Chess is a Chinese invention (#243, Topic I)

The 10/29/06 issue of Book World, a Sunday Washington Post supplement, has a book review of The Immortal Game: A History of Chess. Regrettably, the book touts the shop-worn view that chess was invented in India. In my 383-page award-winning book, The Genealogy of Chess, published in 1998, I had shown that proto-chess was a Chinese invention (in 203 BCE, by the all-winning commander-in-chief Han Xin 韓信 during the period of Chu-Han Conflict 楚漢相爭). Through trial-and-error, the proto-chess became Xiangqi 象棋(Chinese chess); Xiangqi as we know it today was last modified in 820 when two cannons 砲 were added. The proto-chess was disseminated westward to Persia and India (in that order) to become Shatranj and Chaturanga, respectively; and eastward to Korea and Japan, to become Changgi 將棋 and Shogi 將棋, respectively. My book was based on 18-months' research at the Library of Congress; upon publication, it earned the Book of the Year 1998 honor from the book-review editor of GAMES magazine. Just a short note to register my displeasure that my book was not even mentioned in the above-mentioned book.