History of Mahjong

Answer 1

Mahjong originated from China, and it had a long history and many origins.

In terms of time, the history of mahjong could be traced back to three or four thousand years ago, and the earliest could be traced back to the court games of the Shang Dynasty. In the Han Dynasty, there was a game called "Liu Bo", which consisted of six white and six black chess pieces. The player who had more points won by rolling the dice. In the Tang Dynasty, when Taicang, Jiangsu Province, had a bumper harvest of grain, sparrows became a disaster. In order to reduce the disaster, there was a grain protection group that was rewarded for playing sparrows. This was related to some elements of mahjong. For example, holding a grain protection card was "whiteboard","bang" hitting blood was "red","get rich" meant getting a reward and getting rich, playing sparrows depended on the wind direction (east, west, south, north), and getting more rewards (a string of ten) was the predecessor of ten thousand children. The grain protection gun (a few barrels represented a few guns) was" tube", which was a cake. The sparrows that were shot down and tied up in thin bundles were the predecessor of the strip."Uighur"(a kind of eagle with superb bird catching skills, with it, one would not be afraid of the sparrow disaster) represented the "He" card (Cheng He was the "Uighur" card), and the Taicang dialect "sparrow" was called mahjong.

Mahjong tiles evolved from the popular horse tags and playing cards in the late Ming Dynasty, and the horse tags and playing cards were related to the most ancient gambling games. The gambling game was created at least before King Zhou of Yin. The earliest gambling game was called "Six Gambles".

The Ming Dynasty was considered to be an important period in the origin of mahjong. At that time, the culture was prosperous, the economy was developed, and people's demand for entertainment activities increased. Mahjong came into being, but its initial shape, rules, and gameplay had undergone many evolutions and improvements. It became popular during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, it was based on playing cards, absorbing the ingredients of dice, Xuanhe cards and Ma Diao cards of the Song Dynasty, and became the current mahjong. Mahjong had a history of more than 1,000 years.

It was also said that mahjong was invented by fishermen. For example, the measurement unit of fish (one, two, nine), the storage of fish (one, two, nine), the price of fish (ten thousand, twenty thousand, ninety thousand), fishing in the sea to see the sky (east, west, north, south wind), people and fish (eating), boat to boat (collision) and other concepts were related to the lives of fishermen. There was also a saying that the Ming Dynasty people named Wan Bing Tiao created mahjong on the basis of "Ye Zi Ge play". Some people said that mahjong was originally a "grain protection card" in Taicang, Jiangsu Province, but the specific inventor of mahjong was not clearly recorded in history. Mahjong gradually spread from the palace to the people in the long-term development process, and it was basically finalized in the middle of the Qing Dynasty.

While waiting for the anime, you can also click on the link below to read the classic original work of The King's Avatar!