A Letter to The I.G.K.
Prof. David H. Li

 

Dear Mr. Meissenburg:

Thank you very much for your e-mail. As you know, my interest in research and writing in my post-retirement years is mainly to transmit the best in Chinese culture to the west, and, along the way, as needed, to set the record straight. With respect to the history of chess, I think my volume, The Genealogy of Chess, speaks for itself. While I have continued my research on this topic, off and on, especially when I was in China in 1999, and talked to a group of Chinese archeologists visiting the United States in 2000, the material, though strengtheing further my position, is not enough for another book; thus, it has to be "on hold."

Several events, however, might be of interest to you.

1) This work, the Genealogy of Chess, earned a "Book of the Year 1998" honor from the book review editor of Games magazine (John McCallion).

2) Shortly after the above work appeared, there was a book review appearing in an issue of Chess Collector International. Among other views that reviewer expressed, he stated that, in reference to a quotation from Confucius's Analects which I rendered into English, I needed the services of a Sinologist. That reviewer happened to be a student in a German university doing a program on China, though fancied himself as a Sinologist. I was amused by that. To satisfy myself that I do not need the services of any Sinologist, I proceeded to translate that very work. It appeared the following year as The Analects of Confucius - A New-Millennium Translation (1999, 285 pages). It is doing quite well, thank you.

3) The critical acclaim to my translation of Confucius's Analects prompted me to do translation of another work: Sun Tzu's Art of War (2000, 272 pages). For this volume, I included 26 case studies. Among 11 cases on war, I included a crucial one that helped to end the Chu-Han Conflict (204 BCE), complete with a battlefield map and such. That battle was fought and won by Han Xin, a keen student of Sun Tzu and the very general who invented proto-chess during the winter preceding the battle. (The proto-chess eventually became Xiangqi, and, from there, as western chess, as I detailed in my Genealogy of Chess.) In a celebratory banquet following that win, Han Xin, responding to his staff's query on the strategy he followed, he cited Sun Tzu's Art of War by chapter and verse, which I included in the case. Among 3 cases on war-simulation games, I included one on Han Xin's invention of proto-chess, and quoted the relevant chapter and verse from Sun Tzu's Art of War to illustrate Han Xin's developmental process. The other two war-simulation games are on western chess (featuring Bobby Fischer and his "Game of the [20th] Century" to focus on his professionalism) and Kriegspiel (to focus on intelligence gathering techniques; Sun Tzu recognized the importance of intelligence by devoting the concluding chapter to this topic).

4) Another area of my interest in transmitting the best in Chinese culture is Xiangqi. So far, I have published three volumes, one in 1996, (thus, preceded the publication of The Genealogy of Chess), and two followed (in 1998 and 2000). In one of the latter books, I included a game played on the very site where Han Xin invented the game, from an all-star tournament to celebrate both an important anniversary of the invention of the game and the elevation of that township to a metropolis (on account of population growth). This very tournament is another irrefutable evidence of what I described in the Genealogy of Chess.

5) At the moment, my interest in trying to compare Sun Tzu's "Art of War" with von Clauswitz's "On War". Needless to say, I thank you for having kept me posted with your occasional mailings on the history of chess. I certainly would welcome receiving a copy of papers for your forthcoming symposium. Wishing you a successful symposium and hoping you would extent my best wishes to participants of this important occasion, I remain,

Sincerely yours,

David H. Li