From Under One Person: Sincere Journey Through the Heavens

"Coming to challenge us and then insulting us, how shameless!"

"..."

In front of a large audience, Kong Yuru's remark of "foolish man" offended most of the people outside the room, who glared at him angrily.

If it weren't for the local soldiers stopping them and Jiang Liu being present, they would have rushed forward to let that refined Confucian scholar truly experience the power of these fools!

Look at his talent, can he even withstand the punches of so many of them!

"Very well, you don't need to teach me. The methods of cultivating talent are also found in the books collected by the Confucian Association, but I just haven't paid attention to them before."

However, his teachings, though passed down by Kong Yuru, have been criticized.

However, what one learns from books purchased from one's own home can be considered a direct inheritance of the teachings of Confucius.

"Really not?"

Kong Yuru smiled and said, "The method of cultivating talent that is rumored outside was first created by my ancestors and is extremely difficult to learn. However, my Kong family has been passed down for more than two thousand years, and the method of cultivating talent is already close to perfect, which is much more convenient."

"Ordinary methods of cultivating talent from the outside world will suffice," Jiang Liu said calmly.

"OK then."

Kong Yuru nodded.

Then, the first match, a contest of numbers, began.

Kong Yuru said, "Since I decide on the content, why don't we let Chairman Jiang come up with the topic?"

"Alright."

Jiang Liu nodded, stood up, and said, "Since it's a competition of arithmetic, and it's open to the public, something too complicated wouldn't be good. Let's keep it simple. The problem I'm going to present is the most common 'chicken and rabbit in the same cage' problem:"

There are pheasants and rabbits in the same cage. There are 35 heads and 94 feet. How many pheasants and rabbits are there?

"Isn't this a bit too simple?"

Zhang Enpu began, "Everyone here who has read a book knows the answer."

"Then let the problem solver write down their solution process as well, and see who can write it down more concisely and neatly, how about that?"

Jiang Liu made the suggestion.

"Then so be it."

Like a pine tree, a single hammer blow can settle the score.

Kong Yuru then presented his own problem: "My problem is a bit more complicated: Now there are three bundles of top-grade rice, two bundles of medium-grade rice, and one bundle of bottom-grade rice, totaling thirty-nine bushels; two bundles of top-grade rice, three bundles of medium-grade rice, and one bundle of bottom-grade rice, totaling thirty-four bushels; one bundle of top-grade rice, two bundles of medium-grade rice, and three bundles of bottom-grade rice, totaling twenty-six bushels. How many bundles of top-grade, medium-grade, and bottom-grade rice are there in one bundle?"

It's obvious that they want to gain the upper hand over Jiang Liu.

But Jiang Liu didn't care.

Once the question has been raised, what is needed next is someone to solve it.

Kong Yuru scanned the six members of the Confucian Society, her gaze finally settling on Li Yang—

Each of the six players can only play once. Logically speaking, following the principle of Tian Ji's horse racing strategy, the best option would be to let Jiang Liu win the first game and then eliminate him from the remaining five games.

However, he had been waiting for most of the day and was in a bad mood, so he said the wrong thing and offended the local people. If he wins the race by relying on Tian Ji's horse racing strategy, he may not be able to convince the people.

Secondly, if they could secure their first victory, it would boost the morale of the Kong family and prove their legitimacy.

Li Yang was chosen because the propaganda department of the Confucian Association, Mingfei Newspaper, had already been promoting the people who would fight for the Confucian Association and explaining Jiang Liu's reasons for choosing these six people, to prove that: overthrow the Confucian temple and return Confucianism to the people. Li Yang was a genuine farmer. Although he joined the Confucian Association's agricultural department and became a member of Shennong Hall, it was said that he still spent most of his time working in the fields.

Over the past month, Kong Yuru had personally gone to the fields near Yuhang to investigate. Li Yang was indeed a peasant, mostly tending to crops in the fields and by the lake. Although he could do arithmetic, he was said to be only at the level of a second-grade student at Mingxin Academy, and was not a threat.

Seeing that Kong Yuru had chosen someone, Jiang Liu didn't have as many thoughts as him. He pointed to Mingyin, who was closest to him, and said, "Let's go with him."

The first match—

Project: Number!

Both sides: Li Yang vs. Ming Yin!

Li Yang was quite nervous when he first heard about arithmetic, but he was relieved when he learned that it was a problem involving chickens and rabbits in the same cage and three types of grains.

After Li Yang and Ming Yin distributed paper and pens, and with the joint announcement from Ru Song and Zhang Enpu, the two immediately picked up their pens and began solving the problem.

Time limit: Three minutes.

Less than three minutes later, Mingyin had already stopped writing. As soon as she looked up, she saw that Li Yang had also stopped writing. She was surprised and wondered to herself, "Could this country farmer have just written down the answer?"

"Time's up!"

After three minutes, Ru Song called out, and Zhuge Yu personally took the stage, ordering someone to bring over two upright blackboards, on which Li Yang and Ming Yin's solutions were copied.

The first problem is the chicken and rabbit problem:

There are pheasants and rabbits in the same cage. There are 35 heads and 94 feet. How many pheasants and rabbits are there?

Mingyin then wrote down two solutions to this problem:

Assumption 1: They are all chickens!

If the cage is full of chickens, there are 35 chickens, and each chicken has two legs, for a total of 70 legs.

However, the problem states there are ninety-four legs, but there are twenty-four extra.

The extra foot is the rabbit's, therefore, twenty-four divided by two equals twelve.

Therefore, there are twelve rabbits.

There were twenty-three chickens.

Assumption 2: They are all rabbits!

If the cage contains only rabbits, there are 35 rabbits, each with four legs, for a total of 140 legs.

However, the question states that there are 94 feet, which is 46 short.

The missing number of legs is for chickens. Forty-six divided by two equals twenty-three.

Therefore, there are twenty-three chickens and twelve rabbits.

These two solutions are actually the same thing, both being hypothetical solutions, and both are entirely textual, giving most people in the audience a headache.

Yuhang is no small county town. Arabic numerals are already widely used there, but Mingyin's interpretation method is entirely based on text descriptions. Wouldn't that bother them?

Let's look at Li Yang's solution—

Let there be x chickens and y rabbits.

Let x + y = 35 be a given value.

2x + 4y = 94, let's call it two.

Substituting x = 35 – y into the second equation:

2(35–y)+4y=94

70 – 2y + 4y = 94

2y=24

y=12 (Rabbit)

x = 23 (chickens)

Ok!

To most people, this solution was a jumble of "x" and "y" symbols, but anyone with a sound mind could understand the logic behind it.

In essence, Li Yang's problem-solving methods are the same as Mingyin's, but the key difference lies in the fact that Li Yang's approach is much simpler and clearer.

"Why are you using foreign languages ​​and numbers?" Kong Yuru, who also recognized English letters and Arabic numerals, frowned and asked.

"I hope you know that we, the Confucian Society, follow Mr. Lu Xun's 'borrowing' principle. Whatever is useful, we will naturally take it and use it."

Jiang Liu succinctly stated, "These Arabic numerals were introduced to China in the 13th century, but only gradually became popular in the early 20th century. It's not that these numerals were ineffective in the past, but rather that they were not accepted by the Confucian scholars who served the emperor."

Now that the emperor is gone, numbers that are easier for ordinary people to learn and even easier to write should naturally be used.

As for English letters like X, Y, and Z, they are useful and usable, so we should naturally make use of them. Moreover, the West has long been using letters to represent unknowns in mathematics, so we should naturally adopt the useful knowledge from the West.

Just as Dong Zhongshu once dismissed all other schools of thought and exclusively honored Confucianism, it doesn't mean he completely abandoned the knowledge of the other schools; rather, he incorporated it into his own system.

# Chapter 1058 Systematic Western Arithmetic

Hearing Jiang Liu's eloquent explanation, Kong Yuru couldn't very well lie, so she looked at the second question he posed:

Now there are three bundles of superior grain, two bundles of medium grain, and one bundle of inferior grain, totaling 39 bushels; two bundles of superior grain, three bundles of medium grain, and one bundle of inferior grain, totaling 34 bushels; and one bundle of superior grain, two bundles of medium grain, and three bundles of inferior grain, totaling 26 bushels. How many bundles of superior, medium, and inferior grain are actually contained in one bundle?

Mingyin adopted the method from the Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art, using counting rods to arrange a matrix.

The row order is "right, middle, left".

The coefficients are categorized as "top grain | middle grain | bottom grain seedling | ripe grain".

Right row: Upper grain 3, Middle grain 2, Lower grain 1, Real 39

Bank of China: Shanghe 2, Zhonghe 3, Xiahe 1, Shi 34

Left row: Upper grain 1, Middle grain 2, Lower grain 3, Real 26

Place three bushels of high-quality rice, two bushels of medium-quality rice, and one bushel of low-quality rice, filling thirty-nine bushels in the right side.

The middle and left he are listed on the right.

Multiply the three bundles of grain on the right side by the middle side, and repeat this process. Then make the two bundles of grain on the middle side equal to the two bundles on the right side, and subtract the middle side from the middle side.

Then proceed to the left, also by dividing by the straight line.

However, if the grain in the middle row is not completely consumed, multiply it by the grain in the left row and divide it by the straight line.

Thirty-six bushels of grain were harvested on the left, totaling ninety-nine bushels.

How much grain is in a single bushel of rice?

Five bushels of medium-grain grain and one bushel of lower-grain grain, totaling twenty-four bushels.

Take three bushels of upper grain on the right, two bushels of middle grain, and one bushel of lower grain, totaling thirty-nine bushels.

Shanghe Yibingshi: Nine dou and four fen dou of three