When I was in school, in addition to learning the three main subjects of Chinese, mathematics, and English, I also had to learn knowledge in various subjects such as history, geography, physics, and chemistry. When learning chemistry, in addition to the headache of memorizing chemical formulas, the most difficult level is to memorize the periodic table of elements, which contains 118 elements. Thinking about it gives people a headache.
We all know that the periodic table of elements was created by the Russian scientist Mendeleev. It was originally in Russian, and it was further translated in China that it became the now well-known "potassium, iron, Sodium, zinc". But you know what? These characters representing metal elements were also created by Zhu Yuanzhang. What is going on?
If you have carefully observed the Ming Dynasty royal family, you will find that they have always lived in the periodic table of elements. Are you confused when you see this sentence? But this is a real situation. If you look at the genealogy of the Ming Dynasty royal family, you will find that the names of Prince Yiwen Zhu Biao, Ming Chengzu Zhu Di, Chu Zhao Wang Zhu Zhen and others all have the word "wood" next to them. Why is this? ?
These are all related to an emperor of the Ming Dynasty. He was Zhu Yuanzhang who established the Ming Dynasty. The name Zhu Yuanzhang was actually given to him by Guo Zixing after he surrendered to the army. Zhu Yuanzhang's original name was Zhu Chongba, his father's name was Zhu Wusi, his grandfather's name was Zhu Chuyi, and his great-grandfather's name was Zhu Sijiu. You didn't notice anything at first, but if you think about it carefully, you will find that the names of the Zhu family are all named after numbers.
Why do his family members prefer numbers so much? Is it possible that everyone in his family loves mathematics and wants to become a mathematician? The truth is exactly the opposite. In fact, the Zhu family knew nothing about mathematics, and Zhu Yuanzhang even hated mathematics deeply. So why do the Zhu family still name their children after numbers?
As we all know, Zhu Yuanzhang was the leader of the peasant uprising army in the late Yuan Dynasty before establishing the Ming Dynasty. Since he is the leader of the peasant uprising army, Zhu Yuanzhang was naturally born as a peasant. He initially participated in the uprising because he could not stand the oppression of the Yuan Dynasty and wanted to change his current situation of poverty. Not only is his family poor, but his family members are also uneducated and they name their children directly after their birth dates.
How could Zhu Yuanzhang, who was ambitious and ambitious at the time, accept such a name that was the same and completely devoid of content? Look at the names of the previous rulers, they are Liu Che, Li Shimin, Zhao Kuangyin, etc., what nice names. Look at his own name, it is too tacky. Zhu Yuanzhang disliked the name "Zhu Chongba" very much.
Therefore, after Zhu Yuanzhang met the talented Guo Zixing, he couldn't wait to let him rename himself. And he also deeply understood how important culture is and began to study hard. After he successfully ascended the throne, he racked his brains to prevent the names of his descendants from repeating his mistakes. He felt that the name represented a person's "face", so it must be noble.
Whether in ancient times or today, "seniority" has always been an issue that everyone attaches great importance to. It refers to one's position in the family. Nowadays, it is mainly divided into elders, peers and juniors. Seniority is determined at birth and cannot be chosen by oneself. In ancient times, people were accustomed to using words with the same or similar meanings to name the same seniority and name their children.
Why is seniority so important? In fact, it is because it is deeply influenced by Confucian culture. Confucius himself was a person who paid great attention to "etiquette", and "etiquette" is very important in interactions between people. Among the "rituals" recognized by Confucius, they basically emphasize the importance of identity and divide "rituals" into two dimensions.
One is "loyalty", which is based on "honor and inferiority", and the other is "filial piety", which is based on closeness and distance. It is because of the emergence of these two dimensions that people are no longer equal, and the phenomenon of seniority has emerged. Later, with continuous development, the concept of "seniority" came into being and gradually became a Chinese tradition.
Zhu Yuanzhang naturally followed this traditional habit, and as a king, he naturally wanted to express his desire for a strong country, so he thought of the theory of the five elements. Therefore, the names he obtained for his descendants should have strong literary connotations and demonstrate the talents of the Ming Dynasty royal family.
The most important thing is to combine the Five Elements Theory. Zhu Yuanzhang personally selected dozens of words and used five-character quatrains to rank 20 generations for each of his sons. For example, the descendants of King Zhu Di of Yan ranked in the following order: Gao Zhan Qi Jianyou, Hou Zai Xu Changyou, Ci Heyi Bozhong, Jian Jingdi Xianyou. And it is clearly stipulated that seniority must be the second character in their names, such as Zhu Gaochi and Zhu Zhanji.
As for the word that can represent "the theory of five elements", it is the third character of their names. Then it is chosen according to the principle of metal, wood, water, fire, earth, and the five elements. For example, Zhu Biao and Zhu Di are both next to the word "wood", and wood makes fire, so Zhu Yuanzhang's grandson must be named next to the word "fire", such as Zhu Yunwen and Zhu Gaochi.
Because fire generates earth, their next generation will be named Zhu Zhanji and Zhu Zhanyin; and because earth generates gold, the next generation must use the character next to the character "金" Just fine. Something happened that Zhu Yuanzhang had not expected. There were three thousand beauties in the harem, and the number of descendants of the Zhu family far exceeded Zhu Yuanzhang's expectations. However, there were not that many words next to the word "gold" in ancient dictionaries at that time. Those Words are no longer enough.
Are there not enough words? This really made Zhu Yuanzhang's head suddenly become as big as two. What to do? If he changes it now, he will have to start all over again, and his sons and grandsons will also have to change their names. It is not easy to change the names of royal children. There is also a complicated process such as ancestor worship, which is too troublesome.
In the end, Zhu Yuanzhang slapped the table and decided to make up his own characters. Anyway, he was the ruler of the Ming Dynasty and the biggest "official". No one cared about killing people. It was not a big mistake to make up characters, so it was natural. OK. So Zhu Yuanzhang summoned several civil servants and talented bachelors, and a group of people studied painstakingly for several days in the study, and finally created "radium, niobium, sodium, cobalt, palladium, potassium, titanium, lithium" and so on. Wait, these seemingly very modern words.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, there was a person named Xu Shou who liked studying chemistry very much. He planned to translate the periodic table of elements created by Mendeleev into Chinese. The basic principle of his translation is to use transliteration and prefixes, such as three dots of water for liquids, "qi" for gases, and "gold" for metals.
Liquids and gases are very easy to solve, but the key is that there are too many types of metals, and there are not so many Chinese characters next to the word "gold" available. Xu Shou thought hard about it. One day, he accidentally discovered the genealogy of the Zhu Ming royal family. When he opened it, he found that these "golden" names really made people hate to meet each other so late, so Xu Shou didn't know anything about it. Borrow it without hesitation.
Xu Shou successfully completed the translation of the periodic table of elements. If I had known that when I was in school, those seemingly cold metals on these seemingly boring periodic tables of elements actually represented the Ming Dynasty. I will definitely find the names of the royal descendants more interesting and remember them more skillfully than I did then.