中法殿军张雍敬

Zhang Yongjing:A Strenuous Proponent of the Chinese Calendrical Methods

文章利用郑凤锵(1802—1863)的《新塍琐志》这本稿本方志,重建张雍敬的传记。张氏是位多才多艺的人物,且样样都要争第一,正是他的好胜心让他走上了一条和其他算家不同的路。他主张恢复中法以与西历抗衡。虽然他的《定历玉衡》因没出版,且坚持地平旧说,而对后世没什么影响,但对于理解清初中算家对抗西法的各种研究方案,其书仍值得细究。张氏中年学历后写成《定历玉衡》,且不断在修订,以和他人争胜。他曾向梅文鼎问学,也承认西学有一定的贡献。但实际上,他的立场一直没改变,并以地平之说和直观的视觉理论,建构他庞大的历算体系。虽然18世纪后的算家对他的想法并不认同,但他和梅文鼎和而不同的论学情谊,仍令人唏嘘不已。

This study uses a recently published manuscript gazetteer to sketch the biography of Zhang Yongjing,a strenuous proponent of Chinese calendrical methods in the early Qing.Zhang was a versatile talent who was well-versed in classical learning,poetry,opera,gardening,and last but not least,calendrical studies to which he dedicated the latter half of his life.Not only calendrical learning was his personal interest,but it was also his strategic choice in an attempt to surpass other literati.Always longing to be the best in a field motivated him to pursue different kinds of knowledge and discarded them once he considered he would not reach his goal.Zhang,nevertheless,is an eccentric person in the history of calendrical studies of the Qing period.His technical engagement is underpinned by an ideological persuasion to wade off Christianity closely associated with the Western calendrical methods used at court.Zhang insisted on reconstructing pure ancient Chinese calendrical methods bequeathed by the sages.He constructed his grand calendrical system based on the concept of a flat earth and an intuitive visual theory.Though he had once discussed calendrical matters with Mei Wending and claimed to have been benefited from the latter,he actually had never changed his position.Zhang,however,always tried to improve his techniques and rewrote his manuscript,which,ironically,had never been published as a result of his serious attitude.His techniques were soon abandoned by later Chinese astronomers but his ideological crusade remained embedded in the legacy of Chinese astronomers in the eighteenth century.