35.Many of you should have heard of Tiangong Kaiwu (天工開物).It is one of the greatest technological encyclopedias written in C (1)
.But how much do you know about its author,Song Yingxing?
Song was a great scientist d(2)
the late Ming dynasty.He was born into an ordinary family in 1587 and had a happy childhood.He and his brother Song Yingsheng went to school together.Song won third place while Yingming won sixth in the provincial Imperial Exam (科舉考試).Later,they took the national Imperial Exam,but they b(3)
failed.
Song worked as a teacher for many years.Meanwhile,he sat for the national Imperial Exam for another four times.Unluckily,he never achieved success.On his repeated trips to the capital to take the exams,however,he learned about the technologies that were being used in d(4)
fields.His wide k(5)
enabled him to create Tiangong Kaiwu in the 1630s.
The book c (6)
more than 130 agricultural and manufacturing technologies.There were also many illustrations (插圖) to help with the understanding of the text.The book became popular soon a(7)
it was published.
The Ming dynasty fell in 1644,but they were loyal to the Ming government.They r(8)
to serve the new Qing government and gave up their jobs.Song lived a poor life in the rest of his life.In his final years,he wrote many articles and poems a(9)
the new government.
Years later,some Qing officials found these articles and poems.They were so angry that they destroyed all of Song's works.However,Tiangong Kaiwu had already s(10)
to many other countries.