The breadth and profundity of Chinese culture is by no means comparable to that of the alphabet. For example, a word for "power" basically refers to "power" in the present, such as "regime", "right", "abstention", "authority", "authorization", "power" and so on.
For the idiom of "right", "weigh the pros and cons" comes first. The Chinese explanation is as follows:
Right: Weighing. Weighing: Weigh the rod. Trade-offs: Compare, measure. Compare which one is good and which one is harmful.
According to the "Former Han? In the Vinaya Chronicle, it is recorded: "Balance, peace." Therefore, the power is equalized, and the weight is also heavy. ”
The Book of Rites and Deep Clothes says: "The rules take their selflessness, the rope takes its straightness, and the weighing takes its level." This passage is to the effect that conforming to the compass and the curved ruler is taken to symbolize impartiality and selflessness, vertical as ink line is taken from its symbol of integrity, flush as a scale hammer, and scale rod is taken from its symbol of fairness.
The Biography of Fan Ju Cai Zelie also says: "Weigh the balance, measure it positively, and adjust the weight." ”
Complete sets of copper rights
Zhuangzi said in the Outer Chapters:
If you fight for it, you will steal it with the fighting axe; if you weigh it against it, you will steal it with the trade-off; if you believe it, you will steal it with the seal; if you correct it for its benevolence, you will steal it with benevolence.
In this article, Zhuangzi scolded the powerful minister Tian Chengzi for "those who steal the hook, and those who steal the country are princes." In his view, the "weighing" thing is the weight of the country, sacred and inviolable.
Speaking and going,
The "trade-off" is the balance
。
In the ancient days of the continent, the weight of things was heavy
balance
And rod scales are commonly referred to as "trade-offs".
The ancients saw trade-offs as
A symbol of fairness and justice.
First, "weighing" is the most important tool of the country
The Western Zhou bronzes are inscribed with inscriptions such as: "Jin Shi Yao (Omitted)", "Silk Three Yao", and "Jin Shi Even". "Gold" is not gold, it refers to copper; "寽" and "even" are units of measurement. From these inscriptions, we can know that as early as the Western Zhou Dynasty, people mastered the principle of leverage and produced tools to weigh the mass of objects , that is, balances.
The scale was produced during the Wei, Jin, and Southern and Northern Dynasties. In the Three Kingdoms period, the balance of the ti button gradually moved from the middle to one end, and the scale star was engraved on the scale pole to calculate the pound and two, which was the prototype of the lift rod scale.
Judging from the unearthed iron scales of the Northern Wei and Northern Qi, as early as the Wei and Jin dynasties and the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the rod scales have been promoted and widely used in the folk.
In 1973, a piece of Qin Dynasty iron power was unearthed in Qianshan Mountain. From the inscription, it can be known that as the standard weight approved by the Qin official government, this iron power is a measuring tool uniformly cast by Qin Shi Huang when he unified weights and measures, and there are only two remaining pieces in the country, which are rare cultural relics.
Qin Dynasty Iron Power
In the twenty-sixth year, the emperor annexed the world, and the princes Qianshou Da'an were established as emperors, and they were edicted as emperors, and the law was measured, then they were not one, and those who were humble were all clear
In March 2015, Yuanqu County, Shanxi Province, found a thousand-year-old piece of copper rights in a cultural relic excavated from a local Eastern Han Dynasty earthen cave tomb, which can be used as a physical object to support the history of ancient Chinese weights and measures and bronzes.
Eastern Han Dynasty copper power excavated from Yuanqu County
Measuring scales are the heavy weapons of the country, and successive dynasties have attached great importance to their manufacture and management. As early as the Western Zhou Dynasty, King Chengwang of Zhou promulgated the standard of weights and measures, and made special provisions on the use of management: every year in the mid-spring and mid-autumn months, "the same measurement, equal weighing".
According to the "Qin Law and Gong Law", the law stipulates that the scale is once a year, and when it is collected or borrowed, it can be handed over to the recipient after face calibration. During the Reign of Emperor Zhenzong of Song, weights and measures were calibrated again.
In order to strengthen the management of scales, successive generations have also set up special officials and institutions in charge of weights and measures. History records that during the Eastern Han Dynasty, JingZhao Yinping weighed it up, so that "the city has no ah, and the people are satisfied." In the Tang Dynasty, there were special supervisors. The Ming Dynasty Trade-off Pass was supervised by the Baoyuan Bureau of the Ministry of Works, and the Terracotta Division and the Municipal Division were responsible for correcting the scales.
Second, the origin and change of "trade-offs"
Ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, the status of the balance still stands firm
Like Greece and Rome in ancient Europe, continental measuring instruments also had balances.
Ancient balances are the same basic principles as the modern balances we see in the laboratory today, but they look very different. It has a wooden or bronze scale (scale rod). The midpoint of the weighing rod is tied with a rope for lifting, and a weighing pan is fixed at each end. One weighing pan holds the item to be weighed, and the other weighing pan delegates (weights). The weights of the time were a whole set of bronze rights of different sizes.
Mo Jia, who pays attention to "what is spoken, what must be done", recorded the production of trade-offs in his book "Ink Classic":
The weight of the balance on its side will be pounded (vertical), the weight (not) is similar, the balance is short and long, the two are added, and the weight is similar, then the pole is also empowered.
This passage is enough to show that as early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the Mo family had an understanding of the principle of leverage and made a weighing instrument.
The Mo family who firmly believes in "practice makes true knowledge"
In the middle and late Spring and Autumn Period, the State of Chu had already manufactured a small scale instrument , the Wooden Heng. The right of the copper ring is used to call the gold currency. A complete set of ring rights consists of ten pieces, which are roughly multiplied, namely one baht, two baht, three baht, six baht, twelve baht, one two, two two, four two, eight two, and one pound.
Early balances consisted of a beam and two weighing pans, the center of the beam was suspended with a thin rope as the fulcrum, and the weighing pan was suspended with a thin rope at both ends of the beam, and the beam had holes at both ends, and the string was fixed through the hole.
Since the 1960s, electronic technology has developed amazingly, and the combination of ancient balances and emerging electronic technologies has led to the emergence of so-called all-electronic balances.
The application of balances is still expanding, the whole trend is to high precision, high efficiency, high immunity, single disc balance instead of double disc balance, electronic balance instead of mechanical balance, up to replace the so-called "three high three substitution" direction. It can be predicted that there will be more and more external devices combined with balances in the future. It won't be long before balances, calculators, processors and printers combine into one whole.
The emergence and development of rod scales
The basic feature of a balance is that one side of the weight of the weighing rod (force arm) is equal in length to the side of the hanging item (heavy arm). Therefore, the weight of the release (weight) should be equal to the weight of the item to be weighed. This makes the balance only suitable for items weighed lightly. To weigh heavier items, you have to put tens or hundreds of kilograms of "right", which is too troublesome! The wise ancients discovered the principle of "small scales pressing a thousand pounds", and rod scales were born from this.
The Museum of Chinese History houses a warring states bronze scale rod that is different from the scale and later weighing rod, but similar to the unequal arm balance. After a gradual evolutionary process, the heavy arm of the scale rod was shortened and the force arm was lengthened, which became a rod scale still in use in modern times.
Pole scales can be seen in the murals of Xinjiang in the Tang Dynasty, which has been greatly improved compared with the Southern and Northern Dynasties. By the time of the Song Dynasty, large rod scales had appeared, weighing hundreds of pounds, mounted on a wooden frame, and both buyers and sellers could see clearly. The Yuan Dynasty mural "Weighing Fish Figure" has already appeared relatively precise "chopping".
Later, the function of the scale was more refined, and it could be divided into needle scales, hook scales, centimeter scales, gold scales, plate scales, etc., which can be freely selected according to the weighing items.
The advent of rod scales has made a significant contribution to the development of measurement technology. During the Tang Dynasty, the measurement technology of the mainland spread to Japan and other Eastern countries, and had a positive impact on the measurement technology of these countries.
Third, the trade-off is in the private sector
In ancient times, people were simple in folk customs, believed in ghosts and gods, believed in karma, paid attention to honesty in doing business, and attached great importance to trades. If the seller is manipulating the scale, once found, the buyer has the right to directly break the scale rod, and the seller must not have objections, but can only hang his head and slip away under the contemptuous eyes of passers-by.
If it is a large store, when weighing gold and silver or other valuables, it is found that the store is cheating on the trade-off, the buyer can take off the store's sign and the store must not have objections.
Even if the lawsuit is sued by the officials, the sellers who are punished must be dishonest sellers, and the acts of breaking the scales and picking up the signboard will not be punished in any way, but will be praised by the government.
Li Guangting of the Qing Dynasty said in volume IV of the "Explanation of The Rural Dialect": "The city is called a weight for a boy who recruits wealth, and a weigh hammer is a fair old man."
Because the trade-off is really important in life, the rod scale is very close to the people, almost every household has at least one scale, familiar with and will use the rod scale has become a necessary skill. There is a slip of the tongue to educate children and grandchildren
：“
Do not know the scale flower (scale star), it is difficult to be home", so the child "grasp the week", in addition to books, abacus, scissors, toys, needle and thread and cosmetics, there is often a scale, once the rod scale is grabbed, it is also considered "satisfactory", this son can at least protect the family. Some families not only use the scale as a daily weighing instrument, but also as an auspicious object or totem, as the "god of wealth", and even like the sword and the abacus, it is regarded as a "evil suppression" thing.
There are many other folk slang terms about scales in life, such as
“
Wheat straw is a scale - no pounds and no two", "blind weighs the scale - not put on the heart (star)", "scale without stars - do not know the weight", "with the scale rod forgot the weight - throw three pull four", "rise does not leave the bucket, the scale does not leave the weight, the sieve does not leave the basket and the basket - each has its own partner", "although the urine bubble is large and no pounds, the scale is small although it is a thousand pounds", and so on, these afterwords reflect the closeness of the relationship between "weighing" and the daily life of the people to a certain extent.
Fourth, weigh with ancient Chinese philosophy
The origin of the "scale millimeter" on the rod scale is due to "discernment". That is, when making a scale, we must be aware of the details and must not arbitrarily report the number
In the face of conscience and interests, we must repeatedly "weigh" and pay attention to integrity. Under the amplification effect of the unequal arm lever, the slightest deviation of the scale rod will be "lost in a millimeter, and the fallacy is thousands of miles".
A small dotted flower star made of metal on the scale pole is used as a sign (scale) for weighing and weighing, called a scale star. The first seven stars represent the seven stars of the Big Dipper, admonishing the scale holder to stand between heaven and earth, the heart should be as determined as the seven stars of the Big Dipper indicating the direction, must not be greedy, do not distinguish between right and wrong; the last six stars are the six stars of the South Dipper, representing the six directions of the east, west, south, north and bottom, reminding people to use the scale to be centered in the heart and not biased.
Traditional Chinese physiognomy pays attention to "the main life of the six stars of the South Dipper, the main death of the seven stars of the Big Dipper", life and death are marked on a scale, and there are gods three feet above the head, to see if the user of the scale can still wait to look at it?
Qin Shi Huang unified the six kingdoms and unified weights and measures. "A law weighs the stone ruler." The car is on the same track, the book is the same text. Add the three stars of "Fu, Lu and Shou" to the scale pole and change it to sixteen two to one pound, which is also the origin of the idiom "half a pound eight two".
The Three Stars of Fu, Lu and Shou added by the Qin Dynasty at the end of the scale pole are also very exquisite, which is said to be used to warn traders to pay attention to honest management and not to cheat. A short weight of less than two will damage yin morality:
Among them, one or two less are called "loss of happiness", that is, to reduce the blessings and blessings brought about by past lives and births; the second and second few are called "wounded", which will reduce the original official title of the family or oneself; the less than three or two are called "folded life", which will definitely detract from the yang life expectancy of the person or other close relatives.
Remind people to be honest in doing business, and not to do things that harm others and benefit themselves with conscience.
"Nailed, fixed star". The first scale star on the scale rod is the "fixed disk star", and the person who will buy the scale will first put the scale on the fixed disk star, and the two ends are flat, and the scale is not false; on the contrary, if the fixed disk star is not accurate, it will be short of two pounds and lose "justice". There is a sentence in the theme song of the prime minister Liu Luoguo:
"There is a scale between heaven and earth, and the scale is the common people, and the scale stalk picks up the country and the mountains, and you are the star that sets the plate."
The number and position of the scale star are regulated, and its color also has standards: the color of the scale rod is black or red, and the color of the scale star is white, which originally meant to be convenient, accurate and rapid reading of the weighing scale, but in later generations it was extended to "black and white", and it is necessary to do business fairly and honestly, and cannot be confused with black and white.
epilogue:
In the Seven Stars of the Big Dipper (Tianshu, Tianxuan, Tianji, Tianquan, Yuheng, Kaiyang, and Shaking Light), Tianquan weighs; Yuheng is balanced. It can be seen that in the eyes of the ancients, the trade-off is related to the Mandate of Heaven and the AuspiciousNess. In the Warring States period, the copper scale of the unequal arm scale is engraved with the word "king", indicating that in ancient times, "weighing" was a symbol of royal power. Zhuge Liang, a famous man of a generation, once said: "My heart is like a scale, and I cannot be low with others." In his eyes, "weighing" represents fairness, justice, and justice in the world, and represents law, rules, and dignity.
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the sons of the Hundred Families often used philosophical language as a metaphor for the strategy of political power and power, "the weight of a thousand jun, the addition of baht and two moves", this sentence is to say that in the mutual competition between the powerful countries, due to small gains and losses, it is likely to bring about major changes in the situation pattern. On both sides of the same side, if one side loses, it will lose both.
Very few people know the scales in modern times, and not many know the true meaning of the word "trade-offs." The times are changing, but the "justice and integrity" represented by the trade-off should be passed down forever as a fine tradition of the Chinese nation.