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Several other games are referred to in ancient texts, but I shall avoid referring to them. However, since many western games writers have, to their great detriment, ignored oriental research, I urge them to read, for example: Ogawa , especially on wuzi five stones: generally regarded as a precursor of gomoku but possibly a derivative of backgammon and tanqi, a precursor of hasami-shogi; Kotaka ; Masukawa ; and Yang Y.
For liubo see also Watanabe T. Most Chinese writings on go quote the legend: "Yao invented go in order to instruct his son Dan Zhu. This is but one legend, though the orthodox one. It is usually attributed to the scholar Zhang Hua, for the remark did appear in his "Bo Wu Zhi" [Record of the Investigation of Things], written about AD the ancient Chinese texts quoted here appear in many anthologies; for go the best are Shen [undated] and Liu ; on Zhang Hua and go see also Shirakawa However, he went on to add, with dry mockery: "Others say [Emperor] Shun regarded his son Shang Jun as stupid and invented go to instruct him.
Du ; Li a; Watanabe Y. The ascription of go to Yao, in fact based on the " Shi Ben" [Origins of History], a book of the Warring States period BC , was designed to counter this, since the sage kings Yao and Shun found favour with Confucius. Zhang Hua's understated observation of the manners of his time should not be taken as credulity.
Indeed, the Chinese themselves have a long tradition of dismissing the legend out of hand, though using sometimes surprising arguments. For example, the preface to the celebrated " Xuanxuan Qijing" [Mysterious and Marvellous Go Manual] of says that go is the wrong thing to make a foolish son wise. Others of course chose to believe it. The Regional Inspector Tao Kan had go and backgammon boards thrown into the Yangzi River because go was "for foolish sons" and because backgammon was supposedly invented by the evil tyrant Zhou around the 11th century BC Watanabe Y.
Where the "Shi Ben" got the legend from is another matter.
Its sources were the histories of various states from the dawn of Chinese history. The version of the text we now have simply says Yao invented go [yi] and Dan Zhu was adept at it. It appears there has been a conflation of different legends, as one reason Yao and Shun were regarded as wise was that they perceived that their sons were unworthy to follow them and appointed outsiders as their heirs. However, Yao was also associated in legend with calendar making and divination, and here it becomes easy to see a possible link with go.
Divination in China seems to have been associated first with agriculture. Certainly the Shang 16thth century BC used cracks in animal bones and turtle shells to predict harvests and the weather. Interestingly, too, divination was associated with the legendary Yellow River Diagram and the Luo Record. These were supposedly revealed to the Great Ancestor Fu Xi on the back of a dragon-horse and a turtle that rose out of the Yellow and Luo Rivers respectively.
They are just magic squares, but the Chinese have always depicted them in the same way as go diagrams. Figure 1 [magic square where the numbers are not shown with numerals but with clusters of black and white "go" stones]. The Shang were displaced by the Zhou, who shifted the emphasis of the oracles to predicting the influences of the heavenly bodies. This was the period when the enduring yin-yang theory took shape. Their view of the cosmos was widely admired and quoted even by later go writers. The lines must be straight like the divine virtues. There are black and white stones, divided like yin and yang.
Wu Zhou — Back in , he scored 33 goals in a single junior national-team game against Thailand. Chinese, Overseas. Shang religious rituals featured divination and sacrifice. How to get from Anyang to Datong by train, bus, car, plane or taxi. The Kitchener, Ontario native spent last season in the DEL with the Augsburg Panthers, playing 37 games and producing seven goals and 26 points. Chinese water deer.
Their arrangement on the board is like a model of the heavens. Even a book as late as "Wang You Qing Le Ji" [The Carefree and Innocent Pastime Collection: the oldest surviving go manual, from the early 12th century - though it is actually an anthology of older texts] begins: "The number of all things in Nature begins with one. The points on the go board number three hundred and sixty plus one. One is the first of all living numbers. It occupies the polar point of the board around which the four quarters revolve.
The other points represent the number of days in a [lunar] year. They are divided into four quarters which represent the four seasons Though popular - similar texts exist, for example, for backgammon - such ideas clearly belong to Ban Gu's time and later, and have nothing to do with the invention of go but may well be linked with the transition from 17x17 to 19x19 boards. A more likely source for the origin of go lies in the way Zhou divination changed. Originally the heavens were asked what Fate had in store for all sorts of ventures, but Man being what he is, these ventures became increasingly warlike, so that typical oracle sessions as recorded on the bones would be: "A sign was given; this spring the king, in attacking the X clan, will be able to call out 5, men to wage war" or "On the 8th day, we will slay 2, men in battle" Watanabe Y.
Assuming the existence of a divining board, perhaps based on the magic-square diagrams, it is then easy to imagine go evolving from sessions around the board with black and white pieces, conceivably placed in shapes resembling cracks in shells or bones, with priests arguing over possible interpretations. See Lau and Sawyer There is also the use of lodestones and magnetic divining boards to consider - see Needham Though still speculative, this version of go history seems to be the most favoured at the moment, and if true suggests a date for its creation perhaps somewhere between the 10th and 4th centuries BC.
Whatever its origin, go became a much-used metaphor for war later. The "Qijing Shisan Pian" just quoted, for example, is modelled on Sun Zi's Art of War, not just in the number of chapters but in its phraseology. Mao Zedong was also fond of using the analogy Boorman Nonetheless, except insofar as the speculation above is justified, go seems never to have had strong associations with warfare, unlike chess. Even its terminology is elusive - the many ancient terms that survive refer mainly to hand movements block, push, throw, etc.
Turning now to the early literature, the first reference is normally considered to be in either the "Zuo Zhuan" [Zuo's Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals] or the Analects of Confucius. The latter was compiled by disciples of Confucius some time after his death in BC. The former is dated to BC Potter or later, but refers to an historical event in BC and so it seems reasonable to give this priority.
Although Watanabe Y. Ning Xi promised [to collaborate with him]. Ning is now dealing with his ruler with less care than if he were playing go. How can he escape disaster? If a go player establishes his groups without making them safe, he will not defeat his opponent.
How much worse if he establishes a ruler without making him safe. Confucius's reference Analects, Book XVII, 22 is unflattering: "It is difficult for a man who always has a full stomach to put his mind to some use. Are there not players of [liu]bo and go? Even playing these games is better than being idle. The next major reference is by Mencius, a follower of Confucius. He gives two references. In one Mencius, Book IV, B it is linked with liubo and wine as an unfilial thing that leads to malnourishment of one's parents.
In the other Book VI, A-9 , he gives this parable:. Yet if one does not apply one's mind to it and bend one's will, one cannot master it. Go player Qiu is the best player in the land. Suppose he teaches two people to play, and one applies his mind and bends his will and listens to what Qiu has to say.
The other, however, listens to him but his mind is on a swan he imagines is approaching and he wants to take up his bow and arrows and shoot it. Although he is studying with the first player, he will not be as good. Is this because he is not as intelligent? I say no. All these classical references are to yi. Admittedly none of them tells us what the game is, and we have to wait until Han times BC - AD for detailed descriptions that confirm yi is go.
But the weight of tradition cannot be ignored, for there is a continuum of references to yi between the Confucian era and Han times. Interestingly they often imply that it is a game of skill, and as will be shown below a rather high level had already been reached by Han times, and then beyond, although in the Han the term weiqi emerged.
The Chinese Bronze Age had begun by B.C. in the kingdom of the Shang forth from their walled cities with their nobles and knights to hunt and fight wars. of an ancient Chinese site began at Anyang, the last capital of the Shang dynasty. in is the only intact undisturbed royal tomb to be discovered to date. The Shang dynasty also historically known as the Yin dynasty (殷代; Yīndài), was a Chinese The Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project dated them from c. The Anyang site has yielded the earliest known body of Chinese writing, mostly.
Yin Xi, for example, in the "Guan Yin Zi" [Book of Master Yin] of the late Zhou period 4th-3rd century BC says: "Take the accomplishments of archery, chariot-driving, playing the zither, and go: in none of these is it possible to stop learning. As to why yi was first used whereas weiqi became usual later, the answer is probably found in the book "Fang Yan" [Dialects] by the Han scholar Yang Xiong 53 BC - 18 AD which says, "Yi refers to weiqi. East of the Hangu Pass in the states of Qi and Lu everyone says yi. As these and other texts imply, weiqi had become the most familiar term in Han times and yi had to be explained to readers of those times.
One obvious reason was the shift in the geographical focus of power and thus the ascendancy of another dialect.
There is, however, also a theory that yi may have referred to go on 17x17 boards and weiqi to the 19x19 version, the two versions co-existing rather than one evolving from the other Yasunaga The survival of Tibetan go 17x17 is seen as evidence for this. The situation is very confusing. The 17x17 board discovered at Wangdu and referred to above dates from the Later Han, and there are references to 17x17 boards.
The most celebrated is by Handan Chun of the following Wei period in the "Yi Jing" [Manual of Accomplishments]: "The go board has 17 lines along its length and breadth, making points in all. Other advances included the invention of many musical instruments and celestial observations of Mars and various comets by Shang astronomers. Their civilization was based on agriculture and augmented by hunting and animal husbandry. At the excavated royal palace of Yinxu , large stone pillar bases were found along with rammed earth foundations and platforms, which according to Fairbank, were "as hard as cement".
Many Shang royal tombs had been tunneled into and ravaged by grave robbers in ancient times, [49] but in the spring of , the discovery of Tomb 5 at Yinxu revealed a tomb that was not only undisturbed, but one of the most richly furnished Shang tombs that archaeologists had yet come across.
The capital was the center of court life.