The game is one in which two armies of rectangular block pieces, each inscribed with the name of the rank of soldier or piece of equipment it represents, face each other on a board inscribed with lines of movement, some of which are railways. The picture below shows the two armies facing each other:
This one shows the red army from the perspective of its player:
And this one shows the black army from the perspective of its player:
I bought my set on the internet, from http://www.ancientchess.com/ in the US. It cost very little, and it came with a cardboard board and rules in English. The same rules can be downloaded directly from Ancient Chess. The pieces are small plastic blocks, with their ranks painted on one side only (the enemy remains ignorant of which piece is which, as the picture above shows).
The history of the game is obscure, and probably not very old. The soldiers and the equipment refer to a 20th century form of warfare, rather than the medieval form found in Xiangqi (Chinese Chess). Nonetheless, the game has been around for most of the 20th century, judging by the 1950s version from Taiwan shown here.
The history of the game is obscure, and probably not very old. The soldiers and the equipment refer to a 20th century form of warfare, rather than the medieval form found in Xiangqi (Chinese Chess). Nonetheless, the game has been around for most of the 20th century, judging by the 1950s version from Taiwan shown here.
The object of the game is to capture your opponent's Flag. Fights are resolved based on the rank of different pieces. High ranking pieces such as the General or Lieutenant General defeat pieces of lesser rank such as Engineers or Captains. There are two special pieces; a mine which destroys anyone who attacks it (with the exception of a Engineer), and the grenade which can kill any unit but in the process destroys itself.
4 comments:
But it is entirely absent from the classic western source books on games (HJR Murray, RC Bell, DB Pritchard).
Based upon the graphical versions which appear to be the older variety then I would say that these are revolutionary china (and probably post WWII). The game itself seems to match the rankings of the chinese army (post revolution)
Which would explain why the sources you list do not have any details .... Murray of course being published in 1910 and revolutionary china being relatively closed until the last few decades
Ian,
You may be right, though there is also an expanded version of Luzhanqi called Hai Lu Kong Zhan Qi, which includes more modern military things like ships and planes, so perhaps Luzhanqi is earlier (pre-WW2, perhaps?).
The closed nature of communist China might have kept the game out of sight, but if the game existed before WW2 I would have expected Murray to have mentioned it in his History of Board Games other than Chess (1952), or Bell, whose books are from 1960 and 1970. Pritchard is even more recent (1994) and was written at a time when China was becoming much more open. So it is suprising that none of these writers mentioned it. Unfortunately it means that there is no information on the history of the game.
Free Rule Booklets for this game can be downloaded from
http://ancientchess.com/page/free-downloads.htm
It's an interesting site.
Ancientchess.com also sells a beautiful wooden boxed set ... well recommended. Same pieces as shown here in a gold print and dark wooden board see http://ancientchess.com/page/play-luzhanqi.htm
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