Two Chinese Archery Games

The games I am about to discuss are from Stephen Selby's excellent book entitled Chinese Archery. I would highly recommend for those that are interested in Eastern/Asian archery to acquire a copy of this book. It contains translations of several Chinese archery manuals - a number of which fall within the Guard period. It also covers legends and history of Chinese archery and how it differs from the Central Asian/Middle Eastern styles.

The first game is from the translation of an essay by Ouyang Xiu (1007 - 1072). Stephen Selby does not recommend you try this game at home. I would recommend that you try it with caution and have a "designated driver" to oversee the game.

The translation is as follows:
'Nine Division Target' has nine target-circles. Make one larger target-circle surrounded by eight [smaller] target-circles. Place a picture of a bear in the centre, a tiger at the top, a deer at the bottom, a snipe, a pheasant and ape in the right-hand positions and an eagle, rabbit and fish in the left-hand positions, and make counters corresponding to each animal.

Whoever hits a particular target-circle takes a drink if he is holding the corresponding token. Archery is a communal pastime. In the old days, gentlemen used to compete at 'Nine Division Target' as a drinking game.

Rivalry leads to trouble. Competing for fin is different from participating in a non-competitive entertainment; so there should be no winners or losers and no prizes or demerits. He who scores a hit gains nothing by it, and will therefore not fall victim to arrogance due to being bent upon winning. He who misses loses nothing by it, and you will not be the butt of caustic remarks about his lack of skill. If you pick a token and have to drink, at least what you drink is not an overflowing flagon: so you will not lose face. So you shoot, and anyone who keeps on scoring hits is not allowed to get away with bowing out of the competition. Any form of entertainment which can carry on all day without loss of face or rivalry is truly a gentlemanly entertainment.

Scoring method: Three tokens are required for each target-circle. Make sure you have tokens prepared according to the number of guest competitors shooting. If it so happens that a number of guests and hosts are exactly nine, then each one picks one of the tokens. If there are eight then leave aside the bear token; and if there are even less than eight, you can have each person pick one of the tokens and put aside the rest. Or you can add in the other tokens and each person picks one; either method is allowed.

From time to time, the host may give an instruction, and then every contestant puts aside his bear token. Thereafter, if anyone hits the bear, then everybody present has to drink. If anyone hits one of the target-circles a second time, then depending on the ability of the one who draws the counter to hold his drink, and the size of the wine-cup, the host again decides on what should happen. If someone has drawn two tokens for the same target-circle, the same rule applies.

Every time the participants shoot a full round, they have to drain the cups, then they hand in their tokens and draw again. The tokens are new and different from the last round.

If the arrow hits, then no emotions are aroused. Either it is your turn and you are caught out, or you may just be lucky and avoid [having to drink]. This way you get entertainment which is all fun and no upset.

From reading this and a couple of comments by Stephen Selby I came up with the following rules:
  1. The host can change the rules particularly the quantity of alcohol drunk and when it is drunk. Some suggestions include if the bear target is hit all drink, if you hit your target-circle twice in a row the host can decide if you need to drink more depending on your current state of inebriation.
  2. The target face requires eight small circles surrounding a large circle. The one shown in the book is included at the end of these rules.
  3. You then need matching tokens to hand out to the archers. You can either use 9 tokens or 27. If you are using nine then distribute them one per archer. Leave out the bear token if you have less than nine archers. If you use 27 tokens then people choose a number of tokens based on how many archers are involved e.g. 13 archers each pick 2 tokens.
  4. Next each archer takes his or her turn to shoot at the target. There is no mention of how many arrows so I'm assuming a single arrow each time. Of course with rule 1 in effect the host can change this as it suits them.
  5. If the archer hits one of the targets and it corresponds to one of the tokens they have then they must drink a glass of wine. From all indications in the text this should be a single drink not a glass or horn full and definitely no sculling.
  6. Once the round has completed everyone drains their cup of what remains and hands in their tokens.
  7. You then choose your new tokens and start again.

Nine Circles Target

The second game is from the Archery Manual of Li Chengfen who lived at the end of the 16th century. Its out of our period but it is an interesting combat archery game none the less.
Some students have a game where they make two chalk circles [on the ground], starting at a distance and gradually moving closer to one another. Each player stands in his circle and they shoot at each other from a distance. The one who has to leave his circle to avoid being hit is the loser. Quickness of the eye, hand, good foot and body technique are needed to keep from being hit.

The description contains no mention of the size of the circles nor the exact distance to start shooting. I would suggest that this game was done on the spur of the moment and it was up to the players to decided how they would do it. I had the following thoughts on how this would go but it is up to you to decide how you would play it. The circles themselves are small probably no more than 90 centimetres in diameter. This size would ensure that while you would have some room for maneuver you would not have much. So if you dodge by moving you will be outside the circle and lose. Given the effective range of our combat blunts I would suggest that no more than 50 metres apart is necessary and of course no closer than 5 metres. You would both shoot at the same time as this would require greater skill as you would have to shoot at your opponent and watch where they were shooting.

One other possibility is to do this as a team sport. You would have say 4 to 5 archers on each side and then if you eliminated your opponent you would have to select another one when you moved closer. This could lead to 2 or 3 archers aiming at one archer and no way for them to dodge.

REFERENCES

Chinese Archery. Stephen Selby. Hong Kong University Press. Published 2000. ISBN 962 209 501 1.

You can obtain this book by either going to WWW.ATARN.ORG and selecting the COMMERCIAL link and clicking on the Chinese Archery book. This leads to the Hong Kong University press to order the book and includes a discount on the price for ordering online. Its also worthwhile checking out the ATARN site itself.