(This accounting comes from my memory of the story that I was told...
it may be inaccurate, or just plain wrong, but it is kinda funny anyway.)
Once upon a long and boring summer, there was a king of the Great Middle Kingdom, and he was, well... bored. And one day decided, as bored rulers often do, to declare war on someone. He looked to the East, and saw that the Eastern Kingdom was a happy and tranquil place, and that the road construction projects were just a bit better funded, and that the King and Queen's entourages were just a bit more nicely color coordinated, and decided that there was nothing for this except to wage a long and horrible war upon them. (And if victorious, he could demand that The East take Pittsburgh as a term of their surrender. So the king had his master fletcher design a war arrow. A war arrow to end all war arrows. This he sent by messenger with a note declaring war upon the Kingdom of the East.
And it came that the King of the East received the war arrow, and set it aside, and thought no more about it. The arrow and the declaration of war were lost in time to the immensity of the Kingdom archives. And there the challenge sat, in a drawer, unanswered.
Eventually, mundane concerns caused the man who had been King of the Middle to relocate to a town within the boundaries of the Great Eastern Kingdom. As he was a great and mighty warrior, he eventually fought for, and won the Crown of The East. Now this King of the East, former King of the Middle was bored one day, and was going through the Eastern Kingdom's Archives, and Lo and behold, there, in a drawer, what does he find but a war arrow and declaration of war upon the Eastern Kingdom from the Kingdom of the Middle. There was nothing for this but to wage long and horrible war. (Okay, actually just a light weekend of fighting and maiming with a bit of feasting and what-not thrown in.) It mattered not that the declaration of war was several years old. It mattered not that the King of the Middle who had originally made the declaration was long since deposed. (That sort of thing seems to happen every 6 months or so) And most importantly, It mattered not that the King of the Middle who had originally made the declaration was, in fact, HIMSELF! None of these concerns mattered a whit.
The king promptly broke the war arrow in half, and sent it back to the Middle Kingdom with a response accepting this most egregious challenge. The King of the Middle was quite agreeable to this proposition, and plans were made.
It came to pass in the month of August, in the Year of the Society 6, did a great war take place. And in a cruel twist of fate, the King of the East, former King of the Middle became the first monarch in recorded history to declare war upon himself... and LOSE!
There was much fun had by all.
And he didn't mind losing... much.
And the kingdoms did it again the next year... and the next... and the next.... etc...