Why is the name given by the Prince of Ming Dynasty so similar to the modern periodic table of chemical elements?

Zhu Yuanzhang, the pioneer of the Ming Dynasty, was a very powerful figure. He is not only worried about his term of office, but even wants to finish all the work for future generations. He has formulated many rules and benefits for future generations, so that they can enjoy them according to the implementation.

This includes how to give Zhu Jiazi and his grandchildren wonderful names similar to chemical elements. In feudal times, although the names of members of the royal family were exquisite and elegant, they were the same as the basic rules followed by most ordinary people in China: surname+seniority+single name. But for the Ming Dynasty, the founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang had limited personal education. Although a monk, he believed in Taoism more, learned some mysterious divination and made interesting attempts. The naming methods of Ming emperors, including the origin of Ming dynasty, are all in line with the theory of Yin-Yang and Five Elements in ancient metaphysics. Daming was founded in 1368. According to the so-called numerology at that time, Daming belonged to Shuide. So we set it in Yingtian, which is now Nanjing. Because there is an individual named Jinling in Nanjing, that is to say, in order to conform to the five elements.

According to his idea, the names of Zhu's descendants must conform to the cycle of "five virtues are always said", so that the dynasty can prosper for a long time. He has 26 sons whose names are beside the wooden characters, such as Prince Zhu Biao, the second son Zhu Shang, the third son Zhu, the prince and Zhu Yuanzhang. At that time, it was estimated that he had looked up the dictionary, and there were already many uncommon words in it, such as,,, and. Since the three generations of Zhu, surnames have naturally been fixed, and generations have also been fixed. Zhu Yuanzhang had already drawn up the word "Zi" for the descendants of more than 20 sons, such as Judy's "Looking forward to seeing you again, carrying a long righteousness, being kind and so on, and Emperor Jianjing bearing the brunt". The single name of each prince and grandson should be related to the fire, water and soil in Jin Mu, and sorted according to the five elements. For example, Emperor Jiajing's name is Zhu Houzong, and his son's name has to be related to the earth, that is, the sons of Qin Long emperors Zhu Zaihou and Qin Long, and the native gold is the Wanli Emperor Zhu Yijun. This system really tests the cultural level of Zhujiajian. Rao is the essence of Zhu Yuanzhang's calculation. There are so many Chinese characters!

We should put an end to the phenomenon of overlapping names through generations of all branches, but we can't cling to the fact that every descendant of the royal family is pampered. It is said that there were millions of royal families in the late Ming dynasty, and the names of these millions should be forced into the above rules, but they cannot be duplicated. The result can be imagined. At first, you can choose some words with good meanings, but later all the words are used up, so the names of future generations must be avoided, and the names used by ancestors cannot be used, which increases the difficulty of naming in the future. Those who were born late now have to make up words. Although it was not a patent of the Ming royal family, the Ming royal family did make the writing to the extreme. Many people's names have become uncommon words, which are not pleasant to read. For example, the Five Dynasties of Zhu and the Ten Dynasties of Zhu were all named after the "Golden" series, but there were too few Chinese characters beside the ancient golden characters to be named as silver, copper and iron, so we had to rack our brains to create a lot of characters.

So why is the name of the prince of the Ming Dynasty so similar to the periodic table? It's not that the Ming dynasty mastered any chemical knowledge in advance, nor did Wen Jieluo accidentally cross it! In fact, this pot has to be carried by Xu Shou, a pioneer of chemistry in the late Qing Dynasty. In the 65438+60s, when Mendeleev's periodic table of chemical elements was introduced to China, scientist Xu Shou was ready to publish a Chinese version. He also encountered the same problem when naming the royal family in the Ming Dynasty, and had to rack his brains to find suitable Chinese characters to correspond one by one. Unexpectedly, Zhujiajian solved this problem for him hundreds of years ago. Xu Shou actually found inspiration in the genealogy of the Ming royal family, beside the metal, beside the word fire and so on. , plus a transliteration of Chinese characters. For example, it uses the name of Zhu Zaina, the king of Ruijin. If the world is really wonderful, the names of sons and grandchildren are actually very helpful to science.

Zhu Yuanzhang

Xu shou