1. Pan Jing's experience of joining the abacus army
On November 29, 2007, an admission letter issued by the abacus unit of the Military Economics Academy of the Chinese People's Liberation Army sounded like a thunderclap in an ordinary family in Ulanhot, Inner Mongolia.
The recipient of the notice is Pan Jing, a six-year-old girl.
As a national-level mental arithmetic elite team, the abacus unit treats the selection criteria for recruits extremely strictly. Not only do you need to have extraordinary mental arithmetic skills, but you also need to be highly recommended by the Chinese Abacus Association.
It can be said that Pan Jing was able to become the youngest member in the history of the army, which was really hard-won.
It all started two years ago. At that time, Pan Jing, who was only four years old, entered a local kindergarten. In order to maximize the children's interests and strengths, the kindergarten teachers have carefully prepared a variety of teaching aids, and arranged different interest courses for each child according to their preferences.
At first, Pan Jing didn't show too much preference, she just stared at the props representing different courses in a daze, her eyes full of doubts. Faced with Pan Jing's hesitation, the teachers decided to let her go through all the lessons step by step, hoping to find the direction she really loved.
Just after Pan Jing completed a lap of experience, a lesson on mental arithmetic slowly kicked off the prelude to fate. The teacher of this class is none other than Ma Lixin, an experienced and well-known expert in mental arithmetic.
During the lesson, Ma Lixin enthusiastically showed the children a delicate abacus, hoping to stimulate their interest in mental arithmetic.
The moment she saw the abacus, Pan Jing's eyes seemed to burst out with a magical light, and she stared at the abacus, as if she was deeply attracted by it.
Throughout the class, Pan Jing maintained a high degree of concentration, listened to Ma Lixin's explanations with great interest, and imitated arithmetic actions from time to time.
It was this scene that deeply attracted Ma Li's new attention. As a senior mental arithmetic practitioner, she saw Pan Jing's extraordinary talent at a glance. So, Ma Lixin secretly made up her mind that she must vigorously cultivate this little genius.
Sure enough, under the careful guidance of teacher Ma Lixin, Pan Jing's mental arithmetic level improved rapidly. In just two years, she has become a well-deserved master of mental arithmetic.
When the abacus army held the recruit enrollment examination in 2007, in order to help Pan Jing obtain the precious written examination qualification, Ma Lixin traveled thousands of miles to personally visit Wang Weida, president of the Chinese Abacus Mental Arithmetic Association, and made a lot of efforts for Pan Jing.
It was with Ma Lixin's strong recommendation and Pan Jing's excellent written test results that finally impressed the leadership of the abacus army. Although Pan Jing was still young and was suitable for immediate military service, there was a lot of debate about whether she was suitable for immediate service, but after weighing the pros and cons, they still made the decision to admit without exception.
In this way, Pan Jing became the youngest member in the history of the abacus army.
2. The origin of the abacus army
Some people may wonder if Pan Jing was specially recruited by the abacus army. But if you dig deeper into the origin of this team, it is not difficult to understand its preference for a genius like Pan Jing.
The abacus army has a long history, and its origins can be traced back to the sixties and seventies of the last century. At that time, New China was facing a grim international situation, and it was urgent to enhance its military and scientific and technological strength.
However, since mainframe computers did not exist at that time, the large amount of data needed to develop new weapons had to rely on human calculations.
It is in this context that the thousand-year-old art of mental arithmetic once again highlights its unique value. Its efficient computing power provides a reliable guarantee for the processing of a large number of complex data, thus greatly promoting the country's weapons research and development process and injecting new impetus into the country's military strength.
With the passage of time, although computers have been developed and widely used, the mainland has not given up the precious traditional skill of mental arithmetic. The reason for this is that manual mental arithmetic is significantly more reliable and less susceptible to interference than computers that rely on electricity.
In view of this, in order to prevent the risk that computers may be interfered with and cannot work normally, in 1994, at the suggestion of the military decision-making level, the mainland government formally established a national-level mental arithmetic force to coordinate the use of this special computing force.
Since then, the abacus unit has become an indispensable and important member of the mainland's military and scientific research forces. As elite elements in the army, their duty is to rely on their superhuman computing power to provide a large amount of data support for the country's major scientific research projects, so as to ensure the smooth progress of science and technology.
It can be said that the existence of the abacus unit not only reflects the mainland's inheritance of traditional culture, but also demonstrates our firm determination to maintain independence and self-determination in the course of modernization.
Because of this, when a young genius like Pan Jing is discovered, the leadership of the army will bring him under his command at all costs.