Song Yingxing

Song Yingxing

Song Yingxing (1587-1666) was born in Fengxin County, Nanchang Prefecture, Jiangxi Province. He was a famous scientist in Ming Dynasty.

Song Yingxing devoted his whole life to the scientific investigation and research of agriculture and handicraft production, and collected abundant scientific materials. At the same time, his advanced consciousness made him a thinker who held a critical attitude towards feudalism and medieval academic tradition.

Song Yingxing's works and research fields involve different disciplines of natural science and humanities, among which the most outstanding work "Tiangong Kaiwu" is known as "the Encyclopedia of Chinese technology in the 17th century".

Life of the characters

Early experience

When song Yingxing was a child, he studied with his brother Yingsheng in the family school run by his uncle song Heqing. Song Yingxing began to recognize his family uncle song guozuo as a teacher in his hometown's private school of prose. After that, he became a student under Deng Liangzhi. Song Yingxing was smart and remembered since he was young. He was able to rhyme when he was a few years old. He had a talent that he never forgot. He was very popular with his teachers and elders. A little longer, he was admitted to Fengxin County school as a student, familiar with the classics and history and various schools of thought. Among Cheng Yi, Cheng Hao, Zhou Dunyi, Zhu Xi and Zhang Zai in the Song Dynasty, he promoted Zhang Zai's Guanxue and accepted the materialist view of nature. He was very interested in astronomy, acoustics, agronomy and manufacturing. He had read Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica (published in 1596) and other books. Besides, he also likes music and poetry. He often goes to the scenic spots of the county for outings with his classmates and friends, urging each other to write poems, encouraging each other, and talking about the world.

In 1615, song Yingxing and his brother went to Nanchang, the provincial capital, to take part in the yimaoke rural examination. Among the more than 10000 candidates, song Yingxing, 29, was the third in the province and his brother was the sixth. Among the students in Fengxin, only their brothers were elected, so it is called "Fengxin two Song Dynasty". The success of the local examination encouraged the brothers. In the autumn of that year, they went to the capital (today's Beijing) for the next year's examination, but they failed. They decided to try again next time. In order to prepare for the exam, song Yingsheng, song Yingxing and others went to the ancient Bailudong Academy in Jiujiang Prefecture of Jiangxi Province to study. At that time, Shu yuejing, a famous scholar, was the leader of the Academy.

The 47th year of Wanli (1619) was the year of the last examination in Shenzong's reign. Brother song Yingxing and other examinees in Jiangxi met in the capital, but the two brothers still did not meet. After that, they tried again in the early years of Tianqi and Chongzhen, but they failed. From then on, they abandoned the idea of imperial examination.

County Learning and teaching instructions

In 1631, song Yingsheng was appointed magistrate of Tongxiang County, Zhejiang Province by the Ministry of Li Quan. Song Yingxing returned to his hometown to serve his mother. In 1635, song Yingxing was appointed as the official of learning and teaching in Fenyi County, Yuanzhou Prefecture, Jiangxi Province. Professors and students are not qualified teaching staff. In that year, his brother song Yingsheng was transferred to Enping county magistrate of Zhaoqing Prefecture in Guangdong Province. Because of his achievements, he was granted wenlinlang. Song Yingxing taught in Fenyi County for four years, which was an important stage in his life, because all his major works were published during this period.

Career life

In 1638, when song Yingxing's term of office in Fenyi was over, he was promoted to the official of Tingzhou Prefecture in Fujian Province (zhengbapin). He was subordinate to the provincial observation envoy and was in charge of the prison of Yifu, commonly known as the Department of punishment, also known as the manager.

In 1640, song Yingxing resigned before the end of his term of office.

Chongzhen 16 years (1643) and served as nanzhili Fengyang Bozhou (now Anhui Bozhou City) Zhizhou (zhengwupin), but this time is already on the eve of the Ming Dynasty. After Song Yingxing took office, the state was destroyed by war, so there was no room for promotion, and many officials left. After several efforts to rebuild, he began to take shape, and donated money to establish academies in the city.

At the beginning of 1644, song Yingxing resigned and returned to Fengxin. In March of that year, Li Zicheng's army captured the capital and the Ming Dynasty died. In April, the Qing army entered the pass and established the capital of Beijing. Song Yingxing became a people of subjugation. In May, King Fu established Nanming regime in Nanjing.

In the first year of Hongguang in Nanming Dynasty (1645), song Yingxing was recommended to Chuhe Bingxun Dao and Nanrui Bingxun Dao (the regional officer between the province and the prefecture), but song Yingxing did not give up. Before the death of the Ming Dynasty, song Yingsheng was promoted to the magistrate of Guangzhou. After the death of the Ming Dynasty, he had no intention of falling in love with an official, so he went back to his hometown.

Life in old age

Brother song Yingxing placed his hope on Nanming, but the regime was controlled by the eunuchs Ruan Dacheng and Ma Shiying, who rejected loyalty and good, and the regime soon perished. The Qing army went south to take Jiangxi.

In 1646, song Yingsheng took poison and died. Since the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, song Yingxing has been living in seclusion, living in poverty in his later years, refusing to become an official.

In 1666, song Yingxing died at the age of 80.

Main achievements

science

Song Yingxing's main contribution is that he summarized the knowledge of agricultural production and handicraft production that had appeared in China for thousands of years, and also summarized the technical experience, systematized and organized them, and then wrote a book to enable them to be handed down. Song Yingxing's books include agricultural and handicraft industries, such as machinery, brick and tile, ceramics, sulfur, candle, paper, weapons, gunpowder, textile, dyeing, salt making, coal mining, oil pressing and other production technologies. In agriculture, song Yingxing recorded in detail the whole process of rice seed soaking, breeding, seedling beating and grass cultivation. Such as "package and a few days, regret its bud, scattered in the field, give birth to Cun Xu, its name on the seedling.". After 30 days, the seedlings were pulled up and planted separately The seedlings are old and long when they are out of date. At the same time, he also pointed out various problems worthy of attention in rice planting. In handicraft industry, song Yingxing tried to use quantitative method. When describing the production process, he paid special attention to the quantitative relationship between raw material consumption and finished product recovery rate, and had a clear concept of quantity. When analyzing the transplanting of rice seedlings, song Yingxing pointed out that "the rice seedlings from one mu of rice seedling field can be transplanted for 25 mu", that is, the ratio of rice seedling field to Honda is 1:25, which is still followed in modern Jiangxi. Song Yingxing gave a preliminary explanation on the oil yield of various oilseeds: "every stone of flax, castor seed and camphor seed yields 40 Jin of oil. Each stone of Cai Lu Zi gets 27 Jin of oil. Brassica seed gains 30 jin per stone. It has both theoretical and practical significance to explain the specific and accurate data of oil crops.

In particular, the chapter "machinery" describes in detail the agricultural machinery and tools, including the vertical windmill, sugar cart, cattle rope wheel and so on, which has high scientific value.

Song Yingxing is the first scientist in the world to discuss zinc and copper zinc alloy (brass) scientifically. He pointed out clearly that zinc is a new metal and recorded its smelting method for the first time. This is one of the important achievements in the history of metal smelting in ancient China. China has become the only country in the world that can make zinc on a large scale for a long time. Song Yingxing recorded that the method of smelting brass with zinc instead of zinc compound (calamine) is the earliest record in human history that brass was made by direct melting of copper and zinc.

Song Yingxing paid attention to discovering essence from general phenomena and made some achievements in natural science theory. They are embodied in biology, chemistry and physics.

In Tiangong Kaiwu, he recorded the cases of farmers cultivating new varieties of rice and barley, studied the effects of soil, climate and cultivation methods on crop varieties, and noticed the variation caused by the hybridization of different varieties of silkworm moths. It showed that through human efforts, the variety characteristics of plants could be changed, and the conclusion that "the soil vein varies with the times, and the species properties vary with the soil and water" was drawn The scientific views have promoted the ancient Chinese scientists' understanding of ecological variation and provided a theoretical basis for the artificial cultivation of new varieties.

The movement of life is presented to human beings in a very complicated form. How many species came into being has long puzzled people's mind. Song Yingxing made a big step forward in science. When he talked about the influence of soil slope, climate and Wei Pei methods on crop variety change, he said: "if the rice loses water within ten days, it will die. It will be a kind of early rice. If it is small but not sticky, it can be planted in high mountains, and it is different." When it comes to silkworm rearing, it is pointed out that "if the white male is matched with the Yellow female, it will be used as cocoon uncovering." "Today, there is a poor family who will match the early male with the late female. Here, song Yingxing put forward the important scientific thought of species variation. In particular, it is worth noting that the species variation recorded by song Yingxing is similar to the change of environment; some of them are caused by the hybridization of different varieties, which involves a deeper understanding of species variation. In this sense, song Yingxing is one of the pioneers of the theory of biological evolution. It is no wonder that Darwin, a famous British biologist and a master of evolutionism, took the relevant expositions in Tiangong Kaiwu as an important example to demonstrate the variation and evolution of species

In physics, the newly discovered lost book on Qi and Qi sound is an outstanding chapter on acoustics. Song Yingxing studied the law of sound generation and transmission through the concrete analysis of various sounds, and put forward the concept that sound is the transmission of Qi.

In chemistry, song Yingxing analyzed the chemical properties of gold, silver, copper, tin, lead, zinc and other non-ferrous metals, compared their activity, and put forward the methods of separating or testing related metals by using their differences. When talking about the separation of gold and silver, he pointed out: "all those who are full of gold and participate in the fake sale, only silver can enter, and the rest is hopeless. If you want to remove the silver and deposit the gold, you can cut the gold into thin pieces. Each piece is coated with mud. The goose sand in the human blocking vortex melts, and the silver is sucked into the soil to let the gold flow out to form a full color. Then put a little lead into it, and then put it into the Lin vortex, where you can find the silver in it. It's also very small. " "I'm talking

Chinese PinYin : Song Ying Xing