The polytechnic man lurking in the Qing Dynasty,
Shuangwen male protagonist does not dare to live like this!
In the center of the stage, a large man was whine, squeaking.
Suddenly, an elder in official robes stood on a high platform and gestured for silence, and uttered a few words:
"Guys, we have to learn our best skills, and first of all, we have to build our own steamships, and we don't ask foreigners."
As soon as this word came out, I could only hear the ticking of time, flowing away...
Suddenly, a voice in the corner broke the damn silence: "Lord Zeng Guofan, I can." ”
It was a thin old man in a robe with long pigtails.
Three months later, China's first steam engine was born; three years later, the first domestic steam steamship sailed on China's inland rivers.
And the contributor was the old man, Xu Shou
Some people say that he is a crosser, because he is far ahead of the self-contained late Qing Dynasty.
When most people didn't know what steam was, he built the first steam engine.
While the ministers were in the middle of it, he was talking to people about chemistry.
At the age of 63, he wrote a paper that directly overturned Bernoulli's law and appeared in the international journal Nature.
Xu Shou, a scientist with long pigtails and recognized by the emperor as the "world's first craftsman", should be misunderstood as a crosser.
Xu Shou, born in 1818, just after the prosperous era of Kangqian.
He has loved to toss since he was a child, and although he has read several books, he has been thinking about handmade.
Often excuse that the teacher's class is boring, so anxious that the teacher shouts "this son cannot be taught", and then skips class with peace of mind.
After skipping class, Xu Shou went to the door of the craftsman and looked at it intently, sometimes squatting and looking.
It was dark, and I couldn't go home.
Others were backing up after class, and he went home to do manual homework.
Xu Shou also participated in the imperial examination, but the virtue of "not doing the right thing" was not even admitted to Xiucai.
He turned around in a dashing manner: "Try a boy's test, think it is practical and practical, and abandon it." ”
The Eight Strands of Literature has a ghost use, and Lao Tzu does not learn it.
In the Qing Dynasty, how to measure whether a person is a "scholar bully" or a "scum"?
If you can "pass five levels and slash six generals" in the imperial examination and successfully pass the entrance examination, you must be a bully; if you are frustrated in the field of science, you will not even be able to pass the xiucai exam for a lifetime, and you must be a scum of learning.
Xu Shou is such a scum.
In the era of four books and five classics, the "Fan Jin" on the street grabbed a big handful, but Xu Shouzheng engaged in "strange tricks and obscenities" in an eight-dimensional manner.
He has made his own crafts such as compasses and quadrants, and the chiming clocks he makes are exquisite and amazing.
But these exquisite crafts were not popular at the time.
In everyone's eyes, Xu Shou gave up the "sunshine road" of the imperial examination and specialized in this thing, that is:
"Don't do the right thing! How powerful is just a trader who can do some handicraft work, it is better to go home and farm! ”
Who would have thought that such a merchant would become a "bearer" in China's modern scientific and technological circles in the future and win glory for the country?
Xu Shou, who has suffered from social prejudice, may have doubted himself: "If I continue to do this, will life still be saved?" ”
But fortunately, when he hesitated, he met a very important confidant in his life.
Figure | In the middle is Hua Xiangfang, on the left is Xu Shou's eldest son, and on the right is Xu Shou
Once, he went to the county town to repair a seven-stringed violin and met a very important Daoist friend in life, Hua Xiangfang.
Hua Xiangfang is also very personal and does not take the usual path.
Xu Shou also took the examination for the second examination, while Hua Xiangfang simply did not even report his name, and directly played mathematics and engaged in scientific research.
Life is hard to find a confidant!
He was 15 years older than Hua Xiangfang, and the two science enthusiasts were the same at first sight.
Unexpectedly, in the vast Qing Dynasty, I finally met people who could talk about science and technology together, and immediately formed a CP.
When they came to Shanghai, the two saw a book, and immediately they were like a demon, and they couldn't walk.
This book is called "New Edition of Natural history", which covers all aspects of physics, chemistry, astronomy and biology, and is the first book imported into China by modern Western science and technology.
It felt like we were seeing the book "How to Make 100 Million a Day" for the first time.
They immediately bought the book home, read and copied it over and over again.
Not only that, but the two also collaborated and experimented with books together.
Scientific experiments need tools, where did the Qing Dynasty come from the experimental props, Xu Shou said:
"Hey hey, it's hard for me."
Without triangular glass, he ground his crystal seal into a triangle and let the sun shine, and sure enough, seven colors appeared.
It was an optical phenomenon that had never been faced squarely by the Chinese people, and the two were stunned to see it.
In order to verify that the trajectory of the bullet is a parabola, the two were verified by shooting at tree poles, hanging birds, and shooting in the wild.
After the experiment, Xu Shou drew a picture and Hua Xiangfang wrote it, and completed China's first mathematical paper "Parabola Theory".
Every once in a while, the two would come to the Mohai Library to purchase new books, transcribe and inspire each other.
Later, one of them was a well-known scientific and technological engineer, and the other was a full of achievements mathematicians, both of whom were inseparable from this period of time devoted to scientific research and study.
More than a decade passed, and the gates of the Qing Dynasty were completely blasted open by British guns.
The people of china finally saw the dangerous and splendid world outside.
At this time, Xu Shou was still searching for various books on Western science and technology and tinkering with various crafts.
With this perseverance, he was also a little famous, and even Zeng Guofan had heard about it.
Unfortunately, Xu Shou was a little unfortunate, when the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom came over, his shoulder was slashed with a large knife, and the eldest son was also left with a lifelong disability.
In the chaotic world, Xu Shou heard that the Yangwu faction wanted to "master Yi to control Yi".
He thought to himself, "Hey, here comes my chance!" ”
The 44-year-old Xu Shouxing rushed away from his hometown and ran to the Anqingnei Ordnance Institute with his works, and the interviewer was Zeng Guofan.
Zeng Guofan had actually heard about Xu Shou's deeds a long time ago.
But Xu Shou was not "born in the imperial examination" after all, so Zeng Guofan only hired him at discretion and let him serve as a probationary worker in the technical department.
Coincidentally, confidant Hua Xiangfang was also there.
At that time, foreign ships were rampaging in China's inland rivers, and the Qing court said that it had no choice, because the Qing army sailors still used sail boats.
So, in order to fight for breath, everyone agreed on a goal: we were going to build our own steamships.
It's easy to make a plan, it's hard to implement it!
At that time in China, molds, machine tools, tools, should be exhausted.
Not to mention steamships, not even a steam engine can be built.
But Xu Shou, with decades of faith, led this "starting from scratch" work.
He searched for all kinds of materials, and among the large number of materials, only the New Edition of the Naturalist, with the drawings of the steam engine, which he traced.
Then he ran to a foreign ship moored on the river and studied all day, and when he came back, he did it.
There were no screws, no pistons, and he used his own industrious hands to hold the gun little by little.
Three months later, the steam engine, which was the symbol of the world's first industrial revolution, was actually created by a person who had not even been admitted to the show.
When Zeng Guofan heard the news, he excitedly announced to the world: "What foreigners can do, we can Chinese can also do." ”
After success, they began to try to build steamships.
After three years, China's first self-made steamship, the "Yellow Crane", was born, 17 meters long, weighed 25 tons, and cost 8,000 taels of silver.
The designers and manufacturers are Xu Shou and Hua Xiangfang.
One day in 1865, the Nanjing Wharf was crowded, and the inaugural ceremony of the Huanghu was held here.
Shanghai's ZilinXi Bao reported:
"The materials used in the Huang Hu were personally supervised by Xu's father and son, and there was no foreigner to help them."
The Tongzhi Emperor specially gave Xu Shou a plaque of "The World's First Craftsman".
But Xu Shou was not proud, but instead put away this plaque.
Because in his view, the ship has been shuttling around the world for more than 50 years, and daqing is still proud and makes people laugh.
He knew that China still had a long way to go to strengthen itself, and that a steamship was not enough.
So he wrote to Zeng Guofan and proposed four things:
The first is to open coal to make iron, the second is to build cannons, the third is to train water masters, and the fourth is to translate Western books.
But soon zeng guofan wrote a letter scolding back: you can build your ship with peace of mind, this kind of thing does not need you to worry about.
Yes, from the perspective of the time, Xu Shou could not even pass the Xiucai examination, even if he built the first steamship, he was at most just an excellent old craftsman, and he also tried to plan the overall situation.
After being ruthlessly rejected by Zeng Guofan, was Xu Shou's enthusiasm for serving the country extinguished?
No.
He was the first person to see the world in the founding of the country, and he saw how rich the outside world was, and it was impossible to be willing to do so.
Therefore, he found another way to translate Western books to open the eyes of more people.
At this time, Xu Shou was nearly 50 years old.
Xu Jianyin, his son, who was influenced by him since childhood, also followed him to spread Western learning.
The Western studies books translated by Xu's father and son, with nearly 8 million words, are revered as "father and son of modern Chinese science".
In the translation, Xu Shou pioneered a set of Chinese names for chemical elements, which is the periodic table of chemical elements that we still memorize:
"Hydrogen helium lithium beryllium boron, carbon nitrogen oxygen fluoro neon ..."
When the Japanese next door learned about it, they rushed to study and introduced it back to Japan.
Xu Shou played a pioneering role in the development of modern Chemistry in China.
In 1878, Xu Shou published an important paper entitled "Examination of the Laws of Lu Theory".
Three years later, the article was translated into English and published in Nature.
At that time, the Qing Dynasty was not dead, and even the editor of Nature at that time was amazed:
It is very surprising that [this paper] corrected an ancient law with real modern science, and the confirmation of this little-known fact is that it came from so far away in China, and it was achieved with such simple experimental means and so primitive instruments.
In addition, Xu Shou and the British Fu Lanya also founded China's first science and technology school in Shanghai, Gezhi Academy, which is now Shanghai Gezhi Middle School.
Figure | Grace College ( Old and New )
In 1884, just after Gezhi College celebrated its tenth birthday, Xu Shou, 66, died of illness at the school due to long-term hard work.
Xu Shou, who was once a "non-business" person in the eyes of the public, eventually became the "shoulder handle" of the scientific community in the late Qing Dynasty.
Unfortunately, although Xu Shou has made great contributions to China in various fields of science and technology.
However, due to the fact that he did not obtain the title of jinshi, he could not obtain the "entry ticket" to enter the official field.
Throughout his life, he was not reused, and he assisted officials as craftsmen, equivalent to a temporary worker.
There is no chance to go down in history and be "on a par" with Zeng Guofan and others.
Xu Shou's life experience is the epitome of the fate of countless scientific and technological personnel in the late Qing Dynasty, growing up in prejudice and buried in prejudice.
Someone said in a word: "The Qing Dynasty did not lack scientific and technological talents, but did not know how to cherish." ”
The text is original to the National Pavilion, please contact the background and the author for reprinting