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The earliest records of weiqi have been found in the writings of the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 B.C).At that time, thehistoric book Zuozhuan mentioned that a player hesitated in making a move at weiqi. The famous book Mencius, completed during the Warring States (475-221 B.C.), also mentioned a story about Yi Qiu. As the best player at that time, Yi Qiu taught two men how to play weiqi. Although the two men were similar in intelligence, one was keen about weiqi and the other couldn't concentrate on it.
Weiqi became popular among the literati and officialdom during the Han Dynasty and Three Kingdoms (206 B.C.-280 A.D.). The well-known scholars Ban Gu and Ma Rong wrote the books Yizhi and Weiqi, which were the first documents on how to play weiqi. Many generals were good players too, and they learned much about
fighting from weiqi. Jinshu recorded: One day Emperor Wu of the Jin Si-Ma Yan was playing weiqi with Zhang Hua when Du Yu came in and submitted an application to attack the State of Wu. Because the emperor was only keen about weiqi, Zhang Hua seized the opportunity to stress the necessit, of attacking the State of Wu while the emperor was distracted by the game. As a result, the emperor unwittingly approved the application and the State of Wu was destroyed.
