Volume 4: Gathering of Sages Chapter 637: One Hundred Thousand Whys
Not all civil and military officials attended the East Palace's congratulations. After all, the main hall of Ciqing Palace was slightly smaller than Wenhua Hall, and Wenhua Hall was several times smaller than Fengtian Hall, so it couldn't accommodate too many people. The only people who could come here to congratulate were the civil and military officials who also served as East Palace officials, as well as the royal family.
As for the civil and military officials, they later submitted a memorial to congratulate the Crown Prince on receiving the appointment.
However, in most cases in the past, it was the younger princes who congratulated their eldest brother, the Crown Prince. Unfortunately, the Third Prince was not the eldest brother at all, and his younger brother was only the Fourth Prince. So when the royal family came to congratulate, the elders such as the King of Jiangdu did not have to attend, so the kings were left with only two or three dogs and cats.
That's right, in order to avoid any problems, the emperor deliberately selected royal family members of the same generation as the third and fourth princes to come to the East Palace to pay tribute, and some of them were even younger than the fourth prince!
At this moment, six children aged seven or eight knelt on the ground, and the Fourth Prince led them and shouted solemnly: "I am Zheng Yan, the younger brother, and I am overwhelmed with joy to see my elder brother, the Crown Prince, being honored with the title of Emperor. I would like to lead the other brothers to congratulate His Highness!"
The Grand Secretary Kong, who was honored as the Grand Tutor of the Crown Prince because of the departure of Lord Jiang, felt his mouth twitch. Lord Wu, who had always been the Grand Tutor of the Crown Prince, smiled and nodded repeatedly in approval.
Zhang Yu, the Prince's Guardian beside him, was filled with mixed feelings, but his face was stiff. Others who held the positions of Third Young Master of the Eastern Palace, Junior Secretary of the Imperial Household, and so on, including Liu Zhiyuan, who was just given the position of Secretary by the Emperor, had to work hard to keep a stiff face and not show any excessive expression. Don't look down on them because they are small, they are all members of the royal family, and no one can laugh at them!
When the neatly dressed attendants of the Eastern Palace lined up to pay their respects, they saw the huge team of dozens of people. They thought of the rumor that the emperor had released that he would select a group of attendants from the Eastern Palace to serve the prince in Ciqing Palace. Many people were wondering whether they should object. If they did, how could they gather others to oppose together? But this was too difficult.
Because as far as they knew, not to mention that the emperor had spread the word, he would first select people from the Ruexing Hall of the Imperial College, so the Ruexing Hall, which was originally one of the six halls of the Imperial College, became a popular place in an instant. The officials who had originally disdained studying in the Imperial College as a waste of time were suddenly confused when they saw that the academic officials had made such a big joke.
They clearly knew that the Imperial College was rotten, but they flocked to it just because the best students from the Ruxing Hall could be selected to serve as attendants in the Eastern Palace? Isn't this too embarrassing?
Even the Banshan Hall, which was about to be moved out of the Imperial College and had been abandoned by countless people, had four extra places allocated because the emperor wanted to encourage people to study and make progress. It was said that more than a dozen well-informed families were planning to send their children and grandchildren there.
As for Jiuzhangtang… the unconventional Jiuzhangtang had already occupied many of the places for the East Palace tutors. After all, the Third Prince had done his best to get into the school, and studied under Zhang Shou, and was even classmates with many of them. But even if someone in your family is really gifted in mathematics, the next enrollment will have to wait until next year, so even if you have the ability, you won’t be able to get in!
At this moment, Lu Sanlang and Qi Liang, who were the first to salute, had different backgrounds, but they were equally excited. Ji Jiu, who was a little behind, also had tears in his eyes. As for the others, no matter if they were from decent or humble backgrounds, no matter if they had spoken to the Third Prince in the past or had never dared to communicate with him, in short, their movements were as stiff as puppets.
If Zhang Shou hadn't been standing next to them, and they could have seen the teacher right away, I don't know how many people would have kowtowed one more time, or one less time...
So, when all the ceremonies were over, Grand Secretary Kong almost fled from the main hall of Ciqing Palace, which made him very uncomfortable. Most of the other officials of the Eastern Palace also left very quickly. In an instant, the place that was just crowded was left with only five royal children led by the naughty Fourth Prince, and the people from Jiuzhang Hall.
It's not that none of the other officials were willing to stay, but when they saw the configuration of the people left in the main hall of Ciqing Palace, even Minister Chen of the Ministry of Revenue, who was the Prince's Guardian and Zhang Shou's senior brother, and even Liu Zhiyuan, who had a good relationship with Zhang Shou, followed the etiquette and left together with the others. Because they felt that if they stayed, it would raise the age level of the entire Ciqing Palace.
After all, even Minister Chen, who always considered himself a middle-aged man, felt old when he was with Zhang Shou, let alone when he was hanging out with those royal family children who were not even ten years old.
Seeing that the annoying old adults were gone, the Fourth Prince suddenly shouted in joy: "Brother Crown Prince, I just asked my younger brothers. From now on, they will also stay in the East Palace to study. Although their aptitude is not as good as our brothers and classmates in Jiuzhang Hall, they learned the Nine Nine Songs by heart after reading them once when they were young. They have good talent in mathematics and can add, subtract, multiply and divide very quickly!"
As he spoke, he looked at Zhang Shou and said confidently, "Just before we came in to pay our respects, I personally tested them. Teacher, you have to believe me, I am still capable of answering simple math questions!"
The emperor had looked after all these children during his absence from the palace over the years. Their elders were also the most law-abiding of the royal family, so no one was rushing to speak. Instead, they all stood there in a very orderly manner, appearing quite calm. This in turn made the older Fourth Prince look unsteady.
But the Fourth Prince didn't care about that. He only knew that although he didn't have any brothers or sisters, with such a group of well-behaved brothers around, he could finally show off his power as an elder brother. Therefore, he naturally pulled the royal family members forward one by one, introduced them enthusiastically, and persuaded Zhang Shou to personally test them so as to verify his judgment.
Among them was Zheng Yao, a nephew of King Jiangdu. Unlike his brothers who didn't like to stand out and hold power, this child was a little dull, but Zhang Shou casually asked a few complex addition and subtraction questions, and he gave answers quickly and accurately, and even answered the chicken and rabbit in the same cage problem in the Nine Chapters of Arithmetic.
This is not easy. You must know that although there is a trick to this question, the person is still younger than the Fourth Prince!
However, after being tested by Zhang Shou with three questions, Zheng Yao, who looked ordinary and was very dull except when answering questions, suddenly asked, "Teacher, I have always heard that you have a high level of attainment in mathematics and are the last disciple of Master Ge. Then can you tell me, can the stars in the sky really indicate good and bad fortune? If so, why can't the Imperial Astronomical Observatory calculate accurately from the stars?"
"And if the Imperial Observatory cannot predict good or bad fortune, and it cannot even accurately calculate the stars and solar eclipses, then what is the use of the Imperial Observatory? Then what is the point of learning mathematics? Is it only used for auditing accounts? Or for compiling secret codes for transmitting military intelligence? If it is only used in this way, how can mathematics convince those scholars who study classics and history?"
No one expected that on the day of paying homage to the Eastern Palace, a young member of the royal family who seemed to be following behind the Fourth Prince to make up the numbers would suddenly ask such a question.
Thinking about how much impact this question would have if asked in front of Confucius and others, Lu Sanlang was afraid. He did not care that Zheng Yao was a member of the royal family. Even if his father was only a general, he was not easy to bully. He immediately rushed forward and scolded him angrily: "How can this be absurd? How much mathematics have you learned, and you dare to say that mathematics is useless?"
Seeing Ji Jiu rubbing his hands as if he was going to launch a counterattack with Lu Sanlang, and Qi Liang was persuading the other indignant people, and the other young royal family members around Zheng Yao were all panicking and distancing themselves from others, as if they were afraid of being caught in the crossfire. The Fourth Prince had a frown on his face, and was obviously furious, but Zheng Yao still looked serious, and Zhang Shou couldn't help but smile.
"What is the use of mathematics? This is a very good question."
Zhang Shou understood that scholars in this era cannot be said to have no questioning spirit, because the various ancient prose movements that sounded conservative and retro were actually aimed at opposing vulgar and vulgar writing, advocating that writing should convey the truth and give articles more profound ideological content. In fact, they questioned and opposed the most mainstream writing trend at the time. This kind of questioning existed in the Tang Dynasty, the Song Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty in history.
But generally speaking, in the academic circles of classics and history these days, questioning is not encouraged. The classics of the saints’ teachings are beyond doubt, and the classics and history annotated by everyone are also beyond doubt. As for students questioning their teachers… I’m sorry.
In most cases, people will be accused of betraying their teachers and ancestors, being disrespectful to their teachers...all kinds of accusations will be put on them.
Therefore, Zhang Shou gestured to everyone not to overreact, and said calmly: "The sun sets and the stars sink, which actually has nothing to do with good or bad luck, but there is truth in it. For example, the buoyancy experiment I demonstrated to you in Banshan Hall seems to be only able to test the quality of gold and silver and whether there are layers inside, but do you know that it has other uses?"
"As we all know, wood can float on the water, but iron blocks will sink to the bottom. Even if the iron block is beaten into a thin layer of iron sheet, it will still sink to the bottom when placed on the water. But what if it is not an iron block or an iron sheet, but a square iron box with seamless seams and no cover that will not let in water? Can such an iron box float on the water?"
"It is also well known that if you drop an iron ball and a feather from a high place, the iron ball will hit the ground instantly, but the feather may be blown away by the wind. But if you drop a very heavy iron block and a small iron ball from a high place at the same time, which one will hit the ground first?"
"The sky is round and the earth is square, so why do we see the sails first and then the hull when we look at a ship entering the harbor?"
The Third and Fourth Princes , who had been in Banshan Hall, were not unfamiliar with these kinds of questions. The people in Jiuzhang Hall were also familiar with Zhang Shou's explanations because they were introduced to mathematics at the beginning and later added relatively simple physics. However, for a group of children, these whys made them very excited.
To use the way Zhang Shou just put it, that is... As we all know, children love to ask why!
Even though children from wealthy families start to learn early and have more experience, they become sensible early - this is different from children from poor families becoming independent early. One knows the hardships of life early, the other knows the vastness of the world early - so this group of royal children were able to suppress their uneasiness and curiosity, and behaved like adults when they came to congratulate the Eastern Palace just now, but now they couldn't help it.
Regardless of the fact that this was the Ciqing Palace and their parents had repeatedly told them to be respectful, one child couldn't help but ask, "Does the teacher have answers to those questions just now?"
"Of course I know." Zhang Shou laughed, but threw out a hook, "But I can only tell you part of it."
Lu Sanlang's eyes were already wide open, and he even began to look around, looking for something he often saw, but which might be in the Ciqing Palace, but it was also possible that it was not. But he soon discovered that the shy and timid Third Prince had a slightly cunning smile on his face at this moment. And the next moment, he understood why this cunning smile was.
Because just when Zhang Shou had asked Zheng Yao a bunch of questions and was then asked why by a group of royal family children, a few sturdy men brought in something that the students of Jiuzhang Hall were very familiar with - a few blackboards!
Then, Zhang Shou, who seemed to have expected the Third Prince to have such a plan, took the white pen from one of the men with a smile, and then nodded slightly to Zheng Yao and said, "You just asked me what mathematics is used for, so now I will use mathematics to demonstrate to you how the iron box can float on the water."
Zhang Shou used xyz to mark the length, width, height and thickness of the iron box, and then calculated the area of the iron sheet used to make the iron box. He then used the rough density of refined iron measured in the Tiangong Workshop to start calculating the weight of the iron box and the buoyancy required to float on the water. He then preset the depth of immersion in water and began to reverse calculate the volume of the iron box submerged in water... Everyone in Jiuzhang Hall reacted steadily, but a group of children from royal families were completely confused by the formula on the whiteboard.
God bless you, even children in later generations will never be exposed to such difficult content at the age of seven or eight!
However, after writing a few formulas, Zhang Shou turned around to look at everyone's reactions, only to find that Zheng Yao, the nephew of King Jiangdu, who raised the question, was staring at the whiteboard, as if he was trying in vain to understand these unfamiliar things, and as if no matter whether he understood them or not, he had to at least remember these formulas firmly.
Of course, it is also possible that a genius just caught the inspiration.
After Zhang Shou finished writing on the whiteboard in front of him and roughly deduced a formula, he handed the charcoal pencil back to the big man beside him and said lightly: "That is to say, under ideal conditions, things that can float in water are not just light objects like wood, but also huge steel ships! If we add the device I demonstrated at the lecture in Wenhua Hall..."
On this day, when these children from the royal family left Ciqing Palace, they were either distraught or inexplicably excited. If the things Zhang Shou described in front of them were for adults with a solid worldview, they would naturally scold them in person, and some would even denounce them as sorcery, but children are born to believe in all miracles that can fly into the sky and into the earth and are omnipotent.
Everyone felt that what they had thought of as carefully accompanying the prince to study turned out to be quite interesting! Moreover, their future teacher promised that they could ask any questions in the future, and if he couldn't answer, they could discuss it together!
