When was xiang qi invented

That occurred during the Baoying period, so it was named Baoying chess. Baoying chess had six pieces. He wrote about the rules of the chess.

Baoying chess produced a significant influence on the chess in subsequent years. Three forms of chess took shape after the Song Dynasty. One of them consisted of 32 pieces. They were played on a chessboard with 9 vertical lines and 9 horizontal lines. Popular in those days was a chessboard without a river borderline. The Chu River and Han Borderline were added later. These pieces and other comparable sets are discussed in this page dedicated to old Xiangqi pieces.

Xiangqi set found in archeological excavation near Beijing. Dated from North Song era, circa The value of every piece is given by a drawing on the upper face and an ideogram on the lower face. The General is inside a tent, the Guards are armored women and Cannons are Catapults. The piece is dated to the Eastern Han AD. As it is an isolated find, caution must be taken before definitive conclusions.

Peter Banaschak made the following remark: "how can it be that we don't know a single set of corroded, imperfect, incomplete metal Xiangqi pieces? It may well be that none thinks it worth while to report, photograph, or describe an imperfect set, but it would remove the nagging doubts about the sets that haven't been found in a properly documented excavation". It is very true and many so-called Chinese coins are nothing less than old Xiangqi piece like this one displaying a Zu Soldier :.

More photographs of Xiangqi "charms" can be found on this dedicated page. The striking point about Xiangqi is that its board is strongly marked. There are several square patterns in Chinese ancient civilization. The simple square divided in a 3x3 pattern is the supposed architecture of the Mingtang Palace of the Lights and dates from the Zhou era before the 3rd c.

It represents the center, seat of the royalty, from where the government propagates like a shining light. Such a 3x3 palace is exactly the Xiangqi palace. Those patterns are symbolizing the numbers from 1 to Both diagrams ar linked to the famous Yijing , the Book of Changes.

According to legend, as the Sage King Yu the Great d. The numbers were placed as in the diagram on the cover above. Yu was astonished to find that the numbers in each row, the numbers in each column, and the numbers in each of the two diagonals had the same sum. This was the Luoshu , the unique up to rotations and reflections perfect magic square of order three.

It was interpreted as a supernatural sign of order in the universe. Diagram of Hetu left and Luoshu right. Finally, there is no need to recall the Liubo to the reader, a precursor of Xiangqi with a very patterned board as well. Then, I strongly believe that the markings of the Xiangqi boards are in line with deep aspects of the Chinese civilization.

One says that the Saracens brought it into Spain when they settled in Analusia following their conquest of North Africa in the seventh century. From there the game may have travelled eventually to France and the court of Charlemagne around AD. A second claims that Charlemagne and the Empress Irene of the Byzantine court at one point were contemplating marriage. During their meetings one of the presents exchanged was a Shatranj set given to Charlemagne.

Unfortunately, instead of two Prime Ministers, the set contained two Queens with enhanced powers, making them the most powerful pieces on the board. Charlemagne thought this was not a promising sign and decided that the marriage wasn't such a good idea after all! The most popular theory, however, is that the Knights of the Cross obtained the game from Arab lands during the Crusades. It is known that Shatranj was held in some esteem at the court of Saladin, who created the Ayubite dynasty in Egypt and Syria and the Christians certainly obtained medical secrets from physicians in this dynasty.

The famous Alfonso manuscript and the Cotton manuscript of the thirteenth century describe Shatranj in its form at the time. The pieces are shown on a non-chequered board in a virtually identical pattern to that of today. The details follow:. Over the next four centuries, the game stayed in much the same form as above - the European form of medieval Chess described in Caxton's 'The Game and Playe of Chesse' wasn't much different to the Persian form that the Crusaders probably discovered.

Shown on the left is a woodcut from "Caxton's Game and Playe of Chesse". This book had much less to do with chess than with philosophical and political doctrine.

As time progressed a variety of exotic variations came about in forms such as Circular Chess and The Courier Game which was a kind of extended Chess played on a board of 12 x 8 chequered squares. The picture shows the oldest Chess pieces ever found. The earliest known Chess pieces were found at Afrasiab, Uzbekistan in With them was a coin dated dated AD giving a fairly certain date.

The Lewis Chessmen are a set of pieces that comprise the oldest complete European chess set ever found. Stumbled upon in on the Island of Lewis in the Northern Hebrides by a local, a total of seventy eight of these chessmen were unearthed in a stone compartment chamber.

They are believed to have been carved between and AD - the most complete set of ancient chessmen in existence. Most of the pieces can be seen at the British Museum in London while the National Museum of Scotland own a smaller subset somewhat controversially.

Replica Lewis chessmen sets have been produced by a number of different manufacturers over the years. The pieces are simple disks with Chinese characters on them to differentiate and are played on the points of the board rather than within the squares. The un-chequered board consists of 10 x 9 points with two notable distinguishing features.

Firstly, dividing the players in the middle is the 'River', an open area. Also, each player has an area of 9 points in the middle at the nearest edge called the 'Fortress'.

Shown are two Chinese Chess sets. One is a cheap Xiang Qi set bought in London by the author which is the sort most popularly used in China. Such boards are difficult to play for the average non-Chinese person and so the author also owns the second, rather more appealing set bought in Hong Kong.

In Xiang Qi, the concept of Stalemate does not exist. If a player cannot move, that player has lost which serves to remove one of the more tedious aspects found in the European game. It is often quoted that Xiang Qi is the most popular game in the world which is true but this is, of course, largely due to China's great population European Chess is more ubiquitous but Europeans should not be smug about this either since it has little to do with the qualities of the game and everything to do with European military and political dominance during the latter half of the second millenium AD.

Japanese Chess or Shogi or Sho-gi or "The Generals Game" has a major innovation over other games in the Chess family: Pieces when taken are allowed back onto the board. This has the advantage of making draws quite unusual and thus, some would say, a more interesting contest. The pieces are pointed wooden counters with Japanese symbols on them, both players having identical sets, orientation being the method of determining which piece belongs to which player.

The board is unchequered with 9 x 9 squares, 4 small crosses being scribed on the corners of the central nine squares. To allow us to provide a better and more tailored experience please click "OK". Sign Up. Travel Guides. Videos Beyond Hollywood Hungerlust Pioneers of love.

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