Late Qing style

Assessment

Confidence

documented a published ruleset or rule description exists and is cited

Evidence

corroborated two or more independent sources agree on the facts that define this variant

Cross-comparison

What each source was read to say, set side by side. The numbers are the sources above.

• [1] the 1903 (Li) column scores YES on the Chinese Classical hallmarks (10/20 for mahjong plus points for sets, count then double, concealed sets rewarded, East pays and gets double) and NO on discarder-pays-all, self-pick reward and settlement between non-winners. Its similarity score is 8 to itself, 6 to Mauger, 6 to Chinese Classical, and only 2 to HKOS
• [2] records that in the Late Qing period the game was also known as peng hu, 'encountering harmony', which is contemporaneous terminology for the period this node covers
• [3] PRIMARY, chapter 31, a scored hand: Ulabu is dealer and discards 中風, which the next player (底家) pungs (拍). 白板 is discarded and punged by another. The winner holds 北風暗克 (a concealed pung of North), 二三四萬, three 七萬, and waits on a single 八萬, which is discarded to him. His count: '中風四副，北風暗克八副，三張七萬四副，八萬吊頭不算，連著和下來十副頭，已有二十六副，一翻五十二，兩翻一百零四，萬字一色，三翻二百零八' — exposed 中風 pung 4, concealed North pung 8, the three sevens 4 (the text does not say whether concealed), the pair not counted, plus 10 for going out = 26; doubled to 52, doubled again to 104, doubled a third time for one suit to 208. The text does not name the first two doubles
• [3] PRIMARY, chapter 31 on stakes: the table plays 'a 么二架 of 500 silver dollars a 底', and the dealer alone loses over 200 dollars on this one hand. Chapter 42 has a 'little sparrow' at two dollars a 底, where a win of 九十六副 (96 points) is scored. Chapter 44 has a player say that 'we only need to win a hundred 副' to earn four dollars
• [3] PRIMARY, chapters 21, 29 and 50 on the session: players 'first play eight rounds' (先打八圈麻雀); after four rounds they reseat by throwing dice (四圈已畢，重復扳位擲點); points are kept with counters (籌碼), and a player can hand his counters to someone else to play on for him. Stakes run from 500 to 1,000 dollars a 底. In chapter 29 'mahjong tiles are in fashion in Jiangnan', and six officials make up two tables with two outsiders, since each table needs four. One player likes to make 清一色 (a pure one-suit hand)
• [3] PRIMARY, the names: the novel calls the game 叉麻雀 and 打麻雀, the tiles 麻雀牌, and the red and white dragons 中風 and 白板. It also uses 碰和 as a verb for playing (chapter 9)
• [4] the catalogue's full entry, credited to Depaulis's reading of the novel: 136 tiles, no flowers or seasons; hold 13 and go out on 14; few special hands; 'Score 10 points for Out, then count up points based on pongs, kongs, and pairs, then double if appropriate'; concealed sets rewarded more; East pays and receives double; only the winner is paid
• [5] the Depaulis-Tsui chart takes the Late Qing novels of 1892-1911 (Han Bangqing, Sun Jiazhen, Li Boyuan, Ouyang Juyuan, Zhang Chunfan, Lu Shi'e) as its reference game, regional home Shanghai. So every feature scores YES by definition: points first then doubling, a bonus for the win, concealed sets rewarded more, self-draw poorly rewarded, payoffs set before play, no settlement between non-winners, the dealer paying and receiving double, no discarder-pays-all rule, few special hands, no flowers. It rests on the rec.games.mahjong thread 'Analysis of rules - A game of the year 1903' (January 2007), among others
• [6] places Li Boyuan's novel in its group: Han Bangqing's 海上花列傳 (1892) is 'the earliest novel to discuss scenes of the game', calling the play 碰和 and the set 麻雀牌. Li's novel of 1903 follows; then Ouyang Juyuan's 負曝閒談 (1903-04) with the first 發風 for the green dragon, Sun Jiazhen's 海上繁華夢 (1898 or 1903) with perhaps the first 中風, Zhang Chunfan's 九尾龜 (1906-10), and Lu Shi'e's 十尾龜 (1911), which already has 發財. Sloper says the novel was serialised in 繡像小說
• [7] DATES: Li wrote the novel between 1901 and 1906, and the first half was 'serialized there from April 1903 to June 1905' in 世界繁華報 (Shijie Fanhua Bao), not the 繡像小說 Sloper names. The last twelve chapters are 'allegedly' Ouyang Juyuan's, added after Li's death in 1906, so a scene past chapter 48 may be his
• [8] sets the novel in its vocabulary: 叉麻雀 'appears to have continued into the early 20th century', found in Li Boyuan's 1903 novel together with 中風 and 白板 and the term 打麻雀. Earlier, Shanghai sources of 1884-1891 already use 麻雀牌 for a 136-tile set, and 碰和 as a brothel euphemism for gambling at it
• [9] PRIMARY, chapter 13, the setting in 1892: a table is laid with 'a set of ebony-inlaid-with-bone 麻雀牌 and four sets of counters' (一副烏木嵌牙麻雀牌和四分籌碼), and the four players draw lots for seats (拈鬮坐位). The play is called 碰和. A courtesan names a hand, 對對和 (all pungs). A player who stakes 'two shares' can lose 'at most ten dollars' (輸到十塊洋錢碰滿哉), so losses were capped by agreement before play
• [9] PRIMARY, chapter 26, a scored hand from 1892: the dice make Chen Xiaoyun dealer (骰色挨著小雲起莊). After four or five goes round he holds 14 tiles of one suit, all concealed: 7, 6 6 6, 5 5 5, 4 4, 3 3 3 3, 2 筒. He discards a 6 and waits on 13, and the table guesses 'either 4-7 or 5-8 筒'. He wins on a discarded 筒 and 'counts three doublings, eighty 和 in all' (核算三倍，計八十和). Then 'the three others settle their counters' (三家籌碼交清): all three losers pay, not only the discarder
• [9] PRIMARY, chapter 26 again: a bystander works out that discarding the 7 instead would have won on a 1筒 with 'three more sets counted, twenty-two 和 plus three doublings, one hundred and seventy-six 和' (廿二和加三倍，要一百七十六和). So each doubling multiplies by two, 22 × 8 = 176, and 80 = 10 × 8. The session ends when 'eight rounds of dealing are complete' (八圈滿莊)

Reading it

This node now rests on its primary source, not only on summaries of it. Li Boyuan's novel, read here in the Wikisource text, shows the game as a pastime of Jiangnan officials. In chapter 31 it plays out and scores one complete hand. Exposed sets count half of concealed ones: an exposed honour pung scores 4 and a concealed honour pung 8. Going out adds 10, and the pair adds nothing. The total is then doubled, and one-suit is a doubling. That is the count-then-double structure Sloper's catalogue and the Depaulis-Tsui chart assign to this node, and it is the structure of the later Chinese classical game. Sessions ran in eight rounds with a reseat by dice after four, and points were kept in counters.

Han Bangqing's 海上花列傳 (1892), also read at the source, carries the same game eleven years earlier and settles two points Li leaves open. First, the hand: its chapter 26 winner holds 14, discards one and waits on 13, so the 13-tile hand is in the text by 1892. Second, the payment: 'the three others settle their counters' on a discard win, so in Shanghai in 1892 all three losers paid, not just the discarder. Its bystander's reckoning (22 × 8 = 176) shows the doublings multiply by two. The 1892 text also has seats drawn by lot, the dealer set by dice, eight-round sessions, a pre-agreed cap on losses, and the named hand 對對和.

What the texts do not settle. Neither novel names the doublings in its scored hand. Sloper's 'only the winner is paid' means losers do not settle among themselves. That fits both novels: the losers pay the winner in 1892, and the dealer loses 200-odd dollars on one hand in 1903. But neither novel states the rule. Sloper's 1903 table and the Depaulis-Tsui 1892-1911 chart describe much the same game. The chart pools six novels, though, and a feature it scores may not come from Li. Li's first half was serialised from April 1903, which dates the node, but chapters after 48 may be Ouyang Juyuan's.