Go (Weiqi) Philosophy And Playing Strategies.pdf

Paolo Zanon

mserv17@bib.psico.unipd.it

Qijing Shisanpian

(The Classic of Weiqi in Thirteen Chapters)

Its History and Translation ·

The most important text on the game of weiqi is certainly Qijing

Shisanpian (The Classic of Weiqi in Thirteen Chapters). Its precise style and

fulness of information place it far above all the other texts devoted to w eiqi in

Chinese literature. The present paper discusses the transmission of this text until

modern times and gives its full translation 1 .

The date of composition of Qijing Shisanpian is given right at the

beginning of the work. It goes back to the Huangyou period, during the reign of

the emperor Renzong of Northern Song (1049 to 1054 AD). A certain Zhang Ni

is also quoted as author.

permission from the author.

1 The author would like to thank Gabriel Walton for her translation of this work from the

original Italian into English. Chinese encoding: BIG5.

Nothing is known about Zhang Ni; his name does not appear in any

biographical work. In a Ming text, Wenjianlu (Report of Things Heard and

Seen), written by Shao Bowen, the scholar Yu Jiaxi did find a reference to

Zhang Ni, son of Zhang Wang, who lived south of Yangzi, was a member of the

imperial burocracy, and was distinguished for his profound knowledge of

Confucian culture 2 . Yu Jiaxi believed that a mistake had been made in the name

of Zhang Ni, because in the Song text Jilebian (Compilation of Small Trifles),

son of Zhang Wang, was called Zhang Jing and not Zhang Ni.

It was in fact noted that Zhang Wang explicitly wished to call his son by

a name containing the radical li , his grandson by one containing the radical

men , his great-grandson with a jin , and so on, with shi and xin . In this way, in

six generations, it would have been possible to read the sentence: “the sovreign

is at the door, the heart is golden”.

All these facts led Yu Jiaxi to the conclusion that the correct name of the

author of Qijing Shisanpian was Jing, not Ni. He assumed that the mistake

could be explained by the similarity between the characters jing and ni , if

written in caoshu style 3 . In any case, there is no further informations about the

author, who remains shrouded in mystery.

Y U J IAXI, Siku Tiyao Bianzheng , Beijing, Zhonghua Shuju, 1937, juan 40, p.800.

Ibidem .

What we know about the text itself is clearer: already from Song dynasty

some of its quotations indicate that the date mentioned in the introductions is

credible. Tongzhi (Universal Annals), written between 1104 and 1162, reports a

work entitled Yiqi ( Weiqi ) 4 . Chongwen Zongmu (General Index of Noble

Literature), edited by Wang Yaochen (1001-1056 circa ), reports a “ Yiqijing

(Classic of Weiqi ) in a juan, unknown author” 5 . An undated and unidentified

fragment in Siku Quanshu (Complete Library in Four Branches of Literature)

states that, from the times of Liu Zhongfu 6 ( fl .:1086-1100) onwards, all the

qidaizhao 7 have read “these thirteen chapters” 8 .

So already in Song times there was a text, one juan long, devoted to the

game of weiqi and set out in thirteen chapters. The slightly different title does

not really present any problem, because even in Qing times Qijing Shisanpian

was sometimes called Qijing 9 .

4 Z HENG Q IAO (ed.), Tongzhi (Universal Annals), s.l., s.n., s.d., n°TC-496 of Venice Univ.

Chinese Dept. Library, ju .69.

5 W ANG Y AOCHEN (I ed., 1001-1056 A.D.), Q IAN T ONG (II ed., 1142 A:D.), et al . (III

ed., 1799 A.D.), Chongwen Zongmu (General Index of Noble Literature), in Chongwen Zongmu

Jishi , s.l. , Huangwen Shuju, 1968, p.438.

L I S ONGFU, “Beisong Guoshou Liu Zhongfu”, Weiqi , Sept. 1979, p.32.

7 Title introduced in Tang times to designate the members of the Hanlin Academy, selected for

their skill at weiqi .

8 Siku Quanshu (Complete Library in Four Branches of Literature), in W ANG T AIYUE (ed.),

Qiding Siku Quanshu , Taibei, Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1983, vol. 839, p.1001.

9 W ANG T AIYUE, ibidem .

The first compilation in which Qijing Shisanpian appears is Wangyou

Qingle Ji (Collection of Pure Joys, in Order to Forget Adversity), edited by Li

Yimin 10 , about whom we only know that he was a qidaizhao in the Song

dynasty. However, his name supplies us with more information: Yimin means

“retired from society” and is a typical example of the hao adopted by the literati

when the dynasty to which they were loyal to was overthrown by a new one. In

this way they indicated their disinclination to serve the new rulers.

So Li Yimin should have lived after the fall of the Song dynasty (1278)

and the establishment of the Yuan dynasty. The above quoted Siku Quanshu ’s

fragment states that Li Baiyang as the sixth qidaizhao after Liu Zhongfu: he

could well be the same Li Yimin. Therefore Wangyou Qingle Ji must have

been edited in the beginning of Yuan dynasty.

A copy of this text, edited by Li Yimin, still exists in the Peking Library.

Wangyou Qingle Ji is divided into four parts: the first presents Liu Zhongfu’s

Qijue (The Secrete Art of Weiqi ), Zhang Ni’s Qijing and a Lunqijueyao

Zashuo (Miscellaneous: Discourses on the Main Stratagems of Weiqi ) by

Zhang Jing. The latter is simply the last chapter of Qijing Shisanpian

published as an autonomous text and ascribed correctly to Zhang Jing, while

Qijing Shisanpian has already been wrongly ascribed to Zhang Ni.

The second part of the work illustrates examples of eighteen games,

some by Liu Zhongfu, the third shows example of corner fights with

variations; and the fourth thirty-four “life and death” problems 11 .

10 L IU S HANCHENG, Zhongguo Weiqi (Chinese Weiqi ), Chengdu, Sichuan Kexue Jishu

Chubanshe, 1988, p.607; L I S ONGFU, Weiqi Shihua (History of Weiqi ), Beijing, Renmin Tiyu

Chubanshe, 1990, pp.160 ff .

11 L I S ONGFU, op. cit. , p.161.

However, the collection in which Qijing Shisanpian was published and

which became the most famous and widely printed is entitled Xuanxuan Qijing

(The Very Mysterious Classic of Weqi ). It contains three introductions which

allow its history to be reconstructed.

The oldest of these is dated “autumn 1348” and was written by Yu Ji

(1272-1348), about whom we know that in 1341 he wrote a preface to the

Buddhist text Fozu Lidai Tongzai (General Report on Buddha and His

Patriarchs) by the monk Nian Chang 12 .

Yu Ji’s text 13 begins with a series of classic parallels referring to weiqi :

Yin and Yang , the circle and the square, active and passive, and so on. He goes

on to recount an autobiographical event which occurred in 1330 at the court of

the Mongol emperor Wendi. The sovreign asked the author, as a member of the

imperial Hanlin Academy, if it was dignified for the Son of Heaven to play

weiqi . Yu Ji answered:

When the ancients invented an object, they allowed themselves to be

perfectly absorbed by its spirit, and from each object they extracted its

usefulness. And indeed, there is no object which does not have its

particular use.

Regarding the game, Confucius long ago saied that playing weiqi was

better than doing nothing, and Mencius even believed that it was an art.

One may understand it therefore only by concentrating on it with a will of

iron. Moreover, the methods of organization and preparation, the Dao of

conquest and preservation, reasoning and decision, all recall the logic

12 W ILLIAM H . N IENHAUSER, J R., The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese

Literature , Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1986, p.351. Z ANG L IHE, Zhongguo

Renming Dacidian (Great Dictionary of the Names of Illustrious Chinese), Shanghai, Shangwu

Yinshuguan, 1940, p.1322.

13 Y U J I, “Xuanxuan Qijing Xu” (Introduction to The Very Mysterious Classic of Weiqi ), in

W ANG R UNAN ( et al .), Xuanxuan Qijing Xinjie , Beijing, Renmin Tiyu Chubanshe, 1988, p.1.

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