Volume 2: Residence in the Capital Chapter 63: Thousand Characters and Passwords
Seeing the doorman open the side door, Zhu Ying hurriedly dragged Zhang Shou in. Ge Yong's face was as dark as the bottom of a pot.
"You didn't even come in once or twice, but this time it was even worse. You sent a bunch of books out in my name and said all sorts of nice things. I thought you were sincere and honest... You're so pissed!"
Seeing that Ge Yong was a little furious, Zhang Shou saw a tall old man looking at him nearby, so he stopped Zhu Ying who wanted to help explain, and bowed deeply to Ge Yong.
"Teacher, sending books to those people outside in your name was an impulse, but I have thought it through carefully."
Zhang Shou repeated the reason why he had dissuaded Zhu Ying from going forward to chase them away. Seeing that Ge Yong's expression had eased a little, he continued, "Even if this is just my guess, not all of them may be talented in mathematics, but if there are indeed a few of them, and I chase them away because I can't stand the slander, wouldn't that damage my teacher's reputation as a mathematics master?"
"Dozens of books are published by the bookstore run by Lu Sanlang. The cost is minimal, but if they fall into the hands of people with mathematical talent, they may be a guiding light for them. As long as there are ten or eight, no, as long as there are three or five people who can make an effort to truly study them in depth, then the path of mathematics that the teacher has pursued all his life will not be alone!"
"I did this on my own initiative. Please forgive me, teacher!"
Zhang Shou kept calling him teacher, and the reasons he gave were indeed touching enough. At least Ge Yong, who was just pretending to be angry, was so excited at this moment that he wanted to yell at his old friend.
Look at the heart of my last disciple! He is so considerate even when he is being slandered!
What Ge Yong wanted to say was immediately interrupted by Zhu Ying: "Grandpa Ge, Grandpa Qi, I just wanted to not only chase away these troublemakers, but also have people block the street corners on both sides to take down their names, and then report those who violated the ban on the circulation of scrolls to the emperor! It was Ah Shou who persuaded me. Now that I hear what he says, I feel that it is fortunate that he is broad-minded and thoughtful..."
"Humph, everyone knows what kind of temper you have, Xiao Yingying. Only he can persuade you, no one else can!" Ge Yong finally took this opportunity to step down. After a light snort, he said to Zhang Shou in a friendly manner, "Take it easy in the future. I am a teacher with a good temper. If you were someone like Lao Qi or Lao Chu, they would know that you were messing around in their name and would have to expel you from the sect!"
Qi Jingshan, who had been silent all this time, finally burst out laughing, and then said in a tone like coaxing a child: "Okay, okay, you are great, and your disciples are also better than my disciples, is that okay?"
Before Ge Yong could get angry, Qi Jingshan nodded and smiled gently at Zhang Shou, saying, "You handled today's farce really well. I didn't expect that you could not only persuade the impulsive Yingying, but also influence people's hearts in such a gentle and tactful way. As for not entering Ge's house twice, your teacher just scolded you a few times, you don't have to take it to heart."
Ge Yong opened his mouth and wanted to say to the old man, "I was really angry just now," but thinking that it would damage his glorious image, he could only snort coldly again and forcibly change the subject.
"Of course this kid has his merits. My family employs deaf and dumb servants. When you and Old Man Chu's students came here, you hesitated to speak, and were suspicious, thinking I had a conspiracy. Humph, these are all old eunuchs left behind by Emperor Ruizong. The Empress Dowager personally named them and sent them to me. They all wanted to die with me in the palace. If I keep them, they can still make use of their remaining energy!"
At this point, he raised his chin and shouted at Zhang Shou, "Since you're talking about that... using mathematics to design a code? Well, it sounds quite novel and interesting. Come and tell us two old-fashioned people about it... By the way, I haven't asked you about the book you just published, and suddenly you published another new book for me, an old man!"
Seeing Ge Yong impatiently pulling Zhang Shou over, Zhu Ying was stunned at first, and then she couldn't help but yelled angrily: "Grandpa Ge, Shou has to go see my grandmother later, don't hold him back just because you want to count something!"
Back then, Grandpa Ge kept his disciple, who was the Minister of Revenue at the time, busy all night to solve a problem, and he almost missed the court!
"In ancient times, when the ancients reported urgent military information, they initially used objects. For example, a token several inches long represented a certain meaning, which could express a few to a dozen meanings at most. But because sometimes specific information needed to be conveyed, later on, a secret letter was often cut into three parts and sent by messengers."
"During the Tang Dynasty, people often used words that could be broken down into characters to convey information, but this method of breaking down characters had both advantages and disadvantages, because there were many different ways to break down characters. In the Song Dynasty, the Military Classics even had a chapter on character verification, which specifically stipulated that during a war, specific verses could be used to convey more than 40 kinds of military information."
In the study of the Ge Mansion, Zhang Shou picked up a copy of Thousand Character Classic and opened it casually.
"But now, if we add mathematics, we can use the Thousand Character Classic as a code book. Each character in the Thousand Character Classic will get a number in sequence, from one to one thousand. For example, if we want to convey a message, Huang Mu Gu, then we just need to find the numbers corresponding to these three characters and write the numbers directly on paper. This is a secret letter. Of course, this is the simplest..."
As Zhang Shou spoke, he smiled and casually wrote a function f(x)=3x+1 on a piece of paper.
"For a slightly more difficult method, we can use this mathematical formula to calculate the numbers corresponding to the three characters Huang Mu Gu, then write the three characters corresponding to the new numbers on a piece of paper and send it out by letter. In this way, as long as the other party knows the formula, they can easily deduce the original text..."
Facing two experts in mathematics - of course, Zhu Ying who was peeking at the side could be ignored - Zhang Shou smiled and wrote a bunch of various functions from simple to complex on paper. Then he saw Ge Yong, who was very interested, immediately started to deduce calculations. He didn't look like someone who was exposed to functions for the first time. He knew that the teacher had read the book on functions that was first released.
Not only Ge Yong, but even Mr. Qi standing next to him was equally familiar with the mathematics and was able to do calculations and interject from the side, obviously having studied it before. Zhang Shou couldn't help but sigh inwardly that for such a master of mathematics, as long as one grasped the principles, many things could be easily applied to other subjects.
However, when he saw Zhu Ying glaring at him angrily, clearly urging him to hurry up and not be late for the trip to Duke Zhao's mansion, Zhang Shou was afraid that Ge Yong would ask him about the origins of these books, so he smiled and said, "Teacher, this is my first time in Beijing, and I will go to Yingying's house to pay a visit to the Madam, but it is difficult to find elegant things at the moment. I wonder if you can give me a piece of calligraphy?"
Ge Yong was just thinking about whether the function he had just come into contact with a few days ago had other wonderful uses. At this moment, he said impatiently without even looking up: "There are a lot of them on the desk over there, just take them yourself! They are just calligraphy and paintings, I can have as many as I want."
Zhu Ying couldn't help laughing when she saw Zhang Shou actually thought of giving a gift to his grandmother to Ge Yong. She was more direct than Zhang Shou and simply dragged Zhang Shou to the desk to look for something. When she found a painting of rich peonies, she liked it more and more. She immediately tugged at the corner of Zhang Shou's clothes and then poked the scroll in his hand.
Zhang Shou burst into laughter. This is for your grandmother, not for you! But thinking about how much the lady had indulged Zhu Ying, he thought about it and nodded: "Since you like it, pick this one and tell the teacher."
"Come on, stop talking nonsense. If you want to go back with Xiao Yingying to see her grandmother, go now! If you have no place to stay, just come and stay with me..."
Before Ge Yong finished speaking, Zhu Ying dragged Zhang Shou out, shouting, "Don't worry about where Shou lives, Grandpa Ge. There are plenty of guest rooms in the Zhaoguo Mansion!"
What a joke! If Ge Yong were to drag Zhang Shou to study a problem, it might take ten days or half a month!
