Wu Jin Zang. Pang Bei

as I met Minister Xu once, a hurried yet unforgettable meeting. Minister Xu’s bearing was the very exemplification of what was learned and refined, what a gentleman should be. All those who had met him shared this same impression with me.

      I was recalling that meeting, when the doorman ran out distressed. His breast was all wet. Minister Xu splashed tea water on him.

      Both being exemplary savants of today’s world, Han Xizai was more broad-minded, while Minister Xu was more poised. How could urbane and refined Minister Xu act so rudely? The doorman said it was because he disturbed Minister Xu’s chess game.

      Minister Xu was the national champion in chess games. One day in a past year when he was playing chess with the king, a palace attendant suddenly reported that Xiao Yan, Director of the Court of Judicial Review, requested an interview. Xiao Yan became impatient after long waiting and rushed directly into the palace apartment. Seeing that the king was so obsessed with the chess game, he overturned the chess table. The king asked if he was giving direct criticism after Wei Zheng. Xiao Yan replied that he was not as good as Wei Zheng, and your majesty was also not Emperor Taizong of Tang! Xiao Yan flew into a rage because the king neglected affairs of the state for playing chess. The king ended the game without saying a word and did not condemn Xiao Yan for his offense. The king thus got a good reputation. At the beginning of his reign, the king was so open to good advice. But now that the state would decease, the king acted so wantonly as to put a good general into the death prison.

      The doorman stretched one hand to me smilingly.

      I produced another piece of silver and put it on his hand.

      Walking through red serpentine corridors and along a winding path leading to a secluded place, I found Minister Xu sitting all alone in a pavilion surrounded by exquisite rockwork, flowers and trees. He sat motionlessly, as if he was also a rare stone.

      I did four obeisances to Minister Xu. Even when I worshiped Confucius in the imperial college, I was not as devout and respectful. I called him “Chief Minister”, which was a term of respect for the Minister of Rites. As Xu Xuan once acted as Assistant Minister of Rites, I called him “Chief Minister” to highlight my respect for him. I apologized for having disturbed his chess game.

      Minister Xu, who held a black chess piece between his fingers, perfunctorily returned a salute, and did not raise his head to look at me in face. He only gazed at the chessboard in a daze. The stone table in the middle of the pavilion was a chessboard, on which an end-game was displayed by black and white chess pieces. I did not mind his cold shoulder, as after all it was I who disturbed him, while he was deeply absorbed in the end-game.

      I looked at the poem inscribed on the pavilion hill, which was obviously in the seal script written by Minister Himself: Like a strange stone by water sitting, I opened my coat and hung up my hat. Leaving behind a mind of scheming, I forget myself in chess games and fishing.

      Minister Xu was famous for his seal script and official script. He especially loved the small seal style of Li Si, Prime Minister of the Qin Dynasty. This poem was inscribed in the style of the small seal style of Li Si.

      “Loot!” Minister Xu suddenly dropped the black chess piece on the chessboard and clapped several times happily. I was almost illiterate about chess, so I dared not look at the composition of the chess game, for fear that he would discuss it with me.

      “The blue mountains are not tired of a thousand cups of wine, one chess game is enough to wind off a day. For chess, there is a movement called no movement, and a playing called no playing. Do you find anything peculiar, Mr. Lin?

      “I’m too ignorant to know what’s behind these characters…”

      I looked at those characters on the chessboard. There is one character on each of the nineteen vertical and horizontal lines. Indeed I had never seen such a chessboard.

      “The 19×19 grid has always confusing many people. The ancient chess manual has been lost, so chess players often cannot grasp the main points. Now I have written The Xu’s Chess Manual, which covers all tactics, easy to learn and memorize. I expect that I might attain immortality for it ten thousand years later. You see, in this chess manual, the nineteen lines are marked by one character each, one heaven, two earth, three talent, four time, five elements, six palace, seven fight, eight square, nine states, ten sun.…”

      I could not remember how I managed to get over this topic. Perhaps the topic was dismissed when Minister Xu found that I was absent-minded. Minister Xu led me across a medicinal garden, then through a stone arch, and then along a long wisteria corridor. At the end of the corridor was a study.

      The study was tastefully furnished and spotlessly clean, with a strong ancient impression. On the antique-and-curio shelves of the dividing wall, there were exquisitely made books and numerous classical scriptures, including the four eye-catching volumes of Shengyuan Model of Calligraphy for Practice compiled by Minister Xu upon the order of the king. Minister Xu was a world famous calligrapher. His Qin Zhuan script featured round and powerful jade-like structure and unadorned and antique style. It was said that since Li Yangbing of the Tang dynasty the Zhuan script had failed to be handed down to later generations. Now only Xu Xuan could retain his style. Though his calligraphy somehow lacked power, it showed exceedingly good mastery. On the “Tang Tongbao” coins in my bag there was his inscription of Qin Zhuan style. On the wall of this study also hung a scroll of calligraphy in the small Zhuan style of Li Si, meaning:The emperor has Heaven-granted favor, and the empire will last and prosper forever. Xu Xuan’s small Zhuan scripts were among the best, with the most wonderful touch being: there was always a stroke of dark ink right in the middle of a character. I was not in the mood of appreciating the calligraphy, paintings, bells, dings or inscription rubbings, as I only wanted to mention the unexpected disaster falling upon Father. Minister Xu listened to my full story without turning an eyelash. I looked forward to his instructions, but he kept silent. I said that he once associated with Han Xizai, but he told that he was no longer a frequenter of the night banquet in the Han’s Residence in those years.

      Han Xizai was suspected by the king in his later years. Did Minister Xu estrange him for self-preservation? Playing with a bamboo section of poem, he said that he did not have any past or private enmity with Han Xizai. But as gentlemen did not give vicious remarks after they were broken up, he did not speak ill of Mr. Han in public or in private. I didn’t know why he said so to me.

      I took out the Banquet Painting left by Father, at the sight of which Minister Xu’s eyes were brightened. I unrolled the scroll on the broad desk. Minister Xu bent over to examine it carefully. When I spoke of the circumstances under which Father left me this painting, another thread of light sparkled in his eyes, but immediately followed by a deep frown. He said he was willing to help but unable to do so, as the state was declining and the end game had started. He said that I should be farsighted as I was after all a young man. After some lamentation, he returned to the chess book he was compiling. On the desk were several volumes of chess book by ancients, including An Article on Weiqi Game and A Treaty on Weiqi Game.

      “Ancients, when writing books, didn’t consider themselves always right, and didn’t consider their books completed before their death. When Xu Shen wrote A Chinese Dictionary of Words and Expressions, he didn’t think it completed even when he was old and it was before his death from illness that he had his son present the book. I also learn from the ancients, and keep postponing the finalization of my book Examples of Weiqi Tactics until my death in the hope of perpetuating it.”

      On Minister Xu’s desk was a pile of edited manuscripts of A Chinese Dictionary of Words and Expressions. Xu was a master researcher of A Chinese Dictionary of Words and Expressions. It was said that he had added many vernacular words to the dictionary. But at this moment, I was not here for seeking knowledge, so I was not in the mood to listen to his scholarly discussions. (The editor’s note: A Chinese Dictionary of Words and Expressions by Xu Shen in the Han Dynasty is China’s first dictionary which systematically analyzes Chinese character patterns and investigates into word origins. The original work has been long lost. Of the extant versions, the ones edited by Xu Xuan and his brother Xu Kai are the earliest, called “Big Xu Edition” and “Little Xu Edition”.)