Che was pronounced chē only in the Han Dynasty. Liu Xizai of the Han Dynasty mentioned in "Shi Ming":
"The ancients called the car, the sound is like a residence, and the words and deeds are the people who live there. Today it is called the car, the car, the house, the person who travels out, like the car "She also."
What Liu Xizai means is that the car can be regarded as a place where pedestrians "live", and it can also be regarded as a "house" for pedestrians to enter and exit.
Before the Han Dynasty, jū was read with the former meaning; chē was read with the latter meaning since the Han Dynasty.
In chess, ?jū is still pronounced, which is related to the stability of the pronunciation of proper names. In the development and evolution of pronunciation, proper names have a strong stability compared with lingua franca. Many ancient sounds have been preserved in proper names, and there have been no major changes from ancient to modern times.
In addition to che, Liu in Liu'an is pronounced lù instead of liù, fan in Fanyu is pronounced pān instead of fān, Shan in Shanyu is pronounced chán instead of dān, and Tao in Gaotao is not. For example, the word "táo" is pronounced "yáo" instead of "táo", and the word "fang" in Afang Palace is pronounced "páng" instead of "fáng".
Extended information:
The "Kangxi Dictionary" quotes previous rhyme books and dictionaries including "Guangyun" and "Shuowen Jiezi" to explain that the word "Che" is used as " It is pronounced jū when it means "man-carrying vehicle" or "chariot", and it is pronounced chē when it means "a general term for wheeled tools" or "gum".
According to ancient meaning, whenever the word "车" refers to a chariot, whether in daily use or in chess, it should theoretically be pronounced jū.
However, with the development of Chinese pronunciation, the word "Che" is generally pronounced as chē without distinction in modern times. It is only used in Chinese chess and other characters such as "Che Shi" (pronounced Jūshī) and "Sha Che" ( The translation of ancient foreign place names such as Shājū or Suōjū still barely retains a trace of the ancient pronunciation.
Reference material Baidu Encyclopedia-Car