The Spirit of Go: Wu Qingyuan’s Century in Black and White

In 1914, a frail Chinese boy stumbled upon the game of Go. He never imagined that the board’s nineteen intersecting lines would become an ark carrying him through a century of turbulent waters. From Fuzhou to Beijing, from his homeland to Japan, Wu Qingyuan’s life is a condensed history of the modern era. He wielded Go like a sword, transforming a thousand years of Chinese Go theory with his “New Fuseki,” and challenged the age’s greatest players one by one on the blood-soaked stage of jubango matches. He also used Go as a mirror, seeking a state of “harmony” beyond victory and defeat amid the tensions of war, nationality, and faith. This is not a myth about an invincible genius, but the story of a solitary seeker who protected the pure black and white within his heart amid the currents of history and the storms within himself, ultimately making it a star in the sky of human wisdom. Every stone he placed on the board was an act of resistance against, and reconciliation with, fate.