In the crowd waiting for the bus at the Apple Orchard subway station, in the street garden in Xiangyang Dongli, Mentougou, and in the restaurant in front of the Mining Bureau, no one noticed this gray-haired old man in his fifties.

In front of the chess stall on the street of Xinqiao Road, Mentougou, two chess players were carrying pole, arguing whether to vault or drive. The little old man looked at them, frowned, shook his head, sighed and turned away.

The two men are still arguing. They don't know that the little old man has played chess all his life and is a chess master.

A "chess king":

Acheng became popular in the literary world.

Xie Yuan appeared in the cinema.

In the 7th issue of Shanghai Literature of 1984, a novella Chess King was published. Once the novel was published, it received rave reviews and caused a sensation. The author Acheng became famous for a time. A year later, this novel, along with Deng Youmei's Smoke Pot, Zhang Jie's Emerald, Jia Pingwa's Chicken Nest and Li Cunbao's Nineteen Graves in the Mountain, was selected into the novella volume of China Novel Yearbook, and won the award of outstanding novella of the year.

1987, Teng Wenji, a famous director who directed many excellent films, such as Tremolo of Life, Village in the City, Symphony of Pot and Pot, put Chess King on the screen, thus creating an actor who became a smash hit later-Xie Yuan.

The film has made some changes to the novel, and the plot is-

In an alley in Beijing, there is a child named Wang Yisheng. He was born in a poor family and had a hard time, but he was obsessed with chess and pedantic. By chance, I got a book from a stranger, so I learned chess and got the quality of "chess king". During the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, Wang Yisheng bid farewell to Beijing and jumped the queue. In the place where he settled, Wang Yisheng was poor and ragged. He talked about loneliness and said to himself, "How can I solve my troubles? I can only play chess. " So, he looked for his opponent everywhere and searched the surrounding mountains, rivers and villages. There is a master named "Nail Li", who is a descendant of a noble family and is arrogant. He nailed the veteran to the chessboard and gave up when his opponent told him to move, but he never met his opponent. In a chess match, Wang Yisheng had a "wheel war" with eight people. After winning, "Nail Lee" finally came out of the mountain, just sent someone to "pass the chess" and no one was there. Even so, it was a sea of people, and a thousand voices were buzzing. Wang Yisheng burned the midnight oil, and the more he fought, the braver he became. The victory was in hand, and the "nail house" sent someone to make peace. Wang Yisheng agreed ... A year or two later, Wang transferred to the chess team and stopped playing chess.

When shooting, Xie Yuan had a prop bag with a chess set in it. In order to find the feeling of "chess king", everyone in the crew played everywhere, but they didn't find the feeling of "chess king" Confused, the director invited He Liansheng, the prototype of the novel Chess King, for him. A reporter described the situation like this-

He Liansheng really made a move. Xie Yuan lost several rounds, but he was glad to lose. He noticed that when He Liansheng played chess, he basically didn't look at it, but he played so fast that he didn't even think about it. Usually, Xie Yuan's pieces are not left behind, and all the pieces are on the code. He Liansheng and the chess king in the movie "Chess King" have been playing chess all their lives without talking. On the contrary, he kept talking while playing chess. He said that he had been away from Beijing 19 years (He Liansheng 1969 cut in line, 1988 made a movie). He said that he and Acheng were on the same farm. Although they were only three miles apart, they didn't know each other. He said that he had the feat of "Nine innings series and wheel war" in the movie. Although it's not like blind chess in movies, it's more tiring than blind chess. He said: "At that time, I was famous for playing chess among the educated youth, and it was true that I missed the game (there was a plot of missing the game in the movie). In fact, the game was coaxed by educated youth, and the challenge was placed in the Workers' Cultural Palace in Jinghong. At that time, the Cultural Palace had not been built, and the open space was full of empty soil. There were ten tables on that ground, all playing chess. Ten people and I walked around those tables at the same time, hundreds of times. Later, more and more people watched chess, and I had to squeeze through every move. I staggered in the dust, dizzy and disoriented. But somehow, every time I squeeze in front of a chess player, my mind is clear when I see the chessboard. Later, I was too tired to bear it, so I had to feel it myself. I don't care if I win in the end, it's like listening to everyone shouting that I won ... "

He Liansheng gave Xie Yuan this lesson, found the feeling, and mastered the performance essentials of Chess King, which enabled him to successfully complete the filming task and win prizes in domestic and foreign film competitions.

During the screening, no one noticed the line that flashed at the beginning of the film: technical consultant-He Liansheng.

A friend joked that one He Liansheng made two great men, one was movie star Xie Yuan and the other was writer Zhong Acheng.

Dream life:

Half paid to Yunnan

Half of them stay in Jingxi.

Wang Yisheng, the "chess king" in the movie, finally "moved to the chess team and then stopped playing chess."

He Liansheng, however, did not walk out of the world of mortals and lived in his own track among all sentient beings. ...

He Liansheng was born in 1949. He grew up in Nanheng Street, Xuanwu District. When he went to the nursery, two children in the class could play chess, influenced by it, and learned to play chess. 1962 He entered the Xiannongtan Sports School to study chess and studied under Hou Yushan.

At that time, He Liansheng had a wide range of hobbies, learning singing, wrestling and martial arts. In his words, when he is not idle, he is idle.

"Blowing, playing, singing, swords, guns and sticks are all love." But he plays chess more often, not only in the street, under the sports school, but also in teahouses, such as Nanhengjie Teahouse at home, Tianqiao Chess Court at Tianqiao, Icehouse Teahouse at Qianmen, Qingshanju Teahouse at Chongwenmen and Ruyiju Teahouse at Chaoyangmen. He looked at the legendary master Zang Ruyi and deliberately pointed out a mistake. He said, "The teahouse at Caishikou is called Songyinxuan, not Sun Yi Xuan, and I am getting old."

The author takes this opportunity to make corrections here and apologize to the readers.

1964, He Liansheng won the Beijing Youth Chess Championship.

He Liansheng graduated from junior high school 1966 went to Yunnan to jump the queue 1969.

The small mountain village where he lives is called Manjingkang, which is in Xishuangbanna, more than forty miles away from Jinghong County. It was the most remote and poorest team in Yunnan-it was called a farm at that time. Only some old corn, soybeans and peanuts can be planted on the gentle slopes of the mountains, and some pigs, horses and cattle can be raised. He Liansheng said that at that time, a person could buy a catty of kerosene (there was no electric lighting in the mountain village) and two packs of matches in January, and a bar of soap and a bag of toothpaste in three months.

Xishuangbanna has a subtropical climate, and there are only two seasons in a year-dry season and rainy season: in dry season, the soil is always gray, and vegetables and crops can't be watered, almost to the point where nothing is alive; During the rainy season, it rains a dozen times a day, and when it is not dry, all the things you planted are washed away by you. In this harsh environment, educated youth live the most primitive life. They are busy for their mouths all day: hunting snakes, catching birds and digging honey in the mountains. At that time, educated youth often said: as long as it is green, it is a vegetable, as long as it is moving, it is meat.

He Liansheng said that after a day's farm work, he had to cook by himself. Without oil, vegetables or even salt, we can only eat dried white rice-there is a certain amount of white rice, so we can't eat it openly, and we will suffer. In the days without rice, you will have to go hungry, so you should weigh the rice before cooking. He said that people eat a lot because there is no oil and water. In Shanghai, there is an educated youth named Jiang Chunxiang, female, of medium height and thin. She ate two kilograms and three meters of cooked rice, a whole iron pot!

When he talked about it, he was very serious, as if he were "recalling the painful experience of the 1970s". He said: "Of course, it's not like always eating white rice, catching up with the' soy sauce paste' at home and making a bowl of soup with rice ..."

When I interviewed here, I thought of Liu Dahua, a chess expert. Liu is one year younger than him and has jumped the queue, but he talked with the author about his life of jumping the queue in a relaxed tone, and even had some nostalgia. Why? I'm trying to figure out that the environment is at work. Liu Dahua jumped the queue in Xiaogan, Hubei, which is more than 0/00 kilometers away from Wuhan/KLOC, much richer than He Liansheng's Manjianghong. After work, he can settle down and study chess.

And He Liansheng, like most educated youths in China, was pessimistic about the future and disheartened about life in that day when he didn't have enough to eat. He gave up everything except herding cattle and cooking in the mountains. In his words, it is: "If you don't have enough to eat, you can't play chess!"

From 1969 to 1974, he didn't touch a chess piece for five years.

1974, his chess friend in Beijing wrote to him, telling him that China would resume the chess game.

He seemed to see the light in the dark, and he came to his senses, pinning all his hopes of getting out of his misery on chess. He searched everywhere for chess manuals and masters (the local area was closed and his chess skills were backward, and he found no one like him), ready to show his talents in future competitions.

The story of his playing chess was widely circulated among educated youth, and the chess king came into being after Acheng discovered it.

In later competitions, He Liansheng won the Yunnan chess championship for many times.

Later, he was transferred to the Yunnan Provincial Sports Commission as a coach and member of the provincial chess team. He has scored 12 in the national competitions for many times.

1993, after wandering for 25 years, returned to Beijing with his wife and daughter and settled in Mentougou.

He participated in various competitions on behalf of Beijing Mining Bureau and China Coal Mine Chess Team, and achieved remarkable results, ranking quickly.

In 2000, He Liansheng retired for "providing for the aged" only for more than half a century.

Picking up the glass and remembering the past, two things made him unforgettable. One is playing chess on CCTV: from 1995 65438+ 10 to199765438+February, for three years, it was first broadcast at 9: 00 every Friday night and replayed for one hour every Tuesday and Wednesday. At that time, he and his partner Xie Siming, and the other was the novel chess king and the movie chess king.

However, the "chess king" is old. During the Spring Festival, in Shunyi, a suburb of Beijing, chess fans warmly embraced Zhang Qiang and left He Liansheng in the cold. -This time, this time! If it weren't for the "final stage", the prestige of "Chess King" would almost be lost.

Drinking and playing chess:

Sometimes it means fishing.

Sometimes I go to the pear garden.

In chess, He Liansheng is called "drunken knight".

"The meaning of drunkenness" has two meanings. One is that he can drink. The author has had several meals with him-instant-boiled mutton. He can drink one and a half bottles of Erguotou at a time, and he doesn't have to be persuaded to drink it consciously. The other is playing chess. He said, "I am a strange chess player. I play chess when others don't play, and I use it when others don't use it. Others see me playing chess crooked, like playing drunken boxing ... "From the middle and late 1970s to the early 1980s, He Liansheng made his own new achievements and put them into actual combat every year, such as" anti-Yuanyang cannon ",and so on. He often uses some seemingly crooked and unstable tricks, implying murder. After several rounds, He Liansheng became a warm-hearted gun, with two guns leading. In order to gain power, he abandoned the horse first, then the car, took the opportunity to eat the gun and break the elephant, forming a lore; Another example is 1989 against Yu Youhua, Zhejiang (before going to the Locomotive Sports Association). He is called "Desperate Saburo" in chess, and he is good at "fighting". He Liansheng can fight better than him, and began to walk out of the "anti-Yuanyang cannon". He earned a penny from the other side after more than ten steps, which laid the victory early.

Drunk chess and drunk, for "the meaning of drunkenness."

He Liansheng can drink, but he's not drunk. He just talks too much. He can play chess with amateur masters Zhao Liancheng, Li and Zang Ruyi in the teahouse before the "Cultural Revolution", with fine features and just the right details. He can explain that it is a fact that he used to learn wrestling from niujie masters Chanderen and Wang Xiaoliu. Listening with his eyes closed, he could see the scene in his mind.

However, what is nice to hear is his comments on himself and current events. Now I will record a few words related to this article as the end of this article-

"I used to play chess just for fun. Later, in order to "escape" from that environment, playing chess became a springboard and a career, and I had to rely on it to support my family. I became a bug in this tree. I can only drill holes in this piece of wood, but I must drill hard. ...

"Playing chess is a bit like catching fish: you love fishing, you are a fishing enthusiast, and you plan to go fishing early in the morning. When you get up, you will see that the weather is bad, and you have to stop and go back to your house to sleep; Even if you go, ride for more than a hundred miles, and stay at the water's edge for a day without catching anything, you won't feel disappointed when you pat your ass back, because you pay attention to this process and enjoy it. However, if you are a fisherman and make a living by fishing, you will go hungry if you can't catch it, and so will your wife and children, which is very painful for you and your family. ...

"An opera fan and amateur, satiated with food and drink, holding a huqin, beating gongs and drums, paying attention to some costumes and singing, singing in vain, living in seclusion, tired and hungry, very happy to go home; But as professional actors, there are only a few famous actors such as Mei Lanfang and Ma. None of the other actors are famous. If they are not famous, they have to eat and live. What should I do? Is it painful for him to be a walk-on and support a large family with so little money? The same is true of chess. One hundred chess players are famous, that is, the first six, and those six have food. We must find other ways. In addition to playing chess, students should be taught lectures and subsidized ... chess can only make a few people think of themselves as emperors, and most people can only follow them as foil figures. I don't think I'm qualified to be emperor. Mei Lanfang and Ma are both super big. I dare not even think about it. I'm just an upper-middle-class player. I can't say that I am a strong master, but I have killed many super-large ones, and some of them haven't defeated me today (a bit outrageous, stop) ... "