📚 Yuanshen Haikua — a Qing-dynasty endgame manual
This position is balanced to an uncanny degree: exactly eight pieces a side, both armies with both elephants, a chariot, a cannon, and near-equal pawns. Red moves first, but that privilege is not enough to tip the scale — the classical manual Uyên Thâm Hải Khoát (game 58) concludes: draw. No material paradox, no ready-made trap — just two equals, and the question of who first makes himself 'drunk'. Do not confuse this with the 'Eight Immortals Cross the Sea' elsewhere in the dictionary: the 'Eight Immortals of Wine' are eight real men of the Tang dynasty, eight famed poet-drinkers whom Du Fu immortalised in a single poem. Who those eight flesh-and-blood 'immortals' were is introduced in the anecdote below. On the board: with the armies in perfect equilibrium, can you spot any crack through which this draw could be broken?
同じ「八仙」でも海は渡らない――この八人の「仙人」が渡ったのは酒の席だった
辞典には「八仙」と名のつく局が二つあるが、両者はまったく無関係である。一つは東海を渡る八人の神仙。こちら「飲中八仙」は、杜甫の詩に詠まれた唐の時代の生身の八人である。 745年頃、杜甫は酒杯の達人八人を讃えて「飲中八仙歌」を詠んだ。最も有名なのは李白である。「天子が船に召しても乗らず、自ら酒の仙人と称した」――皇帝が長安の酒楼で酔い臥す彼を召し出しても、彼は来なかった。賀知章は馬上で舟を漕ぐように揺れるまで飲み、井戸に落ちても底で眠った。草書の聖人・張旭は三杯飲めば王侯の前でも帽子を脱ぎ捨て、筆を雲煙のように走らせた。 汝陽王・李璡は通り過ぎる酒車の香りだけで半分酔い、「酒泉」の地に封じられた…
Stories around this position — storytelling, not part of the engine-verified content.
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