Northern Zhou Xiangxi

Northern Zhou Xiangxi is a two player board game created during the Northern Zhou dynasty at the end of the Northern and Southern dynasties period of China in the late sixth century CE. It was first documented in the Xiang Jing compiled by Emperor Wu and his ministers. By the early Tang dynasty its rules had become incomprehensible and the game was lost to history. Although the character for elephant in its name suggests a link to xiangqi Chinese chess scholars have confirmed that many different games in Chinese history bore similar names and that this was a distinctly different game.