Reasons for China's Backward Mathematics in the Late Yuan Dynasty and Early Ming Dynasty

Reasons for China's backwardness in mathematics at the end of Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of Ming Dynasty: The reason for China's backwardness in mathematics at the end of Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of Ming Dynasty was the corruption of feudal rule, which led to its decline. In such an environment of political corruption, economic backwardness and peasant uprising, China's mathematics declined sharply after the middle of the Yuan Dynasty, and several works at the end of the Yuan Dynasty only improved the multiplication and division method and agile algorithm.

After the mid-Yuan Dynasty, China's mathematics declined sharply, and several works at the end of Yuan Dynasty only improved multiplication and division and agile algorithm. During the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty (A.D. 1403- 1425), the Grand Ceremony of Yongle was compiled, and China's previous mathematical works were copied according to their origins, various mathematical methods, sounds, meanings and categories. Most of the mathematical works in Han, Tang, Song and Yuan Dynasties were lost in Ming Dynasty. In the middle of Qing Dynasty, Sikuquanshu was compiled, which made China's ancient arithmetic books reappear.

History of Chinese mathematics:

After the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, with the completion of agile algorithms, abacus was produced and popularized, and a number of abacus works appeared in the Ming Dynasty. The most author is Cheng Dawei's "Arithmetic Unity", 17, with 595 questions. This book adapts to the needs of commercial development, taking abacus as the main calculation tool, and contains abacus calculation methods.

This book has been reprinted and adapted many times in the next two or three hundred years, and it is rare for it to spread widely. Cheng Dawei was born in Xiuning (now Tunxi District, Huangshan City). He used to do business in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, paying attention to the collection of classics and mathematical problems, and wrote this book in his later years.