📚 Yuanshen Haikua — a Qing-dynasty endgame manual
Red to move with clearly heavier firepower: two chariots, a cannon, a knight and three pawns. Black has only one chariot, but compensates with an intact advisor–elephant pair around the palace and three pawns holding the line. The classical manual Uyên Thâm Hải Khoát (game 80) concludes: draw — Red's strength strikes a soft wall, powerful yet never quite decisive. The position has not been machine-verified. The name recalls a famous debt of gratitude at Changsha: mid-battle, the veteran Huang Zhong's horse stumbled, and the man who could have taken his life at arm's length turned his own horse away, leaving just one sentence behind. That chivalrous exchange — and how it won over a great general — is told in the anecdote below. On this board, can you break through that advisor–elephant wall and overturn the draw?
Spared Once, a Great General Won: The Debt of Gratitude at Changsha
Old general Huang Zhong's horse stumbled mid-battle; he fell to the ground, his life wholly in Guan Yu's hands. Guan Yu spurred forward... then turned and rode away, saying only: 'Go change horses, then come back and fight on!' How did that single act of honour decide Changsha? According to the…
Stories around this position — storytelling, not part of the engine-verified content.
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