Before the Eastern Han, Go had always been rejected by Confucian scholars. Confucius said, "To eat one's fill all day and apply one's mind to nothing-how difficult! Are there not games of chance and Go? Playing them would still be better than doing nothing." In other words, playing Go was only a little better than idling away one's days and, with a full belly and warm clothes, turning one's thoughts to lust. Huainan Honglie stated, "Playing a single stone is not enough to reveal wisdom; plucking a single string is not enough to reveal sorrow." It regarded playing Go as a waste of time, showing how little importance it attached to Go, or even to music.
Only during the Wei-Jin period did Go gradually acquire an elegant standing, separating itself from games of chance and escaping its lowly status as a gambling device. Like calligraphy and music, it came to be regarded by the great aristocratic clans as an art for cultivating character and temperament. Go was also linked to yin and yang, the five elements, and the resonance between heaven and earth, lending it mystery and loftiness. Ge Hong's Miscellaneous Records of the Western Capital recorded that the Master of Duling of the Western Han "excelled at Go and ranked first under heaven. Some criticized him for wasting his days, but the master said, 'Those who thoroughly grasp its principles can greatly benefit the teachings of the sages.'" Go, too, was now considered capable of educating the masses, like the classics of poetry and history.
Before the northern aristocratic clans migrated south, Go had not been widely played in Jiangdong. Over the past forty years, however, the great Wang and Xie clans had attached great importance to it, and both Wang Dao and Xie An were masters of the