed with Chinese abacus all his life. He is not moved by anything or authority, which is very consistent with the image of Chinese traditional outstanding intellectuals, and also fully explains the spirit of contemporary Chinese scientists.
In his early days, he was active in learning when living in a corner, and in his later years, the famous "Pearl Altar" still insisted on his original intention. In different stages of life, Jing Yushu has been down-to-earth, constantly inheriting and carrying forward the Chinese abacus culture, and convinced the authorities at home and abroad with his knowledge.
(The author is a doctoral candidate of the School of Marxism of Shandong University, and a lecturer of Shandong Management College)
In 2013, Jing Yushu was reading the ancient calculation book.
In 1982, Jing Yushu (middle) was in the Abacus History Museum. Extended Reading
A tree in the Pearl Garden
■ Ding Lu
Lao Jing is counted as a tree in the "Pearl Garden". It should be fair not to mention the size or evaluation. His name just happens to be Jing Yushu, and "Zhu Yuan Yi Shu" is also relevant.
Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, he only had two years of anti Japanese primary school, and he has never been to any school since then. However, he was able to join the "Pearl Altar" and become an influential figure in China's "Pearl Altar". He went to international academic forums many times to express his academic opinions, and gained many scenes that convinced domestic and foreign authorities.
In July 1951, when the superior heard that Jingyushu would make several calculations, he was transferred to be the accountant of Liuzhuang Supply and Marketing Cooperative. In 1952, he was transferred to the account audit team of Linshu County Supply and Marketing Cooperative Union (hereinafter referred to as the county community). In 1953, because the accountant of Jiaolong Supply and Marketing Cooperative was old and incompetent, the county commune assigned him to Jiaolong.
At that time, Jing Yushu was 19 years old, but he was small, thin, and dressed in dirt, just like a rural child. When the director of the supply and marketing cooperatives went to the county commune to take him, he went to the office several times and didn't believe it was him. He asked the county commune leaders, "Does this child work?"
Jing Yushu sits on the director's bicycle and comes to Jiaolong Supply and Marketing Cooperative. The suspicious director came to take an accounting exam that night. He invited abacus experts from dozens of villages famous throughout the region to compete with the new accountant. After the fight, Jing Yushu asked, "Do you want to check it again?" A man with the deepest seniority and highest reputation said, "Do you still call it abacus?" He scorned the new "little accountant".
The old general really lives up to his reputation. Jing Yushu is a hundred times more careful and dare not show his talent. In particular, when he was fighting the return method, he secretly watched what the old general had to do. After he understood the old general's skills, he would no longer give in.
After a question was called out, only three "old abacus" were found, and their fingers were moving the beads "crackling". They were thinking about rolling the beads, such as big waves and dragons, which made people dizzy and exciting. But Jing Yushu is calm and leisurely. When the three veterans were still trying their best to scramble for the calculation, he had already called out the calculation results and left the veteran behind.
One question after another, the veteran was so tired that he saw stars, but it was always difficult to win. The old general was puzzled and asked, "What method do you use?" Jing Yushu asked, "What method do you use?".
In an event, Jing Yushu's skills were superior to those of the others, which convinced the veteran. Since then, Jing Yushu has become a legendary figure, with various names, such as "child prodigy accountant" and "psychic". Every time there is a big market at Shimen, people who go to the market are eager to see what "child prodigy accountant" is like in the accounting office of the supply and marketing cooperatives. In front of the door and window, people were swarming. One spread ten, ten spread one hundred, and Jingyushu became a topic of conversation in every village and street for a while.
In 1956, Linshu was removed from the county, and Jingyushu was transferred to the Chengguan Supply and Marketing Cooperative of Tancheng County, and later worked as the accountant in charge of the County Native Produce Company. In 1963, Tancheng County held an abacus contest. At that time, we had already trained a lot of talents, and there were many experts and talents in the accounting field.
On the day of the competition, more than 50 abacus masters from all over the county gathered to compete. The experts want to send the Eight Immortals across the sea to show their magic.
Jing Yushu won the second place in the first contest. In the second game, we compared addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, and asked for 30 minutes to hand in the paper. Jing Yushu only took 22 minutes to hand in the paper, all of which were correct. Only two people handed in their papers in 30 minutes, but what they did was full of mistakes. In this abacus contest, Jing Yushu won the first place in one fell swoop. Since then, many people have come to learn from her. Jing Yushu's reputation has been greatly improved.
Many people asked him, "How do you play when you open five or six lists at a time
(This article is excerpted from Jing Yushu, member of the Standing Committee of Linyi CPPCC and senior lecturer of Linyi Supply and Marketing School.)
Contributor of this edition: Zhang Jiajing
