Chapter 37 Section 7 Guangxiang Opera

"Guangxiang Opera" is an ancient chess game created by Chao Buzhi in the Northern Song Dynasty based on the reform of the popular "Elephant Opera" at that time. Regarding the chess diagrams, moves and examples of "Guangxiang Opera", Chao Buzhi described them in his book "Guangxiang Opera".Although "Guangxiang Opera" was not popular after it was created, there is still a spectrum of "Guangxiang Opera" in the Southern Song Dynasty.After the Southern Song Dynasty, the chess plans of Guangxiang Opera were lost.However, Song Zhengqiao's "Tongzhi" said that there was a volume of "Guangxiang Xige", and Ma Duanlin's "Wenwen Tongkao" also said that there was a volume of "Guangxiang Xitu". It can be seen that "Guangxiang Xi" originally had pictures and examples, but later lost.The only one handed down now is "Guangxiang Opera Preface", which was included in Ma Duanlin's "Benwen Tongkao Jingji Miscellaneous Arts", from which we can know the original intention of Guangxiang Opera and the shape and general situation of this chess game.

Chao Buzhi was born in the fifth year of Emperor Renzong of the Northern Song Dynasty (AD 1053) and died in the fourth year of Emperor Huizong's Daguan (AD 1110).He was fond of chess since he was a child, and was often attracted by the "outrageous and unpredictable" chess. When he grew up, he always felt that the "elephant play" with 11 vertical and horizontal chessboards was not enough, so he invited him to play chess. Some folk chess players, according to their intentions and interests, expanded the chess game from 11 vertical and horizontal roads to 19 vertical and horizontal roads, that is, using the Go board of 19 roads, and at the same time expanded the total number of chess pieces from 32 to 98, and renamed it "Guang Xiang". play".

The chessboard of Guangxiang Opera is the same as that of Qiguo Xiangxi Opera. They both use Go boards, with 19 vertical and horizontal lines and a total of 361 intersections.There are 98 pieces of chess pieces, i.e. 49 pieces for each side.However, the types of chess pieces and the arrangement of the chess pieces on the board before the start of the game cannot be known in detail due to the loss of the original score.According to recent research, the arrangement of chess pieces on the chessboard may be similar to that of Qiguo Xiangxi.In the Seven Kingdoms Elephant Play, each side has one, three, five, and seven sons in each row, and an additional row is placed in the front for a pedestrian.In Guangxiang play, the original arrangement before the start of the game may be: close to the center of the chessboard, each side places one piece in the front row, three pieces in the second row, five pieces in the third row, and seven pieces in the fourth row. Nine pieces are placed in the fifth row, 11 pieces are placed in the sixth row, and 13 pieces are placed in the seventh row, which is the row of the bottom line.In this way, there are five intersections in the buffer zone in both sides of the central area of ​​the chessboard, and three intersections are vacated at the left and right ends of each side's bottom line.The total number of chess pieces in each row is 49 for both sides, but it is still unknown which arms are there and how they are arranged in each row.