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 Yuán-Míng practical material on commercial calculation, taxation, surveying, currency exchange, and abacus mnemonics. The work also preserves significant amounts of Sòng-Yuán 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.