Xíng Yúnlù 邢雲路
Style name Shìdēng 士登, studio-name Zéyǔ 澤宇 (whence his collected writings Zéyǔ jí 澤宇集). Native of Lóngshānlǐ in Ānsù 安肅 county (Bǎodìng prefecture, modern Xúshuǐ 徐水 in Héběi); commoner registration. Born Jiājìng 28 (1549); death year not securely recorded — he was certainly active into Tiānqǐ 1 (1621), so he lived past 70.
Wànlì 4 (1576) provincial degree at Shùntiān; jìnshì of Wànlì 8 (1580), 3rd-grade, 62nd. Initial appointments: Magistrate of Fánshì 繁峙 (Shānxī), interrupted by a parental mourning; Magistrate of Jíxiàn 汲縣 (Hénán), again interrupted by mourning; Magistrate of Línfén 臨汾 (Shānxī); promoted Hénán Qiānshì 僉事 (Subprefectural Judge); eventually Shǎnxī Ànchásī fùshǐ 陝西按察司副使 (Vice Provincial Surveillance Commissioner). Impeached and retired (guāndài xiánzhù 冠帶閒住, “rank-retained, leisure-residence”) in Wànlì 38 (1610) on charges brought by Cáo Yúbiàn 曹於汴 and Kǒng Zhēnyī 孔貞一.
The leading independent calendrical critic of the late Wànlì period. In Wànlì 24 (1596) he memorialized on the deficiencies of the Dàtǒng lì, attacking specifically (a) its retention of the Yuán Shòushí lì’s twelve-zodiacal-palace boundaries despite three centuries of accumulated suìchā (precession) — Guō Shǒujìng’s solar position at Zhìyuán xīnsì (1281) had drifted by some five degrees by his own day; (b) its abolition of the Shòushí’s built-in xiāozhǎng (diminution-and-growth) compensating mechanism, leading to a 9-kè error in the timing of mid-month points; and (c) its erroneous identification of the yuèzhèn (lunar-station) palace-names xīmù 析木 and zōuzī 娵訾 with the celestial divisions, conflating two different reference systems. The 提要 of his Gǔjīn lǜlì kǎo notes that this error was inherited from Zhào Yǒuqīn (Yuándū) of the Yuán — an interesting indication of how late-Yuán astronomical confusions had survived in the Míng establishment.
In Wànlì 39 (1611) the Ministry of Rites formally proposed calendrical reform on the basis of his arguments, but the throne tabled the matter (liúzhōng bùbào 留中不報). Nevertheless his influence was decisive: in Wànlì 44 (1616) he presented the Qīzhèng zhēnshù 七政真數 (Truth-Numbers of the Seven Regulators); in Tiānqǐ 1 (1621) he submitted detailed eclipse-prediction data. His agitation, alongside Zhū Zàiyù’s KR3f0007, Lǐ Zhīzǎo’s, and others’, constituted the indispensable lobbying that produced the Chóngzhēn lìshū 崇禎曆書 reform initiative of 1629.
Principal works: Gǔjīn lǜlì kǎo 古今律歷考 (KR3f0008) in 72 juàn — his magnum opus, comprehensive evidentiary treatment of pitch-pipe-and-calendrical history from the Six Classics to the Míng Dàtǒng; Wùshēn lìchūn kǎozhèng 戊申立春考證; Gēngwù dōngzhì zhèngé 庚物冬至正訛; Tàiyī shū 太一書; Lìyuányuán 歷元元; Qīzhèng zhēnshù 七政真數; Zéyǔ jí 澤宇集 (collected literary writings).
Méi Wéndǐng 梅文鼎 of the early Qīng — himself the leading mathematician of his generation — judged Xíng’s work mixed: the Gǔjīn lǜlì kǎo was “deficient on the ancient methods” and at points “missed the meaning of the Shòushí”, and Xíng knew nothing of Western astronomy. But the Sìkù editors defended Xíng on principle: “Among the calendrical-art’s pioneers, the workmanship is necessarily not [yet] refined; one must not insist on demanding that the founder be perfectly precise (* chuàngshǐ nán gōng, yì bù bì dìng yǐ wèimì yì yě *創始難工，亦不必定以未宻議也) — Xíng’s significance is that “at a time when the calendrical study was wrecked-and-broken, he alone was able to rise and attack its errors — his discernment exceeds others by one rank”.