Rúqí gé 儒棋格
Standards for Confucian Chess by 游肇 (Yóu Zhào, 451–520, 北魏, zhuàn 撰)
About the work
A short technical treatise (one juàn, c. 400 characters) setting out the rules of Rúqí 儒棋 (“Confucian Chess”), a Northern-Wèi-period two-player board-and-dice game devised by Yóu Zhào 游肇 (451–520; see 游肇) as a Confucian counterpart to liùbó 六博 and yì 弈 (Go). The work is preserved in Tàipíng yùlǎn 卷 755 (Gōngyì bù 12) and in the Sòng Shuō fú 說郛, and is also discussed at length by Hú Yīnglín 胡應麟 (1551–1602) in his Shǎoshì shānfáng bǐcóng · Dānqiān xīnlù 2 · Xiàngjīng 少室山房筆叢·丹鉛新錄二·象經 — a primary modern source on the work’s place in Chinese game-history.
Abstract
The Rúqí gé opens with the assignment of the dice-faces (tóu 投) and game-pieces to Confucian virtues: the dice-faces 1–5 are zhì 智 (wisdom), lǐ 禮 (ritual), rén 仁 / yì 義, yì 義 (rightness), xìn 信 (trust); plus a sixth face qiān 謙 (yielding) — the zero-face that gives the game its peculiar pacifist character. The game-pieces (five per side, distinguished by colour) carry the further virtues shàn 善 (good), jìng 敬 (reverence), dé 德 (virtue), zhōng 忠 (loyalty), shùn 順 (compliance), with point-values 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. The board is a square of fifteen cùn across, ruled in 11 × 11 grid; the central vertical column is the jìng dào 淨道 (pure way), the central horizontal row the zhōng dào 中道 (central way); together they divide the board into four quadrants of nine squares; the outer perimeter (zhōu dào 周道) has 40 squares of which 36 are in actual play. The text then sets out the rules of movement: the principle of qiāntuì wéi shàng 謙退為尚 (yielding-and-retreat is the highest); the high-value-throw player moves first; pieces begin “attached” (fù 附) to the jìng dào and convert to fú 伏 (lying-down — incapable of capture) on the second move; the xiāo 梟 (owl, the leading piece) and fú pieces follow distinct movement-rules. Capturing requires “passing through” (nín / lì) the opponent’s piece on the jìng dào; victory is computed in cuàn 算 (counters), with ten cuàn yielding one jué 爵 (rank) and ten jué yielding the win.
The work is significant on three counts: (1) as the unique extant pre-Sòng technical treatise on a Confucian-themed board game — none of the other fragmentary references to Rú-qí in Wèi shū and Tōng zhì · Yì wén lüè survives in extended form; (2) as a documentary witness to the Northern-Wèi project of “Confucianising” non-Han cultural forms — Yóu Zhào, a senior Tuòbá-Wèi minister of Han descent, here re-codes the dice-game (a notoriously low-prestige Late-Hàn pastime, condemned by Confucian moralists) as a vehicle of moral cultivation through the principle of yielding; and (3) as a textual link in the prehistory of Chinese chess (xiàng-qí 象棋): Sòng Huì-qún 宋會群 and Miáo Xuě-lán 苗雪蘭 in Zhōng-guó bó-yì wén-huà shǐ 中國博弈文化史 (Beijing: Dōng-fāng chū-bǎn-shè, 2002) place Rú-qí, together with Sì-wéi xì 四維戲, in the genealogical line running from liù-bó through Indian cāturaṅga to xiàng-qí. Hú Yīng-lín, however, observes that “today both forms have utterly perished and are not transmitted” (jīn jù mǐn fú chuán 今俱泯弗傳), reflecting the loss of the game itself — only its rule-text survives.
Translations and research
- Sòng Huì-qún 宋會群 and Miáo Xuě-lán 苗雪蘭. Zhōng-guó bó-yì wén-huà shǐ 中國博弈文化史. Beijing: Dōng-fāng chū-bǎn-shè, 2002. [The standard modern Chinese reference; treats the Rú-qí in the chapter on Wèi-Jìn-Nán-Běi-cháo board-games.]
- Lǐ Sōng-fú 李松福. Xiàng-qí shǐ-huà 象棋史話. Beijing: Rén-mín tǐ-yù chū-bǎn-shè, 1981. [Discusses Yóu Zhào’s Rú-qí as a stage in the prehistory of Chinese chess.]
- Hú Yīng-lín 胡應麟 (1551–1602). Shǎo-shì shān-fáng bǐ-cóng 少室山房筆叢, in Dān-qiān xīn-lù 2 · Xiàng-jīng 丹鉛新錄二·象經. [The earliest substantial post-Sòng critical treatment of the Rú-qí gé.]
- Wèi shū 55 (Yóu Míng-gēn biography, with Yóu Zhào appended). The principal textual witness for the existence and authorship of the work.
Other points of interest
The Rúqí gé is the locus classicus for the Confucian critique of competitive board-games and for the alternative principle of yielding-and-retreat (qiāntuì wéi shàng) as a higher form of strategic play. It is also one of the very few Northern-Wèi technical treatises to survive at all — the great majority of Northern-Wèi scholarly production was lost in the Liùcháo transition. The naming-system in which dice-faces and game-pieces stand for Confucian virtues anticipates the later YuánMíng practice of explicitly Confucian board-games (e.g. the Shēngguān tú 升官圖 of the late Míng).