Except for paper making, compass, powder, typography,in my opinion, mahjong is also one of great contribution of Chinese. Not only Chinese, but also foreigners like to play it. When foreign tourists flock to Harbin, some of them tell me that they can play mahjong which surprise me the most. But, do you know when it emerged in China and who invented it?

According to You An Ji, a book written by Dai Shiming who was a famous scholar of Qing Dynasty, mahjong was invented by Wan Bingchao of Ming Dynasty. Wan Bingchao had been admiring the 108 heros depicted in Outlaws of the Marsh,a novel written by Shi Naian. He made up his mind to invent an amusement tool to commemorate them. After several days of elobrate design, he invented Mahjong. His Mahjong consisted of 136 pieces of tiles.Among them,108 pieces of tiles standed for 108 heros in Liangshan Marsh. For example, the tile-Jiu suo, stands for Shi Jin whose nickname was Jiu Wenlong(There were nine dragon tattoos on his body). The tile-Er suo, stands for Hu Yanzhuo who took two iron sticks as weapon.

Considering the 108 heros came from five  directions, including east,west,south,north and middle, he designed another 20 pieces of tiles, including 4 pieces of Xi(west), 4 pieces of Dong(east), 4 pieces of Nan(south), 4 pieces of Bei(north) and 4 pieces of Zhong(middle). Cosidering the different families those heros came from, he invented 4 pieces of Bai which represent poverty, 4 pieces of Fa which means affluence. Because these heros in Liangshang Marsh wanted to comproise with Song court and don't want to overbeat it. So the winner of Mahjong game would say He(which means compromise in Chinese)while not say Sheng or Ying( which means victory in Chinese).

At first, playing mahjong was only a common amusement of the masses. It could refresh people after hard works and represented common persons' yearning for the same freedom as  that of those heros of Liangshan Marsh under the high pressure ruling of Fedual Landlord Class. Latterly, Mahjong begun to be popular in Ruling class and gradually became a kind of gamble tool and do harm to family and society stable.