Wú Jìng 吳敬
Style name Xìnmín 信民, sobriquet Zhǔyī wēng 主一翁. Native of Rénhé 仁和 (modern Hángzhōu). Fl. mid-15th century. Birth and death years not securely recorded; conventionally dated fl. 1450 from his work’s preface. CBDB id 102323 confirms the name and dynasty.
A merchant-mathematician of the mid-Míng, Wú Jìng held no official post. According to his own preface, his mathematical learning was acquired through commercial practice and self-study; he was active in the surveying and tax-administration consultancy of the Hángzhōu region.
His sole surviving work is the Jiǔzhāng xiángzhù bǐlèi suànfǎ dàquán 九章詳註比類算法大全 (KR3fc023, 1450) in 12 juàn — the most comprehensive mid-Míng practical-mathematical compendium. The work organizes its mathematical material under the nine-chapter framework of the KR3f0032 Jiǔzhāng suànshù, but with substantial expansion: Wú Jìng’s 1300 problems (compared to the Jiǔzhāng’s 246) include extensive YuánMíng practical material on commercial calculation, taxation, surveying, currency exchange, and abacus mnemonics. The work also preserves significant amounts of SòngYuán mathematical material (including problem-types from the lost 楊輝 Rìyòng suànfǎ and citations of 朱世傑 Zhū Shìjié) that would otherwise be unavailable.
The work was one of the principal Míng abacus-arithmetic textbooks; its influence is visible throughout the subsequent practical-mathematical literature, including 程大位 Chéng Dàwèi’s KR3fc027 Suànfǎ tǒngzōng (1592) which is in substantial part a re-organization of Wú Jìng’s content with extended commentary.