Hu Ronghua, A Legendary Figure
Grandmaster Hu Ronghua is a legendary figure in the history of Xiangqi - the youngest national champion at the age of 15, the oldest at age of 55, champion 14 times, and 10 times consecutive champion. This is unprecedented. Here are some anecdotes about Hu Ronghua, nicknamed "Commander Hu"（胡司令）.
1. Where did this nickname come from?
It turned out that there was an old-timer in the Shanghai chess world named Xie Xiaxun（谢侠逊）, who worked as a supplement editor in a newspaper before liberation, and in the early 30s of the last century, Xie Xiaxun won the championship in a national competition, so he telegraphed the whole country in the supplement of the newspaper, proclaiming himself the Commander of Xiangqi, and then appointed leading players in different areas as army commanders and divisional commanders. It was a light hearted fun, for a while, everyone called Xie Xiaxun "Xiangqi Commander".
In the mid-70s, Hu Ronghua had already achieved fame, and once at Xie Xiaxun's 80th birthday banquet, Xie solemnly announced : "I am old, and this position of 'Xiangqi Commander' should belong to Hu Ronghua."
At that time, because the audience hearing this announcement was not large enough, it was not circulated in society.
Half a year later, the model stage play "Shajiabang"（沙家浜）became popular, among which the character Hu Chuankui（胡传魁）"Commander Hu" was even more famous. A certain Xiangqi fan, who was slightly older than Hu Ronghua, felt that calling Hu Ronghua "Xiao Hu" seemed to be disrespectful, and calling Hu Ronghua "teacher" not that correct in terms of seniority, so he jokingly called Hu Ronghua "Commander Hu". Now not only the entire chess world calls Hu Ronghua "Commander Hu", but even the leading figures of the Municipal Sports followed the trend and call Hu Ronghua "Commander Hu" when they met.
2. Righteousness and Courage
Then the Cultural Revolution began. Hu Ronghua, who was in his early twenties, once went to Anhui on a business trip, and it took three hours to change trains in Bengbu（蚌埠）.
Unexpectedly, Hu Ronghua saw a Xiangqi stall, with 5 or 6 "Jianghu endgames"（江湖残局）displayed on the ground, with many people crowded around. Hu Ronghua squeezed himself into the crowd, and felt someone tapped him on the shoulder, it turned out to be a man with a northeast regional accent, the latter had saw someone moving behind Hu Ronghua, he kindly reminded Hu : "Put your schoolbag in front." At that time, it was popular for business travelers to carry army-style school bags. Hu Ronghua then being alerted, discovered that the strap of the school bag had been opened, fortunately the contents had not been lost, so Hu Ronghua was thankful to the Northeast man.
It happened the northeast man was also a Xiangqi fan, he wanted to play a game. A two-cent registration fee was needed, if players are successful, they will be rewarded with one yuan. Pity that the Northeast man skills were not good enough, after a while, he lost seven or eight games in a row, he was very depressed, cursing himself silently.
Hu Ronghua told his new acquaintance : "I will play for you, if I lose, I will pay, while the winning bonus will go to you." The man was very happy and said : "Okay, quick help me turn the luck."
Hu Ronghua won two end games in a row. He got up and wanted to leave, but the stall owner said: "The two end games you won are the easiest, according to the rules here, you must win the third end game. If the 3rd end game failed, your 2 yuan will be confiscated; If the game is successful, the prize for you is 10 yuan."
Hu Ronghua didn't want to try again, but he couldn't stand the instigation of the northeast man. The stall owner saw Hu Ronghua's "timidity", so he chuckled and said: "If you don't dare to play, I will refund you two cents of the registration fee." The young Hu Ronghua took up the challenge : "Let's play, nobody is afraid of anybody here!"
The stall owner set up the most "violent and dangerous" Rook-Pawn endgame of "Seven Stars"（七星局）. This kind of endgame is full of schemes and intrigues, traps after traps, even if you overcame them all, you still have to fight the endgame with skills and techniques till the end, it can be said that this is the stall owner's "housekeeping secret weapon" to ensure that he can "only enter but not exit" (the money). However this time the stall owner miscalculated, the crowd saw Hu Ronghua as if riding a light carriage, his hand gestured fluently and swiftly, and after a while, he checkmated the stall owner in a rapid, exciting combinations.
In the end, Hu Ronghua won this end game that should have been a draw with his superb skills. At that moment, someone suddenly shouted "the police are coming", Hu Ronghua and the northeast man both taken aback, but there were no police at all. In fact there were five or six people helping the stall owner putting away the chess stall and fled in a hurry. The northeast man wanted to give chase, and Hu Ronghua said: "There are many strong people, even if we chase them, we can't get the money back." The story of Commander Hu's "righteous and courageous deeds" ended with his loss of two cents.
3. Learn from the pass and strife for innovation
During the Cultural Revolution, Hu Ronghua learned the game Weiqi, Chess and Taijiquan（太极拳）. Later, his Weiqi level reached the first-class amateur level in Shanghai, and Chess was at the level of accepting first move against top players, only taijiquan was judged to be out of the ranking by martial arts teachers.
At that time, some people criticized Hu Ronghua for learning to play Weiqi and Chess as "not being serious", but in a way, Hu Ronghua later on had borrowed the ideas of Weiqi and Chess and created a new avenue in the opening theory of Xiangqi.
Generally speaking, in the opening, when the central cannon is played, except for capturing or for defense, it is rarely displaced by itself, and there is no precedent for taking the initiative to displaced it when there is no danger coming. But there is a way to access gains and losses in Weiqi called "to dissect". In short, it is to re-interpret the game by changing the move order, so as to achieve the goal of rapid recognition of gains and losses. Hu Ronghua just saw that after taking the initiative to displaced the cannon, although a move was wasted, it was similar to making another new opening, and in that opening, the opponent's knight was in a bad position, and at least two or three moves needed for adjustment to reach the normal state. Later, Hu Ronghua's method of actively displacing the cannon was quickly imitated by the Xiangqi community and became popular, and its theoretical basis was the "dissecting" use of Weiqi.
In addition, as the rook in Xiangqi is the strongest piece, the general method of play is always to quickly get it out for battle readiness. But once in a match between Hu Ronghua and the famous Guangdong veteran player Yang Guanlin, Hu actually played the rook to the 3rd column, behind the double obstacle of the knight and the pawn, which surprised everyone in the Xiangqi circle. But Hu Ronghua immediately exchanged the pawn, brought out the knight, and reveal the rook in an invincible formation, and finally defeated Yang Guanlin. Afterwards, Hu Ronghua disclosed that this game moves were borrowed from the tactics of Chess. Because whenever a passage is to be opened, the chess rook is to hide behind the pawns, and then support the pawns to rush forward, once the minions are eliminated, the rook immediately occupies the vital route and becomes the key force. And this game of Hu versus Yang Guanlin's opening, Hu had assessed that the column will be the main battle ground that both sides must fight for, sooner or later it will be opened, so posting the rook behind the knight and pawn is just a "precaution", and after the rushing and clashing of the troops, the posted rook naturally shows its true power.
Now this move has become a classic example in the opening play.
Hu Ronghua also has another classic game that drew benefits from Taijiquan's theory of "late strike". In 1974, at the National Xiangqi Tournament in Chengdu, Hu Ronghua's opponent was Meng Liguo of Northeast region. His style was fierce, good at direct confrontation and clash, well known as the "Siberian tiger". Hu Ronghua made a plan to use Tai Chi to deal with the Siberian tiger before the start of competition.
As a result, the game completely went into the path designed by Hu Ronghua. Although the "Siberian Tiger" took advantage of the first move and was really fierce, Hu Ronghua adopted the most treacherous and unforgiving "turtle back's cannon"（龟背炮）opening, and pulled all the two cannons and two rooks on the inner side of the chessboard, and fought a protracted battle with Meng Liguo to "lure the enemy deep". Sure enough, Meng Liguo, who could not get his attack flowing for a long time, exposed a slight flaw that was not easy to detect, and Hu Ronghua immediately fired his two cannons and released his two rooks for a concentrated attack, capturing one of Meng Liguo's knights alive, and all the time Hu Ronghua's forces did not cross the river. On the twenty-eighth move, as soon as one of Hu Ronghua's knights crossed the river, Meng Liguo immediately threw in the towel. This game illustrated how to completely annihilate the invading enemy inside one's own territory, and it is still a unique classic game until now.
4. A bottle of the Moutai
25 years ago, when Hu Ronghua went to Guizhou to compete in a tournament, the leader of Guiyang City gave Hu Ronghua as a gift a bottle of authentic Moutai wine that had been matured for more than ten years. Hu Ronghua has always kept it in the cupboard and was reluctant to open it, even when he won the national championship once again at the age of 55, when several students urged him to open it to celebrate, Hu Ronghua said: "Such a long-standing Moutai wine is unique in the world, it is such a pity to open and drink it."
In the first National Xiangqi League last year, Shanghai team was three points ahead of the second-placed Guangdong team leading to the last three rounds, and it seemed that winning the championship was a foregone conclusion, but the young players of Shanghai team saw that the championship was nearly in hand, they got too excited and emotional, they could not play calmly, they drew with the bottom two teams in two consecutive rounds, now if they falter and tie with Beijing in the final round, the championship would be handed over to Guangdong.
When Hu Ronghua led the team to Beijing for the final round, he specially brought this bottle of Moutai with him. He told the players: "If our beloved team wins the championship, we will open the bottle and drink to celebration." Then one of the young players ventured to say timidly : "Sir, what if our team can't win the championship?" Hu Ronghua replied categorically : "If you can't win the championship, this bottle of Moutai will be smashed on the spot on the high road in Beijing."
Hu Ronghua saw that the young team members were still unsteady, he then hinted the play tactics and said: "In the final battle with the Beijing team, the three young of you only need to draw the game, if I can't win mine and we lose the championship, the responsibility will be borne by me alone." The coach's words were so loud and clear that of course the team members had got a very high morale and energy, and they all vowed solemnly to Hu Ronghua and said: "'Commander Hu', please rest assured, we will do our best to defeat the Beijing team."
As a result, Hu Ronghua did what he promised and took the lead in winning his game with a well-prepared opening, and the Shanghai team duly beat the Beijing team and deservedly won the 1st league championship. Hu Ronghua said when celebrating the victory : "Compared to smashing the wine on the high road of Beijing, this bottle of Moutai is now well consumed where it is merited."
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Source : 樱伝圣殿
~ a XIANGQI EN BLOG translation ~
2019-6-9
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