In December 2021, I wrote a short story for Calliope's Collection of Mystical Mayhem, a children's fantasy anthology started by Wild Ink Publishing. The first of many mini projects, I hope. Enjoy~
Right now, I'm not sure who's interested in knowing more about Xiangqi, but I decided to add a guide chapter on it to the end of this online short story. It'll be a bit more technical and historical, but at least try skimming through. If it bores, you'll be through in a couple of scrolls. If it intrigues, you can stay and take a bit more time. I do comment on it twice in these two fun fact chapters, but I don't explain the rules as a whole until the guide chapter.
Buckle in, this is a LONG read. To fit the word limit, I had to divide this into two parts.
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Inspirations
1) "Many lifetimes ago, in the fabled city of Northern Peace lived a young boy who had nothing but a chipped Xiangqi chessboard, the names on the pieces nearly faded out. Every afternoon while the sun burnt itself low, and folks milled to and fro in the Qianmen artistry district, the boy sat outside its archway where he cried the same challenge."
'Northern Peace' or 'Beiping/Pei-p'ing' was an administrative capital during the Yuan/Mongol dynasty (1206–1368), but got replaced by 'Nanjing/Nanking' when the Ming came into power (1368–1644) Five decades in, the third Ming emperor made it the official capital of China again and renamed it 'Beijing'. Is your head spinning with all these names? :D None of this really matters in this story, but I do appreciate featuring old names for places, characters, even events. It's probably not all that creative, but it's my small way of acknowledging the history behind them.
I did sort of take liberties with the timeline. So 'Qianmen' (Front Gate), this archway that the boy sits at, was built in 1419 during the Ming dynasty, after the name Northern Peace had been retired. Now it's between the Forbidden City and Qianmen Street, a tourist avenue that I would like to visit some day. You can look up the locations! But as far as this fable goes, I imagined this era as a transition between the Yuan and Ming dynasties.
So I don't know how updated this map is, but as you can see, it's a long shot more modern than the settings of this story.
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2) "For the legends say Xiangqi, the Elephant Chess, was no ordinary board game, but a gift to the mortal realm through an ancient sage's dream."
In Mandarin, Xiangqi directly translates to Elephant Chess, but is also colloquially called Chinese chess in English. Xiàng means 'elephant' while qí means chess.
Pronunciation for those who understand phonetics(pinyin): Xiàngqí For those who don't: 'See-ang Chee' (Say 'See-ang' fast)
The 'ancient sage's dreams' references a story from the Tang dynasty (618-907CE) that tells Xiangqi's origins, from the POV of a character named Cen Shun. He dreams of a visit by a messenger from the Golden Elephant Kingdom, who invites him to watch a war with the Tian Na Kingdom. And then his room turns into the gate of a castle readying for battle, which has got to be insanely trippy.
