Chapter 4 Section 4 The oldest national Go player

Along with the development of go in our country, the team of go lovers has been growing continuously, and the level of chess skills has also been continuously improved, so that some national go players with superb chess skills have appeared in various periods of history.Among them, the oldest Go national player seen in historical records is Yiqiu in the early Warring States period.He was a Go master known by all the princes and countries at that time, and was praised as the originator of national chess and a good player of the whole country.He once accepted apprentices to teach chess, so he can be said to be the ancestor of Go coaches.The record about him was first seen in the ancient book "Mencius".It can be inferred from this that Yiqiu was at least a contemporary of Mencius, and he might have been born earlier than Mencius.

Because of Yiqiu's superb chess skills, many young people at that time wanted to worship him as a teacher and learn Go.Yiqiu had two apprentices.A sincere learner, very attentive in class.The other only wanted Yiqiu's fame, although he worshiped under Yiqiu's school, he didn't actually work hard to learn chess.When Yiqiu was teaching chess, he was absent-minded, looking out of the window, hoping that the swan would come flying, so he could try to shoot a few times with his bow and arrow.The two apprentices worship Yiqiu as their teacher and learn chess at the same time, but the former has achieved something while the latter has failed to comprehend chess skills.

You have to concentrate on learning chess, and you have to do the same when playing chess.Even for a master like Yiqiu, he can't afford to be distracted occasionally.One day, Yiqiu was playing chess when a sheng player passed by.The leisurely sheng music fluttered and flickered, as if coming from clouds and mist, Yiqiu lost his mind for a moment, and listened intently on his side.At this time, it was the moment when the chess game was about to decide the outcome, and the Sheng suddenly stopped playing.The sheng player leaned over to ask Yiqiu how to play Go, but Yiqiu didn't know how to answer.It's not that Yiqiu doesn't understand the mysteries of Go, but that his attention is not on the game at the moment.

These two stories tell people that concentration is the prerequisite for playing Go well. The appearance of Go masters like Yiqiu shows that Go was quite popular at that time.It is certain that there were more than one national player like Yiqiu at that time.Yiqiu is lucky.The Spring and Autumn and Warring States lasted for about 500 years. He is the only national Go player left in history, and the first national player we know.