Cazaux on chess - A Hybrid Game?

Foreword:
The opinions developed in this presentation are subjective. I have studied the history and structure of Chess and other board games only by pure passion for several years and hold no title to pretend that my assertions are sound. However, I thought that it could be useful to share my current views with the IGK community, in simplicity.

Chess (as an evolution of Chatrang / Chaturanga) and Xiangqi striking resemblance is certainly not fortuitous. Its study is the object of this researchers and enthusiasts group. Logically, fourpossibilities can be sketched out:

The first three schemes are too simple to explain all Chatrang and Xiangqi similarities AND differences. A more complex scheme should be envisaged. Birth of games is not necessarily a linear evolution. Two (or more ?) seminal games, with mutual coupling by means of cultural influence should be envisaged. It is true for Tabula / Nard, ancestors of our Backgammon, which can be seen as the marriage between two of the most famous antique civilisations: Egypt and Mesopotamia. For Chess, the Silk Road, as a proven bridge between Chinese and Indo-Persian worlds, offers a very plausible ground for such a model. A careful study of the games structure is necessary. Let's have a look at the East end of the Silk Road.

The Liubo was played in China from the 7th or 6th century BC up to the 12th century AD. From Röllicke's excellent study, we learn that the Liubo had a strong mystical spirit and its board was at the same time a cosmological, a calendar and a divination instrument. Although the rules are still largely unknown, some characters are surprising and intriguing:

The board was heavily marked and the central square was commonly called "the water". Each player was moving 6 stones (qi) as basic Pawns which could be promoted to an owl (xiao). In addition, the material included sometimes 20 "fishes" (zinshi qi) which stayed in the water and had to be captured by the players. Therefore, the total number of pieces involved in that game could reach 32. Is this number a coincidence? It is a tantalising question.

A proposed vision for an evolution of the Liubo board towards a Xiangqi board:

My idea is that someone would have imagined a battle-game using the Liubo material. Two opposite armies were composed of 6 pawns (this is compatible of the Xuanguai lu, the first accepted Chinese chess text circa 810) and 20 major pieces defined in relation with a formalised activity such as, why not, magic squares. Most of Chessmen moves can be represented on a simple 5x5 square. That defines the move of: 2 short range pieces, Governor (G) and Vizier (V). They move 1 step. 3 mid range pieces, Elephant (E), Horse (H) and a not-yet identified X leaper. They move 2 steps. The seducing Horse finds here its rationale. The 20 "fishes" could form a set with 1 of each piece moving 1 step, 2 of each piece moving 2 steps and a pair of powerful sliding proto-chariots. The Cannon, more exactly a Catapult at those early times (as seen on exhumed charms), could have been originally the mysterious 2-step orthogonal leaper. The presence of a long range runner as the Chariot is not well explained here; however such a gaming piece is very common in many warlike games from many civilisations around the world. Why not imagine that the creators of Proto-xiangqi were inspired by a western war game as we are going discussed just after?

A proto-xiangqi could have looked as the following:
(Image: The following substitution is a facsimile of the standard xianqi board)

Now, let’s have a look at the West end of the Silk Road. This region has been deeply influenced by the Greeks and this Hellenistic heritage was later pursued by numerous contacts (hostile or commercial) with the Roman world. The Greek Polis and the Roman Latrunculi (more or less the same game) were certainly known, maybe under adapted forms, in this region. The Indian Ashtapada, also known in Persia (Hast-Pay), remains mysterious to us. We only know that it made use of a 8x8 board. Maybe these Polis and Ashatapada have no link between them, maybe they have, however, they are two good reasons to believe that the Indo-Persian world was ready to play a war-like game on a 8x8 board.

The Pawns are very different in Chatrang and in Xiangqi. For both, they move 1 square forward however they take 1 square diagonally forward in Chatrang, while in Xiangqi they capture as they move. Again, it is difficult to be onvinced of an evolution, whatever its direction, explaining one type of Pawn deriving from the other. The Indo-Persian sort is the most elaborated. Also, it corresponds to a game where the Pawns are present to form a full line. I am convinced that this is not fortuitous. My deep intuition is that peculiar Pawn move in Chatrang which can form very efficient self-protected chains could derive from a local evolution of the Graeco-Roman battle game (the phalanx, the mysterious latin mandra?).

I also see a genuine Indo-Persian piece into the King. The Chinese counterpart is limited to orthogonal moves only and is confined to the 9-points palace. Then, the Xiangqi is a pleasant circling and blocking game. On the contrary, in Chatrang, the King can really lead the battle. A seducing hypothesis will be to confirm that a kind of Latrunculi had been transmitted to those regions with, at least, 2 types of men : Pawns and Kings.

The Pawn promotion to a Vizier is another typical characteristic of Indo-Persian Chess. Such a process is the good answer to their final arrival on the last row where they get pinned down. A Xiangqi-like solution allowing a side walk was not an acceptable alternative since it was not enough to efficiently chase an unbound King. This promotion mode (on final row) is very cleaver and intimately attached to the western style of Pawns and Kings.

Kushan gold dinar representing Kanishka I the Great (100-126 AD), inscriptions with Greek alphabet

My proposed birth scenario for Chess is the following : Westerners (Indians, Persians, Bactrians, Kushans?) identified their supposed war game with the battle game derived from Liubo, with 32 pieces. The resemblance of their 8x8 board with the Chinese board - 9x10 intersections which give 8x8 squares if one makes abstraction of the separating river - would have helped the identification and adoption of the rest of the troops. Not only the river, but all other markings like the palaces (if they existed) were therefore victim of that assimilation. (Although the never satisfactorily explained crosscut markings of the Ashtapada board are worth a study). The arrangement followed some logic : they kept the Commander and his Counsellor, here a King and his Vizier, at the centre, the Chariot at the angles and Horses and Elephants in between. This was fulfilling the first row already and since the Cannons were not immediately connected with an accepted division of the army, they were simply ignored and the corresponding pieces assimilated to 2 supplementary Pawns. Therefore, a complete Pawn line was obtained, and I suspect that this line was also found in anterior board-games in these western countries.

It can be thought that playing inside the squares rather than on the intersection points influenced the way the chessmen moved. It gave more freedom, allowing Elephant and Horse to jump over an occupied case. This play style is more difficult to accept, psychologically, on a grid where the player who moves his piece two steps does it naturally point by point and is stopped if the intermediate location is occupied. (and Japanese Shogi which is played on squares has a jumping Horse).

Conclusion: The idea behind this paper is that Chess would be an hybrid game combining western characters inherited from Graeco-Roman or Indian games with some eastern elements which have led to Xiangqi from their own side. Others before me have suggested links with board games such as the Liubo, the Polis or the Ashtapada. What I have tried to do here is to draw a consistent frame which could explain most characteristics of both Xiangqi and Chess ludic structures.

The argument which is developed in this paper is highly subjective. It aims at raising open discussions with researchers and enthusiast amateurs passionate by Chess history. Since my opinion has evolved and changed directions several times in the past last years, fluctuating with the rich and numerous contacts I had got, it is possible that I revise these views in future. I give an appointment to interested readers on our web site for an up-to-date vision.