The time finally came to July 2003, and Li Xiangping, who had gained a lot of weight, finally needed to move, and he needed to go to Japan to participate in the semi-finals of this year's "Fujitsu Cup".

This semi-final was arranged by the organizers in the central Japanese city of Nagoya, so as early as 3 days before the competition, Li Xiangping received a call from Shao Weigang, the captain of the national Go team, informing Li Xiangping to go to Shencheng first, and he would wait for Li Xiangping's arrival in Shencheng, because Shencheng has a direct flight to Nagoya, and after everyone meets in Shencheng, he will fly directly to Japan to compete.

2 days before the game, after Li Xiangping arrived in Shencheng, he found that not only Shao Weigang was waiting for him, but also Wang Yiwuduan and Zhang Da reporters, everyone hadn't seen each other for some days, so they were very affectionate after meeting, and chatted warmly while waiting for the plane.

"Xiangping, how is your feature article doing?"

Since the "I want to go down like this" series will be serialized in the magazine from this month, after the meeting, reporter Zhang Da first cared about this matter.

Li Xiangping gestured to him with a "everything is OK" gesture, and then told him that he could rest assured that according to the current manuscript, there is no problem in ensuring the serialization in the second half of this year.

The other two didn't know about it, so they hurriedly asked what the situation was, and reporter Zhang Da explained it casually, telling them that Li Xiangping was going to open a column in the magazine.

After hearing this, the two naturally applauded, especially Wang Yiwuduan, who exaggerated that Li Xiangping was preparing to "open a sect and establish a faction", and said that after the column was opened, he must read each issue carefully, so that his stinky chess basket could also accept the edification of "the most advanced Go thought".

In the midst of such small talk, the time for boarding arrived, and the plane took off around 1 p.m., and it was already past 4 p.m. when it arrived in Nagoya. Entering the customs as quickly as possible, as soon as I got out of the customs gate, there was an information desk, and Li Xiangping also noticed that this information desk was actually a Chinese staff.

It's just that everyone doesn't need this consultation desk, because when Li Xiangping saw this consultation desk, Wang Yiwuduan had already contacted the organizers of the event.

Soon someone came to pick up the plane, there were several people, and when Wang Yi contacted them, Li Xiangping didn't pay attention to the others, but just looked at the leader a few more times.

Well, if Li Xiangping is not mistaken, this should be the Japanese veteran Yamashiro Hiroshi Kudan.

And the reason why Li Xiangping can quickly remember this is because this is Nagoya, and the mountain city Kudan is just a local, and the "Little Diamond in the Middle" back then can be regarded as a little famous.

As the third largest city in Japan, Nagoya is also the third largest city in the Japanese Go territory after Tokyo and Osaka, Li Xiangping vaguely remembers that the Japan Chess Academy has a "Nagoya Headquarters" in this place, which is also habitually called the "Central Headquarters" by the Japanese because it is located between Tokyo and Osaka.

In the 80s and 90s of the last century, the "Nagoya Headquarters" held a "Crown Battle", which was a regional event, which was roughly equivalent to the "Southwest Cup" of our country.

It's just a pity that Yamashiro Hiroshi's achievements seem to be limited to this, as a frequent visitor to the "Golden Chair", he has been on the stage of seven challenges many times, and even has a lot of fame in China, Yamashiro Kudan, he has not won a championship in Japan's traditional 7 title battles, and the highest achievement is the "crown battle", which is really a puzzling strange thing, "the world's most tragic chess player" is worthy of the name.

"Xiangping, let's go, what are you stunned about?"

"Oh, okay, okay."

After staying at the hotel arranged by the organizer, Wang Yi came over to inform him that he couldn't rest now and needed to go to see the venue.

"Look at the stadium, the game is not going on in this hotel?"

"No, the organizers said that the venue of the competition is Nagoya Castle, so let's visit it in advance."

"Huh? Nagoya Castle, I'm going to see it, by the way, is there still a Honnoji Temple in Japan, why don't you arrange it under the Honnoji Temple......"

As an important birthplace of Japan's Warring States culture in history, the "Nagoya Castle" is still very famous, because it used to be the castle town of Owari Tokugawa, well, that is, the Japanese often boast of their so-called "Three Masters of the Warring States" Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu and several people's nests. In fact, these people were all born in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, centered on Nagoya City.

And the "Honnoji Temple" mentioned by Li Xiangping just now, it has a bit of a relationship with Go, Japan's Oda Nobunaga is a super chess fan, he happened to watch others play chess before the "Honnoji Change" was killed, and that game of chess happened to play a three-tribulation cycle.

So in this way, the superstitious Japanese let the "cycle of three calamities" take the blame, and since then, Japan has had the saying that "the cycle of three calamities is ominous".

Under the leadership of the Japanese staff, Li Xiangping, Wang Yi and others came to the "Nagoya Castle", the venue of the competition on the second day.

Nagoya Castle is located in the middle of Nagoya City, and the most central part of the city is of course the castle tower, which is the most famous traditional building in Japan-----

Before Li Xiangping crossed, when the old man of his family asked him to take care of his antique construction company, Li Xiangping had planned to inspect the building, but unfortunately he had already crossed before the trip was made. So now it's time to make up for the regrets of the previous life.

It's a pity that after reading it, Li Xiangping was a little disappointed, for no other reason, because the current castle tower is a modern reconstruction, and most of the original buildings were burned down when Japan was attacked by air raids in 45 years.

If you want to rebuild, you should rebuild, but when the Japanese rebuilt the castle tower after the war, they changed it to a reinforced concrete structure from the first basement floor to the seventh floor above ground.

Well, although the golden beast head tile on the roof of this building is still very distinctive, but this is just to bluff the layman, even if Li Xiangping is a half-baked construction expert, he will not be interested after a few glances.

When watching the arena, Li Xiangping also met several other contestants, from South Korea's Lee Sedol to Japan's Zhang Xu Yitian Kiki, all of whom he encountered.

The others are nothing, what impressed Li Xiangping the most was Yitian, for no other reason, because when this guy came today, he actually wore a very formal kimono.

Li Xiangping smiled secretly in his heart after reading it, and said Yitian Tiger, Yitian Tiger, this game hasn't started yet, what are you doing so seriously, do you think you are so solemn, you can get Xiao Li who likes to play zombie flow.

After watching the arena, Li Xiangping didn't want anything else, and he concentrated on preparing for the next day's competition.