Going back to the ancient times when there was no Internet, what was the game of "All or Nothing" about?

The recent release of the movie "All or Nothing"

Make people shudder at the online gambling

It also sparked widespread discussion

So, let’s go back to the ancient times when there was no Internet.

We can trace all this back to its original form - gambling

From the initial bud to the late

Gambling has gone through thousands of years of development and evolution

In this issue, let’s talk about

Things about gambling in ancient times~

What is gambling? Where did it come from?

Liubo chess pieces, source: Beijing Archaeological Site Museum official WeChat account

Boxi is an ancient folk game of winning or losing. It is played by two people taking turns to roll the dice and move the pieces. The one who gets the most chips wins.

According to "Records of the Grand Historian: Annals of Yin", "Emperor Wu Yi was a cruel man, so he made a puppet and called it a god. He played gambling with it and asked people to perform the movements. The god was defeated, so he humiliated the puppet." It can be seen that gambling originated in China very early, and can be traced back to the Shang Dynasty.

According to the "Records of the Grand Historian: Annals of Yin", an emperor named Wu Yi of the Shang Dynasty wanted to compete with the God of Heaven. He ordered people to make a puppet, called the God of Heaven, and play chess with it. The puppet naturally couldn't play chess, so Wu Yi asked someone to play chess for him and eventually defeated him. The arrogant Wu Yi immediately declared the God of Heaven incompetent and insulted him with a punishment. This game between a man and a "god" is considered the origin of "Boxi".

Painted wooden Liubo figurine, source: Gansu Provincial Museum official website

During the Warring States Period, Bo had become a form of entertainment that was popular among the people. The "Strategies of the Warring States: Qi Strategy" records: "Linzi is very rich and prosperous, and all its people can play the 竽 and 瑟... and play Liubo and Tài." The "Records of the Grand Historian: Biographies of Humorists" also records: "At the gatherings of the prefectures and villages, men and women sit together, drink and linger, play Liubo and Tài, and form groups. There is no penalty for shaking hands, and there is no ban on staring." It depicts the lively scenes of Bo during the Warring States Period.

In the pre-Qin period, there was no term "gambling". The earliest form of gambling was "bo". "Bo" originally referred to a chess game. During the Xia Dynasty, the earliest form of gambling in China - a chess game called "Liubo" was developed.

The two opponents of Liubo each have six chess pieces, and they play on a square chessboard. The chessboard has chess paths, and a horizontal space in the middle is water, where two fish pieces are placed. Liubo is a bit like today's "Monopoly" and is far from the format of mahjong.

Bo equipment, source: Hunan Museum official website

The Ancient Bo Jing mentioned that in the Han Dynasty, Bo used twelve chess pieces, six white and six black, which were thrown and moved, and were called Liubo. Bo figurines unearthed from Han tombs and Bo pictures carved on stone portraits showed that the chips and chessboards were in the form of "Liubo". However, Bo in the Han Dynasty was divided into Dabo and Xiaobo, with different playing methods and names.

Liubo picture on a Han Dynasty brick relief unearthed in Xinjin, Sichuan. Image source: Hunan Museum official website

Bo in the Qin and Han dynasties can be roughly divided into two types, namely, Bo with chopsticks and Bo with dice. In addition, there is Gewu, also known as Sai, which is a variant of Bo.

There are three types of Bo with chopsticks, including Bo with two chopsticks, Bo with six chopsticks, and Bo with eight chopsticks. Among them, Bo with six chopsticks is the most popular, also called Liubo or Dabo. It consists of a Bo board, six chopsticks, and twelve pieces.

Gold and silver inlaid bronze, Hebei Museum, source: CCTV News

There are two types of Bo, one with one qing and the other with two qing. The difference between Bo with one qing and Liubo is that there is no chopstick but qing. In addition, it also has 42 counting sticks, which Liubo does not have.

Boxi later evolved into Saixi. It does not involve throwing chopsticks or playing chess, but just moving the chess pieces. Some scholars have written articles to explain the difference between Boxi and Saixi. According to the records in the literature and the analysis of the unearthed stone reliefs and objects, the scenes of Boxi are fierce and noisy. In the Boxi competition, the winning factor is more likely to be lucky.

Liubo picture on stone relief of the Han Dynasty, source: Peixian Museum official WeChat account

Looking up relevant data from ancient and modern times, most of the records about Liubo describe its form, playing rules and the social phenomena caused by Liubo, and various philosophers have also discussed the drawbacks of this game. However, Saixi has separated itself from the gambling elements of Boxi and added more Confucian moral elements of respect, courtesy, courtesy and yielding, and the criticism has also decreased.

The Liubo game on the stone relief at Xihukou in Teng County, Shandong

Image source: Hunan Museum official website

About Liubo Gameplay

As for the specific playing methods of Bo, there is no complete record in historical materials, but we can get a general understanding of the situation of Bo from the unearthed Han Dynasty stone reliefs.

Two people sit facing the chessboard, holding six black and six white pieces respectively, and place the pieces on the twelve L-shaped or T-shaped curves drawn on the board, then take turns throwing the dice. Since the dice are 18-sided spheres, they have to rotate for a while before they can stop. After the dice stops, the player moves the pieces according to the words engraved on the top, which is the so-called "seeing where the dice stops and competing for the path accordingly".

Among the eighteen sides, one is engraved with the word "pride". If you get "pride", the chess piece will be stood up, which is called "pride" chess or "owl" chess, which refers to a favorable chess move. The word engraved on the opposite side is the antonym of "pride", which means an unfavorable chess move. The remaining sixteen sides are engraved with numbers from one to sixteen.

The players make moves by throwing the numbers on the dice, and then get the opponent's chips. The winner is determined by the number of chips they get. At that time, the key to playing Liubo chess was to make the chess path smooth, so there was a phenomenon of the two sides fighting for the path, and even bloody incidents occurred for this reason.

A brief history of the development of gambling: from "gambling" to "betting"

Southern Song Dynasty dice, source: Huaibei Museum official website

The words "赌" and "博" were used together only in the Tang and Song dynasties. The "博戏赌财经条" in the "Tang Law Commentary" linked 博戏 with money, which was the prototype of "gambling".

This also shows that when gambling was first born, "betting" really occupied the main position. Games such as pitching pots, six-bet, fighting grass, etc., which emphasize gambling skills, are all early forms of gambling. Later, people gradually added money to them to increase the intensity of competition, but the original intention was not here.

Bronze pitching pot, source: Palace Museum official website

Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin, once used people's positive perception of gambling to successfully save his sister's marriage. The Sui and Tang Jiahua recorded this interesting story as follows:

Backgammon board. Image courtesy Liaoning Provincial Museum

Emperor Taizong's sister Princess Danyang married Xue Wanche. The princess was dissatisfied with Xue Wanche's lack of talent, and there were constant frictions between the couple. In order to reconcile the two enemies, Emperor Taizong deliberately played backgammon with his husband at a family banquet, and the stakes were their respective swords. Backgammon is a chess and card game, where you roll the dice and place the pieces, and you must plan the game and move carefully to win. In the end, Emperor Taizong deliberately lost to his husband and personally took off his sword and gave it to Xue Wanche. Princess Danyang was overjoyed when she knew about it, and she no longer disliked her husband's clumsiness, and the couple reconciled.

The gambling games during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties inherited the content of the gambling games of previous generations, represented by Liubo. They were richer in form, and some gambling game forms that were accepted by all social classes emerged.

This kind of atmosphere of not being interested in gambling was still quite common among the scholar-officials in the Song Dynasty. However, the growing urban economy and the resulting market culture changed the direction of gambling.

More and more civilians joined the gambling ranks, and gambling games were set up on the roadside and in teahouses. There was even a scene where "there were more than a hundred gambling houses in the city, with card lists posted openly and soldiers and civilians invited to gamble."

The combination of gambling, money and secular life not only made "gambling" appear frequently in literary works, calligraphy and painting, but also became a mirror reflecting the world. The desires and demands of all living beings, the changes and trends of social trends were all recorded in the form of gambling.

This can be seen in a gambling game called Shengguantu in the Song Dynasty. The predecessor of this gambling game was called "Caixuange", which had already appeared in the Tang Dynasty and was somewhat similar to today's Monopoly. The chessboard was a list of official positions from lowly to high, and the players decided their promotion based on the points on the dice. At the end of a game, some people often became prime ministers, while others were still minor officials, some had a good reputation but then fell into decline, and some started from a very humble position but rose to a high position.

Color selection grid, source: Jiangsu Education Museum official WeChat account

Gao Cheng, a Song Dynasty scholar, said in "Shiwu Jiyuan" that "in the decline of the Tang Dynasty, the order of official appointments was lost, and the road to integrity and shame was cut off." People at that time ridiculed and criticized the current situation, and thus invented the color selection grid.

Since the Song Dynasty, this type of gambling game has developed into more diverse types, such as "Han Guan Yi", "Zhong Yan Sheng Guan Tu" and "Jin Shi Cai Xuan", all of which reflect the helplessness and escape from the ups and downs of officialdom and official struggles.

Another gambling game that originated in the Ming Dynasty, the predecessor of Mahjong, Majiang, can better highlight the changes that the development of the commodity economy has brought to society and gambling itself. Since Majiang, the amount of money has been marked on the cards without any hesitation. People no longer completely oppose "profit" and "righteousness", and there is no need to be ashamed to pursue profit.

The pursuit of profit, in addition to bringing subtle changes in the equipment, has a more direct impact that the element of "gambling" for profit in gambling has surpassed the fun of "gambling". When people gamble for money, greed and desire often blind their hearts, and trouble follows.

An album of poems by Yao Damei from the Qing Dynasty, with figures playing backgammon

Image source: Beijing Palace Museum

The Ming Dynasty had very strict management of officials and the military. In the later period of Zhu Yuanzhang's reign, he issued a ban on the army. If anyone was found to have broken a hand while playing chess or backgammon, or to have had a foot cut off while playing kicking, the offender would be punished according to the law.

In the Qing Dynasty, the law to control gambling was basically based on the Ming Dynasty law. The "Great Qing Code" stipulated: "Anyone who gambles with money will be punished with 80 strokes of the cane, and the money and property on the spot will be confiscated by the government. The person who runs a gambling house (even if it is not involved in gambling) is also guilty. (The gambling house is also confiscated by the government) but only those who are found to be guilty will be punished. Officials will be punished one level higher. Those who gamble on food and drink will not be punished."

Poker, roulette, slot machines and other things that people are familiar with today are all imported products, most of which were introduced to China in the late Qing Dynasty. Compared with traditional Chinese gambling games that emphasize cultural connotations, these foreign gambling rules are simpler, save effort and time, and are widely popular.

With the demise of the Qing Dynasty and the influx of Western culture, traditional society collapsed, and the cultural core of Chinese gambling games ultimately could not escape the fate of decline.

Source: Chongqing Jiulongpo District Cultural Relics Management Office

Audit expert: Chen Tao

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