In fact, it is a false proposition to say how much Zhu Yuanzhang contributed to the naming of the periodic table of elements. The two are not products of the same era at all, and the Chinese characters used to name the periodic table of elements were not created by Zhu Yuanzhang. If there is any contribution, it would be that Zhu Yuanzhang formulated a rule, which forced his descendants to create some rare characters, which were then adopted by later generations.
Zhu Yuanzhang was an energetic man. As the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, he not only designed a set of specific and feasible political measures, he even thought of naming rules for his children and grandchildren. This set of naming rules is probably that starting from his son, each son is considered to be in the same lineage. For each lineage, he helped them come up with a 20-year generation list. For example, Zhu Biao’s lineage’s generation list is " Yun Wen followed the instructions of his ancestors, King Qin Wu won, he followed the road to meet the good luck, and he was a good teacher and made good use of Sheng." The generation list of King Zhu Di of Yan is "Gao Zhan Qi Jian You, Hou Zai Yi Chang You, Kindness and Yi Bozhong, Jian Jingdi "Xianyou".
According to Chinese naming conventions, the second character in a person's name indicates the person's seniority, so among Zhu Yuanzhang's descendants, the second character has been planned in advance by Zhu Yuanzhang. For example, the names of Zhu Di's sons are all "Zhu GaoX", the names of his grandchildren are all "Zhu ZhanX", the names of his great-grandsons are all "Zhu QiX", and so on.
As for the third character, although Zhu Yuanzhang did not clearly stipulate it, he also designed a set of "subroutines" with the following operation process: the characters used must have metal radicals or contain metallic properties. , the attributes of the characters used between father and son must conform to the principle of the five elements of "metal, wood, water, fire, and earth". For example, the "Chi" in Zhu Gaochi is next to the character for fire and belongs to fire. Invisibly, fire generates earth. Therefore, the third character of Zhu Gaochi's son must be next to the character for earth or contain the attribute of earth. This is Zhu Zhan. The origin of the word "base" in base.
However, although this set of rules effectively avoids the problem of duplicate names for descendants, it also brings about a huge problem, that is, there are not enough characters used as the third character in the name. . The reason is very simple. After more than two hundred years of reproduction, Zhu Yuanzhang's descendants have numbered in the hundreds of thousands, and it is impossible to find so many characters that conform to the principle of the five elements. In desperation, Zhu Yuanzhang's descendants began to make their own characters. The method was also very simple, which was to find some more auspicious characters and add a metal side themselves. And since these characters are all self-created, they have no other use than being used as names.
When the periodic table of elements was introduced to China, everyone was thinking about how to translate the names of these metals. At this time, everyone thought of these words created by Zhu Yuanzhang's descendants. The reason is simple. They are all made of metal, and they are not commonly used words, so they will not cause confusion in use. In this way, the names of Zhu Yuanzhang's descendants appeared in the periodic table of elements.
This is Zhu Yuanzhang’s greatest contribution to the periodic table of elements.