Those were some very interesting points, but I think they are up for some discussion:
While this may be true, especially in our western type of “the king is important” and “complexity is important” kind of culture, I do not think that stands true for the eastern philosophy. The philosophical texts already mentioned here mostly talk about simplicity, achieving more by doing less and in general the approach of the “Sophisticates” of that time and era was more primed towards elegance, than complexity.
A good amount of that can be seen on Sun Tzu’s treatise. Definitely the ancient general was not a fan of complexity, which is why he is still studied today when war is so different. Sun Tzu was talking about such fundamental things that his work is, indeed, timeless.
Even in the west there are various philosophers of the time in Greece that were known for their aversity for complexity … indeed one could be said that at one point it was indeed perceived as the height of intelligence to have the smallest possible quote/sentence convey the largest possible meaning.
Second, playing on the intersections of lines rather than in the boxes also suggests a humble origin.
There are very simple games that play into the boxes though. I’d say that Go being played on the intersections is quite the rarity and the sign of literally “out of the box” thinking 
If the lines did not exist upon creation of the game, then there really was not reason - if they were added later - to not have at least SOME recorded cases and boards and areas where Go was played inside the boxes (we might be used to is as such, but in reality you can easily play Go inside the boxes and just switch the concept of liberties to apply to empty boxes instead of empty connections). In my best of knowledge, there are no such variants, however I am not versed on the subject.
On the contrary, that is exactly a clue on what it was made by someone that understood armies on an “officer” level.
I will look into my books tomorrow there is a quote by a Chinese general of the time about that issue, but in my own words it is the soldiers that tend to think that they are unique and heroes and valueable. They only have one life each, after all, and everyone is bound to think that their survival is important.
However, it is the officers that know that this is not true and are being trained to view soldiers as units and numbers and not as individuals.
The reason for the existence of military hierarchy is not only to separate a large army in smaller more manageable and easily directed squads and sub-armies, but also to separate the leaders of the army, from the army itself.
I understand that this sounds odd, but a simple example that explains this is that if you are a general that is close to the army and the soldiers then by ordering a flanking maneuver you might get the report that John, Nick and Barry died on that move, on your orders.
That is devastating, for a commander, to be issuing orders left and right that are, in fact, killing people that they know personally.
However if the report says “we lost 3 people” your mind goes “hey, we have ten thousand more and the opponents lost more and we did get that hill. Next orders hmm hmm”
Soldiers don’t tend to think like that. They have to bond and know each other so they can HELP each other in the battle.
Officers cannot think in any other way, if they want to be efficient. They have to NOT bond with the troops so they can be impartial when they need to send them to a dangerous situation.
