醉綠 · Zuì Lǜ

Last updated: Sunday, 16 February 2025.

Zuì Lǜ (醉綠, ‘drunken green’) was a very old Chinese drinking game from the late Ming period that was played with five dice. At a later stage it was known as 合歡 Héhuān, ‘happy union’.^A (42)

Pages from a book with four diagrams of dice rolls in pictorial form and Chinese writing around each diagram indicating the name and outcome of the roll. — Diagrams from the instruction manual.
Harvard University, 🅮

Rules for the game appear in the book 醉緑圖 Drunken Green Diagrams by a 張光 Zhāng Guāng, and this work is included in the 1646 edition of the 說郛 Shuōfú collection, first compiled during the Ming period (1368–1644).^B This (very short) instructional text is available transcribed on WikiSource:

醉緑用五箇骰子擲先以一色相賽得一點者先擲得六點者㝡後擲不必賽其餘復賽如前
擲色以三同為主除三同外但以餘二色計之得么么二二三三四四五五點為賞采賞二杯么六二六三六四六五六為罰采罰一杯六六罰二杯得么二二三三四四五之類為賽色得三同六點為罰色罰一杯不賽獨三同六點么么二二三三四四五五為賞采賞二杯擲者罰一杯
擲出五星聚奎者賞依金谷酒數
賽色點數相同者罰賽者二杯多一點二點賞一杯少一點二點罰一杯
賞色在手仍即自擲如擲出賽色方許下次人賽擲出散色方許下次人擲不限擲數

I am unable to translate the rules,Yet! Any assistance would be appreciated. but the scoring combinations are listed below.

The general scheme is that rolling 5-of-a-kind gives out 5 drinks, 4-of-a-kind 3 drinks, rolling a 6 means you are penalized 1 drink. However each of these outcomes has its own name, so they fill up the majority of the table. A summarized table follows the main one.

Rolling the ‘competition’ outcome means that there is some comparison done involving the ‘point’ of the roll (the sum of the two dice that are not part of the triple). However, I am not sure at the moment how this works.

Roll	Name	Translation	Outcome
	群英入轂		Give out 5 glasses of wine
	五星聚奎	5 Star Alignment	Give out 5
	兩儀四像		Give out 3
	七曜麗空		Give out 3
	丹露聮珠		Give out 3
	四方歸極		Give out 3
	六化四時		Give out 3, drink one
	十道同風		Give out 5
	八荒一體		Give out 3
	麟閣功臣		Give out 3
	瓊樓十二		Give out 3
	五行八字		Give out 3
	八柱擎天		Give out 3, drink one
	陶柳三眼	… three eyes	Give out 5
	月夜南飛		Give out 3
	夢合巫山		Give out 3
	落紅飛鷰		Give out 3
	花壓玉欄		Give out 3
	霜空鴈字		Give out 3, drink one
	丹鳳聮飛		Give out 5
	蔡蕚向陽		Give out 3
	雙蝶穿花		Give out 3
	落霞飛鶩		Give out 3
	梅飄花徑		Give out 3
	六女踏花	Six Girls Trampling Flowers	Give out 3, drink one
	江城梅落		Give out 5
	五雲捧日	Five Clouds Lifting the Sun	Give out 3
	合璧連珠		Give out 3
	三弄梅花		Give out 3
	紅英綴翠		Give out 3
	雪㸃隴梅		Give out 3, drink one
	六魔降世	Six Demons Come to Earth	Give out 5, drink one
	麗日中天	Fair Sun in the Midst of Heaven	Give out 3, drink one
	二雄逐鹿	Two Men Fight for the Throne	Give out 3, drink one
	碧天劍氣		Give out 3, drink one
	二十八宿	Twenty-Eight Mansions	Give out 3, drink one
	月值朔虛		Give out 3, drink one
+ (no )			Give out 2
+			Give out 2, drink one
+			Give out one, drink one
+			Drink 2
+			Drink one
+			Competition

Here is a summarized version without the names:

Roll	Outcome
	Give out 5 glasses of wine
	Give out 5, drink one if any
+	Give out 3, drink one if any
+ (no )	Give out 2
+	Give out 2, drink one
+	Give out one, drink one
+	Drink 2
+	Drink one
+	Competition

References

Li, En (2015). Betting on Empire: A Socio-Cultural History of Gambling in Late-Qing China. PhD thesis, Washington University: St. Louis, MO, USA.
張, 光 [Zhāng Guāng] (1646). 醉緑圖 [Zuì Lǜ Tú; text in Chinese]; 說郛 [Shuōfú] volume 104, series editor 陶珽 [Táo Tǐng].
Elvin, Mark (2010). ‘Personal Luck: Why Premodern China—Probably—Did Not Develop Probabilistic Thinking’. Pages 400–468 in Concepts of Nature: A Chinese-European Cross-Cultural Perspective, edited by Hans Ulrich Vogel and Günter Dux; Conceptual History and Chinese Linguistics volume 1. Brill. ISBN: 978-90-04-18751-1. doi:10.1163/ej.9789004185265.i-566.112.