Although many family families have a fixed family tree, in the family tree, each generation has a clear word rule.
In ancient China, people of the same generation used the same word in the middle when taking names, although in modern society, people no longer pay attention to the generational problem in the family tree, but it still occupies a very important position in the family.
Ancient princes will also determine their names according to the generations in the family tree when taking names, but if you have studied the history of the Ming Dynasty, you will find such a problem, the names of the Ming princes, if spelled together, can just form a periodic table of chemical elements, such a coincidence, is really surprising.
Zhu Yuanzhang formulated the generational word division
Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, was born into poverty, and as an emperor from a famous peasant background in history, he suffered from snacks.
In order not to let future generations taste the bittersweet and bittersweet of life like himself, Zhu Yuanzhang can be described as lawless for his future life.
After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the first thing Zhu Yuanzhang did was to implement the "feudal king system" and divide the Ming Dynasty's Zhu surnamed kings to various places, which could not only protect the security of the Ming Dynasty's frontiers, but also give his descendants full rights, so as to ensure that the Ming Dynasty's Jiangshan was always in the hands of the Zhu family.
In addition, Zhu Yuanzhang's original name was Zhu Zhongba, and later after he became emperor, he felt that this name did not have the style of a general, not like the name that an emperor should call, so he changed his name.
In order to make the Zhu family "live forever", he adopted the phrase "five elements of mutual survival" when naming the future generations, and all the royal descendants of the Ming Dynasty must have "gold, wood, water, fire, and earth" as the side word when taking names.
Zhu Yuanzhang thought that each son's 20 generations were enough for future generations, but he obviously underestimated the reproductive ability of his descendants, and in ancient times, he paid attention to polygamy, especially the royal descendants, there were many wives, and naturally there were more children than ordinary people.
Constant innovation for the name
Zhu Yuanzhang had a total of 26 sons, and the descendants of later generations were innumerable, and he had previously divided each son into 20 generations, which was obviously far from enough, so by the end of the Ming Dynasty, zhu Yuanzhang's assigned generational words had almost been used up.
However, in ancient times, when future generations took names, they could not use any of the words used by their predecessors, otherwise they would be regarded as "filial piety".
During the Ming Dynasty, the number of words was limited, and when Zhu Yuanzhang's descendants were named later, there were almost no words to use, and it was even more difficult for Zhu Yuanzhang to stipulate that the rules of the five elements must be used.
In order to give the descendants of the Ming Dynasty a suitable name, the Civil and Military Officials of the Ming Dynasty, who can be said to have worked hard, were looking up the words with "gold, wood, water, fire, and earth" every day, and later they really couldn't find the usable words, and they began to "innovate".
The so-called "innovation" refers to the creation of some words that were not available before, in order to name the ming dynasty.
According to historical records, the Ming Dynasty also set up a special department for character creation at that time, and the only responsibility of this department was to name Zhu Yuanzhang's descendants.
As long as the characters created, according to Zhu Yuanzhang's words, with "gold, wood, water, fire and earth" on the side, can be used to take names.
Later periodic tables of chemical elements are mostly some metallic elements, so there are many words with the word "gold", which to a certain extent has certain similarities with the naming rules formulated by Zhu Yuanzhang for future generations.
However, the periodic table of chemical elements began in the West and did not use words, so why did it happen to be the name of the Ming Dynasty emperor after it was translated into Chinese?
To talk about this problem, we have to mention Xu Shou, the "first able craftsman" in the late Qing Dynasty.
Translate the periodic table of elements
In the late Qing Dynasty, when Western culture began to enter China, Xu Shou, as a "celebrity" in the late Qing Dynasty, occupied an important position in the development of the history of the late Qing Dynasty, and he was responsible for the translation work after the periodic table of chemical elements was introduced to China.
However, the founder of this periodic table of chemical elements was Mendeleev of Russia, in the form of a foreign language.
For Xu Shou, who has not been exposed to foreign languages, this is quite a difficult thing, and many of the words in them are actually difficult to translate in Chinese Chinese characters.
Later, Xu Shou studied the characteristics of the periodic table of chemical elements and wanted to start through this aspect to translate it into Chinese.
He found that the so-called chemical elements are actually some metal elements, so he planned to follow the harmonic sound of the periodic table of chemical elements, and then use the words on the side of the metal to complete the translation work.
As an important figure in the late Qing Dynasty, he naturally knew the naming rules of the Ming Dynasty princes very well, and many princes of the Ming Dynasty used a lot of words next to the golden characters when naming them, and Xu Shou used these words when translating the periodic table of chemical elements.
This can also explain why the names of the Ming dynasty princes are spelled together, which happens to be the periodic table of chemical elements.
Many people think that this is a coincidence, in fact, this is just a "beautiful accident" in the process of historical development, and the two people who caused this "accident" are Zhu Yuanzhang and Xu Shou.
Zhu Yuanzhang formulated the naming rules for the descendants of the Ming Dynasty royal family, and when Xu Shou translated the periodic table of chemical elements, he translated the periodic table according to the words next to the golden characters in the name of the Ming emperor.
epilogue
In this world, there are always all kinds of coincidences, but most of the coincidences can actually be explained from a scientific point of view.
However, people are not willing to spend time and energy to study, Zhu Yuanzhang did not expect this coincidence when he formulated the naming rules for his descendants, but Xu Shou created this coincidence when translating the periodic table of chemical elements.
This also makes many people can't help but sigh that Chinese culture is really broad and profound, and Chinese characters have a long history and long charm.
There are also countless "coincidences" created by Chinese characters, and it is precisely because of the existence of these "coincidences" that they also cast a mysterious veil over Chinese characters.