Meet the world heritage | the sound of tapping jade - Wu Qingyuan's fangyuan world

There is a sound of tapping jade

——Wu Qingyuan's Fangyuan World

Deer wild

"Wearing a kimono with sleeves and white floral patterns on a sercopene background, with slender fingers and a white neck, it makes people feel that he has the wisdom and sorrow of a noble girl." This is the Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata's Wu Qingyuan, who was 14 years old when he came to Japan as a Go genius from China to study.

First, the mountain flowing water

Because of the title of a talented teenager, as soon as Wu Qingyuan arrived in Japan, the question of how to determine the position of the dan attracted strong attention from the Japanese chess academy. Teacher Kensaku Setsu later recalled that in order to set his position, the chess academy actually met and discussed for nearly 8 hours, and the stalemate could not be stopped, and he could only see him on the chessboard with real swords and guns.

The first opponent was Masami Shinohara, an elite representative of the Japanese chess academy. Without any suspense, Wu Qingyuan won.

In the second battle, Honin fang Hideya personally went out on horseback. Hideya is a leading figure in the Japanese chess academy, small and taciturn, sitting at the Go table with a menacing aura. Being able to play chess with him among the younger generations is a rare opportunity. Because he was too worried, the sekoshi teacher who introduced Wu Qingyuan was so nervous that he did not dare to come to the scene to watch the game, and it was the disciples who conveyed the battle situation from beginning to end. But the young Wu Qingyuan did not seem to feel the strong pressure of the celebrity. The result of the game was that Wu Qingyuan won four eyes and flew straight to the third stage in the case of the second son. In his later memoirs, he said lightly: "Even if the opponent is a celebrity, I have no pressure." I was very composed and got down well. He only remembers that after the game, Kitani Shigeru, a chess player who was 5 years older than him, invited him to eat a bowl of Japanese ramen, which "tasted great."

Five years later, in Hideya's year of Hanaja, Wu Qingyuan defeated many opponents at the Japan Go Championship and qualified for a match against Hideya. This is very similar to the battle between Ip Man and the Main Palace of the Wulin League, Baosen, in "Generation Grandmaster", and there is a great taste of fighting.

In such an important competition, Wu Qingyuan, who took the lead in black, unexpectedly unveiled a new layout of "Three Three Stars and Tenyuan", which is a new way of playing that completely abandons the traditional stereotype and is innovated by his friend Mutani Shiji. To use it in such a delicate game is somewhat to despise authority. This unexpected beating decree was momentarily chaotic, and repeatedly asked for "hanging", that is, suspension. Sometimes a game of chess is played with only one hand. Because it was suspended, the game went from October of that year to January of the following year, which took three months. In the movie "Wu Qingyuan", when this game was performed, on the one hand, Xiuya gathered the elite research countermeasures under the door, on the other hand, the young Wu Qingyuan and Mugu Shibai sat bored under the eaves of the dripping rain and were silent, for a long time Wu Qingyuan helplessly sighed "I really don't know when to go down", and the two looked at each other and smiled bitterly.

The end result is that Hideya took out a wonderful chess hand at 160 hands, and finally won with a two-eyed difference. But Wu Qingyuan, who lost chess, later lamented that losing chess in such a tense atmosphere was not necessarily a good thing.

If the two battles with Xiuya are full of legendary meanings, the wheel war-like Juban chess in the following Showa era created the uncopyable myth of Wu Qingyuan. He beat almost all the top players in Japan at the time. To use a popular saying, the Japanese chess community pinched each other, picked out the strongest one, was destroyed by Wu Qingyuan, and then plucked out the strongest one, which was also destroyed.

The first opponent of Juban was none other than Kitani, who had invited him to eat noodles. The two are both rivals on the chessboard and close friends who cherish each other in private. However, in 1939, Wu Qingyuan and Mutani Shi's "Kamakura Juban Chess", the first game showed a bloody tragedy. Because Wu Qingyuan lost a hand, MuGushi's tense nerves relaxed at once, and there was anemia in the brain, and he fainted on the floor with a "bang". At this time, Wu Qingyuan was in a long examination, and what was happening around him was completely ignored. In order to pursue the dramatic effect, the Yomiuri Shimbun published in the newspaper with the news of "Kitani's nosebleeds fell to the ground, Wu's blindness continued to take long examinations", which attracted many accusations for Wu Qingyuan, coupled with the cloud of war between China and Japan at that time, some extremists even sent death threats to Wu Qingyuan, and the glass windows of his family's residence were smashed with stones. This also worried Sensei Setsukoshi. Considering the personal safety of his mother and sister, Wu Qingyuan asked the teacher if he wanted to suspend the game temporarily. After difficult consideration, Teacher Setsuki encouraged Wu Qingyuan to say: As a chess player, even if you die on the chessboard, it is an honor. At the end of the competition, Wu Qingyuan finally defeated Mugushi with a score of 5 wins and 1 loss under pressure.

From the summer of 1955 to the fall of 1956, Wu Qingyuan maintained an incredible undefeated record in the face of challenges from many super-first-class chess players such as Mutani Shigeru, Hashimoto Utaro, and Tomosai Fujisawa. At that time, all the three generations of top masters in the Japanese chess world were ruthlessly crushed by Wu Qingyuan's chariot, and some were even repulsed by him by two levels. In the entire Showa chess world, there is no longer any opponent who can compete with one. If it weren't for the car accident in 1961, the Wu Qingyuan legend might have continued. In that car accident, Wu Qingyuan, who was crossing the road, was hit by a speeding motorcycle, fell unconscious, and after being sent to the hospital, he did not receive timely and effective treatment, so that he left serious sequelae - headaches and even insanity. After the 1973 ten-stage tournament, Wu Qingyuan withdrew from the jianghu, leaving the chess world with an unrepeatable legend.

Second, the water will come to fruition

If there is a replay, let us pull the camera back to the winter day in Beiping many years ago, the night when my father was seriously ill, and the young Wu Qingyuan and his brothers stood in front of his father's bed together. The father slowly handed the note to the eldest son Wu Huan and the novel to the second son, Wu Yan. What was handed to Wu Qingyuan (then known as Wu Quan) was a chess piece that he used every day. This scene is somewhat premonition of fate. After that, the eldest Wu Huan did indeed serve in the puppet state of Manchukuo, and then moved his family to Taiwan and went to the United States in his later years. The second brother, Wu Yan, remained in Tianjin, was inspired by communist ideals, joined the Communist Party of China, and entered colleges and universities in his later years, becoming a professor and a writer. And Wu Qingyuan, who became a chess player unparalleled in the world, fulfilled his father's expectations before his death.

Located on Fuzhou Chengbei Road, Banye Xuan is now difficult to see the pattern of that year, only the century-old water banyan in the pond is still faintly engraved with traces of the past. This is wu qingyuan's ancestral home. His grandfather Wu Weizhen was a major minister at the end of the Qing Dynasty, who served as an official in Daotai, Zhejiang, and later resigned from the government to run the salt industry and maintain a large family business. His father, Wu Yi, studied in Japan, but he had no intention of studying, was obsessed with Go, and seemed to have learned chess from professional chess players, and he still remembered it after returning to China. When he was a child, his father played Go with guests at home, and Wu Qingyuan watched from the side and learned it unconsciously. When he was 8 years old, he once said "This is not saved" next to him, and his father began to teach him to play chess. The professional chess scores brought back from Japan by his father became the martial arts secrets that Wu Qingyuan cultivated alone when he was a child. The slight bending and deformation of his left middle finger is caused by playing music in one hand and playing chess in the other when he was young. Slowly, his father led him to the Go club in Beijing to play chess, playing against Gu Shuiru, Liu Lihuai and others, the most well-known chess players in Beijing at that time. When Wu Qingyuan was 11 years old, his family suffered a change, Wu Yi died of lung disease, and his investment failed before his death, and he once lived by selling his property. Later, through the recommendation of the Beijing chess player Gu Shuiru, Wu Qingyuan was able to play chess in Duan Qirui's mansion to earn a sponsorship fee of 100 yuan per month to maintain his family. It is said that the young Wu Qingyuan won him mercilessly in the first game of chess with Duan Qirui, causing Duan Qirui to whisk his sleeve away. The chess players also followed the bad luck, and they did not have to eat breakfast, but the promised 100 oceans were still paid to Wu Qingyuan as usual - wu Qingyuan became famous and then played a guiding chess game with Duan Qirui, at that time Duan Qirui had retired from the political arena and practiced in a temple, the arrogance of the warlord disappeared, saw Wu Qingyuan, took the initiative to play black chess with his hand - after playing chess in Duan Mansion for a year, Duan Qirui went to the field, and Wu Qingyuan returned to the "Coming to the Rain Xuan" in Zhongshan Park in Beijing to play "open-air chess". At that time, the rich people in Beijing often offered prize money, attracting chess players to compete. The young Wu Qingyuan was a changsheng general, and it was a photograph of his trophy and prize that appeared in the newspaper supplement in Beijing at that time, attracting everyone's attention. Among them was Arimin Yamazaki, a Japanese who was doing business in Beijing, who introduced this talented teenager to Japan's Setsukoshi Kensaku Hachidan, thus starting Wu Qingyuan's gorgeous Go journey.

People's fate is as wonderful as water, like flowing water, when it meets a cliff, it becomes a waterfall and a deep pool, if it encounters a canyon, it becomes a thin stream, and Wu Qingyuan flows all the way through the high mountains and wide land, and finally sees the scene of the sea and the sky.

3. The spirit of the Middle

"Late at night, standing on the balcony and looking at the moon, you will see the chibi on the west side of Mt. Hachiyama standing silently in the cold moonlight, in its ancient posture, returning to the bedroom, flipping through books such as the Book of Poetry and the Book of Immortals, and the years of prehistoric China will naturally appear in front of you." This is the diary written by Wu Qingyuan when he first arrived in Japan. Since he was a child, he has been infected by traditional Chinese culture, and what he has in his heart is prehistoric Taikoo China, and it can even be said that the ancient style still exists in him.

Wu Qingyuan once had a dream of raising horses when he was young, because in the Chinese paintings he saw since childhood, the literati hermits were all fighting swords and using horses as companions. Imagine how romantic it is to walk leisurely on the sheep's intestine trail towering over the mountains while listening to the birds chirping in your ears. To this end, he began to learn the method of breeding. Diagonally opposite his Japanese residence there was a huge clearing with lush grass. Wu Qingyuan seriously consulted with his wife, Zhongyuan Hezi, and wanted to buy this land and raise two or three horses. He even found the owner of the land very seriously, negotiated with the other party for a price of 500 yen per ping, and later told him that the market price in Japan at that time was only 300 yen per ping... Considering that the couple knew nothing about the economy and were about to face a juban chess match with Fujisawa Kudan, they dismissed the plan. However, the dream of raising horses has not disappeared for a long time, and he still sighs in his autobiography in his later years.

Wu Qingyuan in Go is known as the god of chess, strategizing and winning thousands of miles away, while Wu Qingyuan outside of Go is indeed like a meal and drinking dew. In order to follow his own faith, he wandered around with the Xiguang Sect and did not hesitate to give all his income to the Xiguang Sect Master. The Yomiuri Shimbun had bought a property for him, but considering that the Xiguang Sect would occupy it for himself, it was never written into Wu Qingyuan's name. Later, Wu Qingyuan quit the order, and a friend from the Yomiuri Shimbun news agency reminded him to go through the formalities for the transfer of ownership. He and his wife asked: Why? Isn't that nice? The people at the Yomiuri Shimbun were confused. Therefore, even if he stands at the top of the Japanese chess world in the name of chess saints, there are very few names. The only property was the house where the two lived, which was built when he was 40 years old.

During the filming of the movie "Wu Qingyuan", the crew visited his residence. The elderly Wu Qingyuan and his wife, Zhongyuan Hezi, received Zhang Zhen, Tian Zhuangzhuang and others at their home. The old man was very interested in introducing them to the persimmon trees in the yard that would bear a lot of persimmons in the autumn, and monkeys often came to steal food. Zhang Zhen asked curiously, is it more? He immediately asked his wife in Japanese, and then told Zhang Zhen in Chinese, not much. From beginning to end, the two men had innocent and affectionate smiles on their faces like children. Perhaps the persimmon trees in this garden reminded him of fuzhou's hometown.

After China's reform and opening up in the 1980s, Wu Qingyuan and his second brother Wu Yan returned to their birthplace of Fuzhou with a Japanese Go delegation and visited Hanyexuan, their childhood former residence on Beidaji, where the water banyan trees, ponds and fishing bridges are all in memory. Nowadays, at the foot of Fuzhou Wushan, the Fuzhou Municipal Government has specially built the "Wu Qingyuan Weiqi Hall", which has a Weiqi youth training class, and on the weekend, parents will lead their children to learn Go here, and also listen to the legend of wu Qingyuan' life.

Wu Qingyuan was born in 1914, after the Qing Dynasty, Beiyang, the Republic of China, and New China, until his death in November 2014, just 100 years old. From the age of 7 to the day before his death, he was still playing chess, and he can really be said to have been born for chess. Throughout his life, he experienced war and chaos, his family fell in the middle of the road at a young age, he went to the country and left his hometown, and he was repeatedly excluded because of his identity problems. Standing at the pinnacle of chess and being suddenly unable to play in a car accident, these experiences have been transformed into a full and idyllic language in his autobiography in his later years, without complaint. From the first edition of "There is a Heaven Outside the Sky" to the second edition of "The Spirit in the Middle", some emotional expressions and dramatic scenes have been removed by him, and more attention is paid to inner reflection and cultivation. His so-called "spirit of the Middle" stems from Taoist thought, the most harmonious point in Tai Chi. For chess, let each piece find their most appropriate position, so that the whole world can live and live. This is of course a different realm compared to a chess player who only competes for a one-step victory. And this spirit may be for the individual to find balance in this complex and complex world, to find balance in the spiritual world of the self.

After his death, the radio media throughout Japan paid full attention to him. Japanese Chess Minister Masaki Takemiya Kudan delivered a eulogy on behalf of the chess community: "It will be unfortunate that the japanese masters of the same era in history and Mr. Shigeru will be unfortunate... On their way forward, Mr. Wang was in front of the battle like a male pass in the world... He single-handedly blocked the repeated impacts of all the famous men in Japan, and the Showa era was invincible. Because they were in the same era as Mr. Mister, they were also much more honored than all of us now, and they had no regrets in this life because they had the opportunity to participate in Mr. Mister's extraordinary skills in the hand-to-hand chess. For wartime chess players, no! It should be that for all chess players, Mr. Is like the sky on top! ”

Brought to Japan along with his superb chess skills was the emotional temperament of a noble Chinese celebrity—elegance, modesty, persistence, and sophistication. These beautiful qualities shone like the moonlight of the ancient times in the poetry he had admired all his life.

In the Fuji Sanatorium in Japan, Wu Qingyuan, who was bedridden due to lung disease, stared out the window at the silent woods in winter. Teacher Kita Fumiko, who took care of him, asked him if he wanted to change to a warmer place, Wu Qingyuan said no, I like to live here, the air is dry and cold, much like Peiping...

(Excerpt from Mindu Culture, No. 3, 2015)

Source: Straits Network