Zhang Heng is good at mechanical manufacturing skills, especially concentrating on astronomy, meteorology and age prediction. Han Andi often heard that Zhang Heng was proficient in astronomy, calendar and other skills, so he sent an official car to ask Zhang Heng to appoint him as a doctor, and later he was promoted to Taishiling. So he studied and inspected the changes in nature, skillfully and thoroughly mastered the principles of celestial instruments, made armillary sphere, and wrote calendar and mathematics works such as Lingxian and Arithmetic, which were very detailed and clear.
In the early years of (Korea), (Zhang Heng) transferred back to Taishiling. He doesn't respect high-ranking officials, and his position often doesn't rise for many years. From leaving Taishiling's post to re-employment five years later.
(Shun Di) In the first year of Yangjia, (Zhang Heng) built a seismograph to wait for the wind. It is made of pure copper, eight feet in diameter, with a raised lid in the center, which looks like a big wine bottle. The outside is decorated with seal characters and patterns of mountains, turtles, birds and animals. There is a thick copper column in the center of the room, eight slideways extend around the copper column, and a wheel hub (for poking machine parts) is installed. There are eight bronze dragons outside. There is a copper pill in each dragon's mouth. There is a toad under the dragon's mouth, ready to catch the copper pill spit out by the dragon's mouth. The hub and parts of the instrument are cleverly made, and they are all hidden in the bottle-shaped instrument, and there is no gap in the coverage. If there is an earthquake, the dragon outside the instrument will vibrate, the mechanism will start, the dragon mouth will spit out copper pills, and the toad below will catch them. The sound of the earthquake is clear and loud, and people waiting for the instrument know that there has been an earthquake. Although only one dragon was started, the other seven faucets did not move at all. If you look for its direction, you can know where the earthquake happened. The actual earthquake is used to test the instruments, which are completely consistent with each other and really effective. Judging from the records of ancient books, there is no such instrument. Once the one-stop mechanism was started, but (Luoyang) did not feel the earthquake. Scholars in Beijing were surprised that the instrument was not successful. A few days later, the correspondent at the post station came to prove that there was an earthquake in Longxi, and they were all amazed at the exquisiteness of the seismograph. From then on, (the imperial court) instructed the historian to record the location of each earthquake according to the seismograph.
At that time, politics became more and more corrupt and power fell into the hands of eunuchs. So Zhang Heng gave the emperor a brief political statement and put forward political opinions. ……
At the beginning of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Han Guangwu liked divination, and later Xian Zong and Su Zong inherited and imitated him. After Emperor Guangwu of Han Dynasty revived the Han Dynasty, Confucian scholars scrambled to learn divination and divination, which was accompanied by confusing fallacies and heresies. Zhang Heng thought that Illustration and Shu Wei were false and absurd, not the laws of saints, so he taught the emperor a lesson. ……
Later, Zhang Heng was promoted to assistant, and Shundi appointed him to the imperial court to express his opinions on the state affairs around him. Shun Di once asked Zhang Heng who he hated all over the world. The eunuchs stared at him for fear that he would speak ill of himself. Zhang Heng answered with some elusive words and came out. These eunuchs were still worried that Zhang Heng would eventually become their scourge, so they ganged up and slandered Zhang Heng.
Zhang Heng often thinks about his own safety, and thinks that the fortunes are related, hidden and hard to know. So he wrote "Fu Xuan" to express and entrust his feelings and interests. ……
(Shun Di) In the early years of Yonghe, Zhang Heng was transferred from Beijing to Hejian Wang as Prime Minister. At that time, Hejian Wang was arrogant and extravagant, and did not abide by laws and regulations; In Hejian area, there are many rich and powerful families who run amok with Liu Zheng. As soon as Zhang Heng arrived, he established his prestige, rectified the legal system and secretly found out the names of some traitors. All of them were arrested at once, and the officials and people were awed and praised the political clarity in Hejian area. After managing Hejian government affairs for three years, Zhang Heng wrote to the imperial court and asked to resign and retire, but the imperial court transferred him back to Beijing and appointed him as senior minister. (Zhang Heng) lived to be sixty-two years old and died in Yonghe in four years.
Cui Yuan thinks that Zhou Guan's exegesis is no different from other Confucian scholars' explanations. I also wanted to inherit the unfinished part of the research, such as Xun and Xiang, but I failed to finish it in the end. He wrote 32 poems, including Fu, Ming, Seven-character Poems, Lingxian, Yingxian, Seven Arguments, Gu Xun and Xing Tu.