Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 1.pdf/492

 were printed in 1867 under the title 則古昔齋算學 Tsê-k'u-hsi chai suan-hsüeh, in all, 24 chüan.

In 1864 Li Shan-lan and another mathematician, Tsou Po-ch'i 鄒伯奇 of Canton, were recommended by  to be instructors in the T'ung-wên kuan (see under ), or new school for interpreters, established in 1862. An edict was issued in 1866 summoning the two licentiates, but both declined on grounds of illness. In December 1866 plans were approved to expand the T'ung-wên kuan to a College, and to the classes in English, French and Russian was added a department of mathematics and astronomy. In 1867 some thirty-one students were enrolled in the new department and an edict was issued to hasten the coming of Li and Tsou to the capital. Li came in 1868, but Tsou again declined. In 1869 Li was appointed head of the Department of Mathematics and Astronomy and later in the same year W. A. P. Martin (see under ) was made President of the College. Li taught in the College for thirteen years (1869–82), being at first given the rank of a secretary of the Grand Secretariat, and later made a department director in the Board of Revenue, a secretary in the Tsungli Yamen, and an official of the fourth (third?) rank. He died in Peking and his remains were taken to Hai-yen, Chekiang.

Li Shan-lan was of corpulent physique. A gifted mathematician, he was the first Chinese to use Western algebra in the solution of the problem known as ssŭ-yüan 四元 involving the solution of equations with more than one unknown quantity, as introduced in the above-mentioned Ssŭ-yüan yü-chien. Many of the scientific terms which Li established are still in use.

[1/512/24a; 2/69/72b; 6/43/3b; Li Shan-lan nien-p'u (年譜) in Chung-suan-shih lun-ts'ung (see under ), Vol. II, pp. 435–74; Martin, A Cycle of Cathay (1896) p. 312 (photograph of Li and his class in mathematics), pp. 368–70; Ch'ou-jên chuan (see under ) 1935, pp. 810–15, 835–44, 846–56; Wylie, Memorials of Protestant Missionaries (1867), pp. 173–74, 187–88, 238–39; Portrait in 中華教育界 Chung-hua chiao-yü chieh, Vol. 23, No. 1 (July, 1935); Wylie, Chinese Researches, section on Science, pp. 193–94; Yoshio Mikami, The Development of Mathematics in China and Japan (1913), pp. 125-27.]

2em

 LI Shih-yao 李侍堯, d. 1788, Nov., official, was a descendant of , the first Ming officer to surrender to the Manchus and the recipient of the hereditary rank of viscount of the third class. Li Yung-fang's fifth son, Bayan 巴顏 or 霸彥 (1620–1652), was made (1642) the first lieutenant general of the Chinese Plain Blue Banner to which his family thereafter belonged. For his own merits Bayan was elevated to an earl of the first class. In remembrance of the services of Li Yung-fang, Emperor Kao-tsung ordered in 1749 that Li's earldom be given the designation, Chao-hsin 昭信伯)—an earldom that for some time seems to have been reduced to the second class.

Li Shih-yao was a great-great-grandson of Bayan. An honorary licentiate of 1736, he became an adjutant in 1743, a lieutenant colonel in 1744, and an adjutant general in 1748. In 1749 he was made a deputy lieutenant general of his own Banner, and early in 1753 was appointed military governor of Jehol. In 1755 he was made a vice-president, first of the Board of Works and then of the Board of Revenue. Late in 1755 he was appointed acting Tartar general at Canton, a post he held until 1759. Concurrently he was twice (1757, 1758) acting governor-general of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, but early in 1759 received full appointment as governor-general. Recalled to Peking in 1761, he was promoted to the post of president of the Board of Revenue, succeeding his father, Li Yüan-liang 李元亮 (posthumous name 勤恪), who retired after holding that office for two years. In 1763 Li Shih-yao was made governor-general of Hupeh and Hunan, and a year later was transferred to Canton. In July 1765 he retired to observe the period of mourning, but three months later was recalled to serve as acting president of the Board of Works. Beginning in 1766, he acted for more than a year as president of the Board of Punishments. In 1767 he was sent to Canton for the third time as governor-general, remaining at that post for ten years. During these ten years he inherited the earldom, Chao-hsin (early in 1768), was made concurrently a Grand Secretary (1773). and was honored by having the company to which his family belonged raised to the higher Chinese Bordered Yellow Banner (1774).

In 1777 Li was made governor-general of Yunnan and Kweichow to supervise the yet unsettled Burmese affairs (see under ). In 1780 Emperor Kao-tsung heard that Li was false to his trust, and sought evidence from Hai-ning 海寧 (d. 1790, posthumous name 勤 480