May 1 of the eighth year of Xianchun in the Southern Song Dynasty (1272). Ji'an, Jiangxi.

On this day, Wen Tianxiang, who had no official position and no position, was sitting at home, looking at the gloomy weather outside the door, thinking about the world situation that was gloomier than the weather, and his heart was extremely depressed, but he was helpless.

Wen Tianxiang let out a long sigh, stood up and put his hands behind his back, and walked out of the hall lazily, intending to take a trip to Yubo Mountain. As soon as I arrived at the gate, I saw that several families were moving food to the kitchen in an endless stream, and most of them were chickens, ducks and fish, and I felt strange in my heart.

Wen Tianxiang beckoned to a housekeeper, pointed to the kitchen door and asked, "Is there an important guest at home?" How did I not know? ”

The family replied, "There are no guests." Have you forgotten, sir? Tomorrow is your birthday. Seeing that you are frowning all day, Madame plans to hold a family birthday party for you to adjust your mood. Therefore, the people were instructed to prepare in advance. ”

Wen Tianxiang then remembered that he had been in a gloomy mood for several days and forgot about his birthday. However, what he is worried about in his heart is related to his family and country, and a family birthday party may not have the effect of making him frown. But since it was his wife's opinion, he could not disobey her kindness, so he had to go with them. So he turned around and left, planning to continue his trip to Yubo Mountain.

After walking a few steps, Wen Tianxiang suddenly remembered something, and beckoned the family to come forward again.

Jiading: "What does the master command?" ”

Wen Tianxiang: "Tomorrow is my birthday. Did your friends give any gifts? ”

Jia Ding: "No. On his birthday in previous years, the lord refused to accept gifts. Your friends know your temperament, and you won't break the rules this year. ”

Wen Tianxiang suddenly smiled strangely: "No, we have to let them give gifts this year." ”

The family was stunned on the spot.

Wen Tianxiang turned around and went back to the study, stretched out the paper and pen to write down four lines of poetry, folded it carefully, and walked out and handed it to the family.

Wen Tianxiang: "You immediately go to Yongxin City and hand over this piece of paper to Xiao Jingfu." After he saw it, he would naturally gather all his friends tomorrow to send me gifts to congratulate me on my birthday. ”

Jia Ding was still stunned on the spot.

Wen Tianxiang was slightly dissatisfied: "Hurry up, why are you standing stupidly?" ”

The family still didn't move, and even whispered in his mouth: "Master, it's not a small mouth." Writing a letter to a friend on a birthday to ask for a gift is unheard of, and it is really incompatible; Besides, your birthday is tomorrow, and even if people really want to send something, they won't have time to prepare. Look at this ......"

Wen Tianxiang laughed. After laughing, he patted Jiading on the shoulder:

"Rest assured, although this gift is strange, they don't need to prepare. You can go and send the letter to Xiao Jingfu in time. ”

The family left with a suspicious face.

At dusk that day, Xiao Jingfu from Yongxin County, Ji'an Prefecture, was reading idle books in the study, and the next person sent in a handwritten letterhead from Wen Tianxiang, and he opened it on the spot to look at it, and wrote four lines of poetry on it:

Guests don't have to be caged feathers, I love nothing like an orange.

A pine planted for ten miles, and he still saw Fu Lingsheng in his youth.

After reading it, hehe laughed. laughed, and found that the next person did not leave, and he looked like he wanted to speak and stopped.

Xiao Jingfu asked, "Is there anything else?" ”

The next person: "Lord Wen's family has repeatedly hinted that tomorrow is Lord Wen's birthday, and this letter is to urge gifts." Look, sir, time is urgent, do you need me to prepare something? Master Ji'anwen's family, let's not talk about half a day's walk from here, if this matter drags on until tomorrow, I'm afraid it's too late. ”

Xiao Jingfu laughed: "Master Wen is indeed here to ask for a gift, but this gift does not need to be prepared. Go down, it's none of your business. ”

The subordinate walked away with a confused face.

Early the next morning, Xiao Jingfu and his younger brother Xiao Taofu led the horse together and went on the road. As soon as he got out of the gate, the butler caught up with him breathlessly, and stopped in front of the horse with an arrow. The Xiao brothers were very strange, this butler had always acted steadily and well-organized, and had hardly done anything reckless; Such a scene of panic is even more unheard of.

The housekeeper asked, "Are the two masters going to attend Lord Wen's birthday party?" ”

Xiao Jingfu: "That's right. If you lock up your home, you can do it. ”

The housekeeper was dissatisfied: "I will take care of the affairs at home." But since the two masters went to celebrate Lord Wen's birthday, how could they be empty-handed? I don't have time to prepare a large gift, so bringing a few live chickens and ducks or a jar of wine or something is also a heart. ”

Xiao Jingfu smiled, took out Wen Tianxiang's four lines of poetry from his arms, and handed them to the housekeeper: "I remember that you know a lot of words, let's see what the gift indicated by Master Wen is?" ”

The housekeeper tilted his head and looked at it for a long time, and finally shook his head: "Lord Wen clearly said that he should not 'caged feathers', that is, he can't bring chickens, ducks and fish; It's just that this season, where to get oranges? Isn't Master Wen a bit strong? ”

Xiao Jingfu laughed even louder: "It seems that you are only half a bucket of water when you read, and you don't want to understand it at all." 'Tangerine' is an allusion, not actually referring to oranges, but to playing chess. Wen Da loved to play chess most in his life, so he said in his poem that as long as I go to talk to him for a game, it is the best birthday gift. Got it? ”

After saying that, the two brothers walked away. The housekeeper lingered in place for a long time, but he still didn't figure it out, and kept touching the back of his head and muttering to himself:

"How can you play chess as a birthday present? I'm afraid it's unheard of since ancient times. What a bunch of weirdos. ”

On May 2, the weather was clear. The Xiao brothers went separately and gathered all the friends who came and went close in Ji'an Township, including Zhou Zishan, Liu Cheng, Liu Mo and more than a dozen people such as Zhu Lian, and in the afternoon of the same day, they gathered in the stream of Yubo Mountain to play chess for fun, and wished Wen Tianxiang his birthday.

At first, there were more than a dozen sets of chess sets by the stream, and each took turns to catch and fight. Later, the sun turned west, the weather became hotter, and everyone left the chessboard one after another, stripped off and went to the stream. Wen Tianxiang was very excited, and suddenly had an idea, and suggested to his friends:

"Playing chess is a joy in life, but unfortunately the heat on the shore is unbearable, which seriously affects the way of thinking. It's better to take the meaning as a shackle on the surface of the water and continue to play the game to decide the winner. What do you think? ”

The crowd applauded. So everyone threw away the chess sets, went down to the stream, and began to play blind chess.

This is the earliest record of blind chess in the history of Chinese chess. And Wen Tianxiang is the inventor of blind chess in the history of chess.

Late that night, when the friends retreated, Wen Tianxiang was still thriving, so he unfolded the pen, ink, paper, and inkstone, and recorded the wonderful game score of himself and his friends from memory.

A few days later, he was inspired again, summed up the characteristics of his friends' games, and drew an endgame diagram of "Gun Horse Wins the Car", because it was inspired by Yubo Mountain, so he named the game "Jade Silk Golden Ding".

It is rumored that Wen Tianxiang was also the first person in the history of chess to create an endgame.

Since then, Wen Tianxiang has been out of control, and he has a little free, even when Rong Ma is young, that is, after quietly creating, or selecting wonderful endgames to be compiled into "Jade Silk Golden Ding". By 1283, before Wen Tianxiang's heroic righteousness, "Jade Silk Golden Ding" has become a complete endgame book, a total of forty games, all crowned with four-character idioms, starting with the original "Jade Silk Golden Ding", and ending with "riding alone".

Riding alone to see the captives obviously originated from Wen Tianxiang's envoy to Meng Yuan recorded in the "Later Preface to the Guidebook". The integration of politics and military into the chess endgame also began with Wen Tianxiang.

It was hard for people at that time and later to imagine that chess occupied such an important position in the life of the patriot Wen Tianxiang.

As we all know, as early as the first year of Xianchun (1265 AD), Wen Tianxiangguan Jiangxi was sentenced to justice and rehabilitated Chen Yinjiang's unjust case, but was dismissed by Taiwanese minister Huang Wanshi for "dereliction of duty" and expelled from the officialdom.

Wen Tianxiang returned to his hometown in Ji'an, Jiangxi, and planned to build a villa on Yubo Mountain, and enjoy poetry, wine, and chess, and soon began construction. After that, he traveled back and forth to the mountains day after day, day and night.

However, Wen Tianxiang was destined to be a man who could not live an idle life, and in the following nearly twenty years, he went in and out of the officialdom several times, until he died heroically in 1283, and this ideal villa was never completed.

However, he painstakingly completed a score, which is probably the first endgame in the history of Chinese chess. Doing such a thing that seems to be unhelpful to his family and country, is it really because of his game mentality?

Apparently not. It is impossible to believe that Wen Tianxiang was still in the mood to create any chess games when he was fighting against Meng Yuan, or when he was fleeing alone, or even in prison. Unless, it's not a game at all.

Yes, "Jade Silk Golden Tripod" is not an ordinary chess game, and many people later believed that there was a major secret involving the country buried in it. And this confidential matter that had to be integrated into the chess game, except for Wen Tianxiang, the soul of the Jiangxi Yi School, there was no second person in the world who could complete it. And at that time, there were no more than five people who could solve and restore confidential matters from the chess game, except for Wen Tianxiang himself.

Nearly 300 years after Wen Tianxiang's death, a person by chance obtained the inkstone that Wen Tianxiang originally used to write "Jade Silk Golden Ding". This person pointed to the inscription behind the inkstone and sighed to his friend, if Wen Tianxiang was not in prison, if the five people who could find out the "Jade Silk Golden Ding" did not die prematurely, then the history of the Song and Yuan dynasties is likely to be rewritten.

The person who got the inkstone was Yuan Mei. Surely you've heard his name. Because he built a villa called "Suiyuan" and wrote a book called "Suiyuan Poems".

But judging from all indications, Yuan Mei only got an inkstone, and he had not seen the original "Jade Silk Golden Ding", and his sigh was only out of speculation about the utility of the chess game, and this guess was still unbelievable to ordinary people.

In fact, not long after Wen Tianxiang became righteous, "Jade Silk Golden Ding" disappeared, leaving only a name, which was passed on by word of mouth on the rivers and lakes.

Some people say that the whole book of "Jade Silk Golden Ding" was buried in a secret place by one of Wen Tianxiang's family, and no one could find that place, and even if they did, they couldn't get in; Some people also say that "Jade Silk Golden Ding" was split into many pages, sandwiched in many collections of books by Wen Tianxiang during his lifetime, broken into pieces, and scattered among the people.

There is also a legend. Kublai Khan, the founding emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, secretly sent people to Wen Tianxiang's hometown of Ji'an to investigate the whereabouts of the "Jade Silk Golden Ding", but to no avail. There is no record of this incident in the official history, and it is only circulated by word of mouth in the song of Wen Tianxiangxiang. It is said that the people sent by Kublai Khan not only did not see the shadow of the "Jade Silk Golden Tripod", but also did not find the ruins of Beye, which Wen Tianxiang spent more than ten years before his death but never built.

Six hundred and sixty years after Wen Tianxiang's righteousness, that is, in 1943 AD, someone saw a bad page of an old book in a used book stall in Fuzhou, with "The Golden Tripod of Prime Minister Wen Cheng's Jade Silk". There is only one page with an endgame painted on it, and the specific action is not indicated. It's hard to tell if it's true or fake, and there's only one game, which is far from the legendary forty rounds in terms of quantity.

The incident did not cause a sensation, and it was not destined to become a good story. It's just a small piece of gossip in the history of chess.

The fragment of "Jade Silk Golden Tripod" resurfaced at the beginning of the 21st century. The one who was fortunate enough to see these fragments and finally made it through these chess games was a little-known truant boy named Tang Shan. The location is in Wen Tianxiang's hometown, a little-known town under the jurisdiction of Ji'an.

Tang Shan didn't know what these fragments meant, but his fate changed dramatically because of the endgame recorded on these fragments; The road of life has turned a big bend and slid inexorably in the other direction. To put it simply, he witnesses several homicides caused by chess games, is pursued by black and white characters, and finally, he inadvertently opens a door to time and space.

Our story starts with this ordinary little person, Tang Shan.