history of chinese chess

chinese chess was invented in china, during the warring states, it was invented by a commander. pieces are placed in sections of board squares. they slide on the lines

i do not play chineese chess

Chinese chess aka Xiangqi was invented in China but might be influenced by India. Just like English language and it's Latin alphabets.

Chess vs Xiangqi

Info about Xiangqi pieces

I wrote a blog sometime ago on this subject. Some of you might enjoy it:

https://www.chess.com/blog/WSama/the-first-ever-chess-match

I mentioned Xiangqi might be INFLUENCED(my main point)by Indian chess, while saying it as the descendant of Indian Chess is like saying English language is the descendant of Latin language(which isnt) just because it's heavily influenced by many Latin vocabulary and using alphabets invented by Latin people. 😑We also can't say Japanese language is the descendant of Chinese language just because they also use Chinese characters and many shared Chinese vocabulary. You need to have solid fact like references, being objective and logic, saying it 100% descendant of Indian Chess is too arbitrary, I bet you know cross-cultural society is....😅

Besides, the original definition of "象棋" doesn't mean “Elephant Chess”😂 the Chinese character of 象 has variety of meaning in different contexts such as figure, principle, astronomy, phenomenon, complexion and more. Like you said Chinese do not fight with elephants which is true, hence this even shows that 象棋 Xiangqi was most likely impossible to be interpreted as the "elephant chess" by the Chinese people because "elephant" chess doesn't make sense at all through their daily life.

The only reason why it was named elephant chess in English was due to misinterpretion by just simply translate the 象 into Elephant, which was a much easier object to understand rather than abstract concept of 象(law of nature,figure, astronomy, phenomenon, complexion etc), thus losing the original reference and exact context.

You cant said Vietnamese language is a descendant of Chinese, that can a huge insult towards Vietnamese people😑 You only can said that Vietnamese language is influenced by Chinese language since Vietnamese people have their own language in the first place and because we are close neighbour of sinosphere.

Same applies to Xiangqi, there's already a lot variations of Chinese chess(plural) being played in China in the first place, each of them are quite similar and existed way long than nowdays variant of modern Xiangqi that we know, for instance Weiqi, Wuziqi and Luziqi etc all these different kind of Chinese chess influenced Xiangqi to evolve till now, and of course some pieces of Chaturanga at the same time were also being adopted into the Xiangqi, all these still under research for decades until now. But Xiangqi is definitely not descendant of Indian chess, Chinese doesn't create the whole Xiangqi based on Chaturanga.

Do you know how big different is Vietnamese and Korean with Chinese language? I don't want you to say like this unless you speak that language as your native language, Korean and Vietnamese language are already exist before Chinese language influence them, so please don't say that descendant!😑😑

That's your point of view, no problem.

I'm just stating fact...

Since Chinese isn't your mother tongue, I don't blame you for your "own personal translation" about 象棋 that you want....🐘 😂

Another disclosure, this is not modern notation, this identical pieces notation was also quite common for centuries in China

but it is true this kind of identical pieces notation is not the mainstream of Xiangqi, still , this actually also common especially for people in countrysides, many villagers are very simple people for their requirement standard. Meanwhile, you have strong preference towards one kind of Xiangqi. Everyone's different!😄
And for your information, Xiangqi pieces are mainly distinguished into Red and Black INSTEAD of Red and Blue, I won't judge your Red and Blue preference but Xiangqi are not played with blue pieces unless you wanted to customise yourself🤭

Yes you understand more history than me. But this is Korean flag with blue and red, not Chinese Chess Xiangqi where there's no Blue and Red🤭

It's not how would I translate, there's based on history artifact that shows Xiangqi definitions:

《中印艺术因缘》一书中说：“象因桀骜不驯，舜把他禁居起来，又恐他寂寞，所以为他制作棋局，使他有所娱乐。因其名象，故称象棋。”

《五杂组》云：“象戏，相传为周武伐纣时作，即不然，亦战国兵家者之流，盖彼时重车战也。”

《佛祖历代通载》中说：“神农以日月星辰为象，唐相国牛僧孺用车、马、士、卒加炮代之为机矣。”

Hope this isn't too complicated🤨

Another Chinese history fact, Xiangqi in ancient society was also commonly played without distinguishing chess pieces colour like Red and Black for thousands of years, however players can recognise their chess pieces based on the different Chinese characters on their chess pieces, which wasnt the case by your so called Indian chess(Chaturanga)😅

Is Chinese language really your language? Don't worry it's actually a simple fact, the only reason why the glyph for cannon are different like 炮,砲,包or even 礮 was just to differentiate players side since they initially werent differentiated by colours of the pieces. Eventually the reason why the pieces are not identical, not symmetrical arent as complicated as you all think! Your subjective judgement from Xiangqi to ancient uniforms and weaponary etc has gone too exaggerated. Other than that, I'm amazed by your facts about that two Chinese Glyph which are both correct👍

Hmmm but the translation for the last two character is wrong, 帥is Commander while 將 is General....oh ya look carefully 帥and師 are both different characters hence these meaning arent the same thing.

Just as the artifacts translated, the definitions by the artifacts and my own translation are same...well of course if you know how to read these and understand it though😋

《中印艺术因缘》一书中说：“象因桀骜不驯，舜把他禁居起来，又恐他寂寞，所以为他制作棋局，使他有所娱乐。因其名象，故称象棋。”

《五杂组》云：“象戏，相传为周武伐纣时作，即不然，亦战国兵家者之流，盖彼时重车战也。”

《佛祖历代通载》中说：“神农以日月星辰为象，唐相国牛僧孺用车、马、士、卒加炮代之为机矣。”

I'm not smart, my English is bad I apologise, but in terms of my motherland culture I'm quite make sense of it.

You really want me to translate 象棋 into English?😏

Well here you go....

象棋 in English is Xiangqi

Although it isn't correct, but your own personal perspective about these Chinese characters is interesting 🤙🤙🤙

Just like Kungfu, Yoga, Umami....

English is not my native language, I'll just stick to Xiangqi as my translation. Well, you're American? If you want to call it elephant chess or whatever, up to you I'm fine😅 I'm here just to clarify...