Editing Xiangqi (section)

==History==
[[File:二龍出海势.png|thumb|A picture of xiangqi in the Southern Song dynasty]]

A game called ''xiangqi'' was mentioned as dating to the [[Warring States period]]; according to the first-century-BC text ''[[Shuo Yuan]]'' (說苑/说苑), it was one of [[Lord Mengchang of Qi]]'s interests. However, the rules of that game are not described, and it was not necessarily related to the present-day game.<ref>[http://www.banaschak.net/schach/origins.htm "Facts on the Origin of Chinese Chess"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110723023019/http://www.banaschak.net/schach/origins.htm |date=2011-07-23 }}. Banaschak.net. Retrieved on 2011-10-01.</ref> [[Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou]] wrote a book in AD 569 called ''[[Xiang Jing]]''. It described the rules of an astronomically themed game called ''[[Northern Zhou Xiangxi|xiangxi]]'' ({{Lang|zh-hant|象戲}}). Ancient reports state that "the pieces ... were called after the sun, the moon, the planets and the star-houses", in contrast with modern xiangqi. In addition, there are mentions of shuffling of pieces, which does not occur in xiangqi either.<ref>Murray (1913: 122)</ref> For these reasons, Murray argued that "in China [chess] took over the board and name of a game called 象棋 in the sense of 'Astronomical Game', which represented the apparent movements of naked-eye-visible astronomical objects in the night sky, and that the earliest Chinese references to 象棋 meant the Astronomical Game and not Chinese chess". Previous games called xiàngqí may have been based on the movements of sky objects. In contrast, present-day xiangqi developed from Indian [[chaturanga]] according to Murray;<ref name=murray>{{cite book
| author=Murray, H. J. R.
| title=A History of Chess
| publisher=Benjamin Press (originally published by Oxford University Press)
| year=1913
| isbn=0-936317-01-9
| oclc=13472872
| author-link=H. J. R. Murray
| url-access=registration
| url=https://archive.org/details/historyofchess00murr
}}</ref>{{rp|119-120}} this is also the predominant opinion among historians.<ref name=cazaux_hybrid>[http://www.mynetcologne.de/~nc-jostenge/cazaux.pdf Cazaux, Jean-Louis. 2001. Is Chess a Hybrid Game ?]</ref><ref name=cazaux>Cazaux, Jean-Louis; Knowlton, Rick (2017). A World of Chess. Its Development and Variations through Centuries and Civilizations. McFarland.</ref>{{rp|334}}

[[File:Song Dynasty Chinese chess set.JPG|thumb|right|Xiangqi game pieces dated to the [[Northern Song dynasty]]]]

Some Sinologists and Chinese historians prefer an alternative hypothesis, according to which xiangqi originated in China and then spread westwards, giving rise to Indian and Persian chess.<ref name=cazaux_hybrid/><ref name=cazaux/>{{rp|351-352}} Specifically, it has been claimed that Xiangqi arose during the [[Warring States period]] and was patterned after the array of troops at the time. [[David H. Li]], for example, argues that the game was developed by [[Han Xin]] in the winter of 204–203 BC to prepare for an upcoming battle.<ref>This theory is propounded in ''The Genealogy of Chess''</ref> His theories, however, have been questioned by other chess researchers.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.banaschak.net/schach/ligenealogyofchess.htm|title=A story well told is not necessarily true – being a critical assessment of David H. Li's 'Genealogy of Chess'|author=Peter Banaschak|website=Banaschak.net|access-date=2011-10-01}}</ref> The earliest description of the game's rules appears in the story "Cén Shùn" (岑順) in the collection ''[[Xuanguai lu]]'' (玄怪錄), written by [[Niu Sengru]] in the middle part of the [[Tang dynasty]].

Xiangqi is the same as it is today from [[Southern Song dynasty]].

[[Janggi]] of the [[Korean Peninsula]] originated from xiangqi.

With the popularization of xiangqi, many different schools of circles and players came into prominence, many books and manuals on the techniques of playing the game were also published, they played an important role in popularizing xiangqi and improving the techniques of play in modern times. With the economic and cultural development during the [[Qing dynasty]], xiangqi entered a new stage. A Western-style ''[[Encyclopedia of Chinese Chess Openings]]'' was written in 2004.<ref name="ecco2004">{{cite web|title=中国象棋开局编号——ECCO 2004|url=http://www.xqbase.com/ecco/ecco_intro.htm|website=xqbase.com|access-date=16 February 2018}}</ref> 
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