As we all know, mahjong is the national essence of our country, and its history can be traced back to the game of royalty and princes and nobles three or four thousand years ago. After a long period of historical evolution, it was passed from the court to the people, and finally finalized in the middle of the Qing Dynasty.
There is also a saying that during the Ming Dynasty, a person named Wan Bao Tiao made some improvements based on the "leaf grid play" created by Han Xin, and eventually became what mahjong looks like today, and the wan, cake, and strip in mahjong came according to this person's name.
Either way, playing mahjong was not unusual during the Qing Dynasty. Especially in the late Qing dynasty, mahjong almost became the main entertainment for the Manchu royal family in the palace.
The last emperor Puyi also had a fondness for mahjong, and as we all know, after the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1912, according to the "Preferential Conditions for the Qing Room", Puyi and his party were not expelled from the Forbidden City. On the contrary, the newly born government of the Republic of China would also provide Puyi with a large amount of money every year to maintain the luxurious life of the Manchu Qing royal family.
It was not until 1924 that Puyi was expelled from the Forbidden City by the warlord Feng Yuxiang. And in this 12-year period, Puyi, who has no government to participate in, the only fun on weekdays is to play mahjong.
When the Qing Dynasty was not yet destroyed, in order to make Puyi play happily, the people of the Ministry of Internal Affairs also specially created a pair of "royal mahjong" for Puyi to show his honorable status. In fact, the Manchu Qing royal family basically had its own special mahjong, for example, the sheep Empress Dowager Cixi had a pair of "royal jiyang mahjong", while Puyi's was called "multicolored screw card".
How fine is this multicolored screw card? It is divided into two decks of cards, the largest is played by men, and the smaller is played by women. It can be seen that the difference between men and women in the feudal order can be reflected even in mahjong. At that time, mahjong could not be played by men and women, even Baylor and the princess could not sit together and play cards.
In addition, the back of each card of this mahjong has a clever plum blossom pattern, and the carving is extremely delicate, even so that each card is completely consistent. Such exquisite mahjong has been out of the category of mahjong, more like a work of art.
It is said that this pair of mahjong was made by dozens of craftsmen in 3 days and 3 nights. Unfortunately, after Puyi was expelled from the palace in 1924, due to his haste, he did not have time to bring this multicolored screw card, and the multicolored screw card was lost in the folk.
I don't know what kind of coincidence, this pair of mahjong fell into the hands of the Japanese after several turns. At that time, there was a famous book publisher in Tokyo, Japan named Kyoichiro Noguchi, who was fascinated by mahjong. Even thousands of miles to china to investigate the development history and evolution of mahjong, at the same time, there are also a lot of antique mahjong in our country, and this pair of colorful screw cards has also become his collection.
Koichiro Noguchi, who got this pair of mahjong, was amazed, he not only regarded it as a treasure, but even built a mahjong museum for it and put it on display in the museum, which shows his love for this pair of mahjong.
Before Koichiro Noguchi passed away, he made a move that touched our people very much. He believes that mahjong originated in China and hopes that his mahjong museum will be transferred to China.
So, on July 16, 2013, two years after The Death of Noguchi. This mahjong museum finally came to China after many mediations. At that time, Puyi's multicolored screw brand finally returned to the embrace of the motherland after a hundred years of vicissitudes.