Chess has a long history in China, and there are masters in every era. Among them, from the Republic of China to the founding of New China and the first national competition, that is, before Yang Guanlin unified the country, there were many masters.

It is precisely because of that time that there were countless masters in the country, so who was the best master in the world at that time remains four major mysteries to this day.

Let’s first list the candidates who could compete for the top spot in the world at that time: Zhou Deyu in the east, Huang Songxuan in the south, Peng Shusheng in the north, Jia Titao in the west, and Lin Rongxing, the leader of the "Four Smalls".

Why are these five people listed? Because the next four major mysteries involve comparisons between these people.

The first mystery: Who is better, Zhou Deyu or Lin Rongxing?

Zhou Deyu is known as the "chess king of seven provinces". However, when he learned that Lin Rongxing wanted to fight him, Zhou Deyu After studying Lin's chess records, he was deeply impressed by Lin's superb chess skills, so he adopted the "blocking" trick. Therefore, the two have never had a record of playing against each other, which is really a pity in the chess world.

Let’s make a comparison. Dong Wenyuan, a contemporary of Lin Rongxing in Hangzhou, only admired two people in chess throughout his life. One was Lin Rongxing. Dong said that Lin’s chess was difficult to play and was unwilling to give him money (in the past, he would not give him money when playing chess). (for gambling); the other is Yang Guanlin, the first national champion of New China. The level of competition between Dong and Zhou should be between brothers. Lin attacked Huang Songxuan's ring in Hong Kong and ended up winning two out of four games. Lin Rongxing even has a record of defeating Xie Xiaxun in 16 rounds.

This shows that Lin Rongxing is higher than Zhou. However, after all, we have never fought in actual combat, so we can only guess!

The second mystery: Who is more powerful, Peng Shusheng or Zhou Deyu?

Peng Shusheng was known as the "big player" at the time. He broke into Beijing alone and swept the Beijing chess world at that time. Apart from Yang Guanlin, no one else has been able to sweep the Beijing chess world. The story is recorded in "The Collection of Chuan Peng"!

Originally, Peng wanted to go south to meet Huang Songxuan and Zhou Deyu, but unfortunately he could not make the trip due to social unrest.

At that time, some people analyzed the chess game and the outcome and believed that Peng was superior to the southern chess players, so he was regarded as a "big country player". However, there is indeed no evidence from the game, so it is really difficult to say!

The third mystery: Which one is better, Jia Titao or Huang Songxuan?

Among these, Jia Titao made his debut relatively late. However, Jia's status in the Chinese chess community is very high and he is known as the founder of chess theory. Jia Titao's chess name mainly comes from his battle with Xie Xiaxun, in which he won two games in seventeen games. However, Jia has no record of competing with other masters. Xie Xiaxun once went to Guangdong, competed with Huang Songxuan, and won. Huang Songxuan once defeated Zhou Deyu in a game of chess. So is Jia Titao's chess skill slightly better than Huang Songxuan's? Because the comparative data is single and there is no circumstantial evidence, it is really a mystery.

The fourth mystery: Is Jia Ti Tao better than Peng Shusheng in chess

Jia Ti Tao and Peng Shusheng have intersections. Many stories are popular in the chess world, and two of them are more famous.

One story is that Jia Titao won eight games in a row against Wei, who was known as the Northwestern Chess King; the other story is that Jia Titao once went to pay homage to Peng Shusheng and captured all the generals in front of Peng. By blaming the disciples, do you mean that the old man still needs to fight to the death? Jia Nai, a man of extremely high cultural attainment, immediately gave up the game and left.

I don’t know whether these two stories are true or false.

However, fortunately, they have all refereed in national competitions. There was once a national competition where someone proposed to let the "four elders in the chess world" (Peng Shusheng, Lin Yixian, Xie Xiaxun, Jia Titao) There was a competition, and Peng and Jia readily agreed, but Xie and Lin declined.

As a result, the battle between Peng and Jia failed to materialize. How the two's chess skills compare will always remain a mystery.

Or perhaps it is precisely because of these unanswered mysteries that more interesting stories emerge out of thin air in the long history of chess!