Cultural relics about Weiqi

White glaze porcelain weiqi chessboard

Sui Dynasty (595 AD)

Height: 4cm

Side length: 10x10cm

Unearthed from the tomb of Zhang Sheng in 1959 in Anyang county, Henan province; it is the earliest 19-line weiqi chessboard discovered to date.

Weiqi pieces and container

Song dynasty (906- 1368)

Glazed porcelain container, ceramic pieces

Height of box: 10.5 cm

Weiqi pieces are frequently found in Song-period tombs, testifying to the growing popularity of the game. Both pieces and containers are often of ceramic, while in the Ming (1368-164) and the Qing (1644-1911) periods, stone pieces and wood containers were favored.

Famous weiqi players in ancient China

Yi Qiu

Yi Qiu was the first recorded weiqi player, who lived in the early Warring States Period (475-221BC). Due to his excellent weiqi-playing skills, lots of young people wanted to learn from him. Yi Qiu had two pupils. One was diligent and eager to learn; the other was absent-minded and would reach his head out of the window while Yi Qiu was teaching weiqi skills. The distracted pupil was obsessed with the thought of a large swan flying by. Thinking if he caught sight of it, he would try to shoot it with an bow and arrow. Both studied weiqi playing from the same teacher, but the hard-working one succeeded in the art and the lazy one knew next to nothing about the skills. The short story tells us that single-hearted devotion is the prerequisite to weiqi playing.

Cao cao

Cao Cao was a great Weiqi player during the Three Kingdoms Period (AD220-280), and was evenly matched with great players like Shan Zidao, Guo Kai and Wang Jiuzhen. Recently, the tomb of Cao Cao's grandfather, Cao Teng was excavated, finding a set of pebble Weiqi pieces. From this, one can see that Cao's family had a long history of playing Weiqi. Cao Cao had 25 sons and among them, Cao Pi and Cao Zhang were known to play Weiqi with the former killing the latter in a game.

With Cao Cao being a Weiqi fan, it's not surprising his followers also liked the game. Among the Seven Scholars of Jiangan, Ying Yi wrote Yi Shi, and Wang Can wrote Weiqi Fu Xu. Wang Can was also known for his great memory while playing.