📚 Baiju Xiangqi Pu Jingbian — the refined edition of the Hundred Games, Qing dynasty
Red to move, short of material: one chariot, one cannon, one elephant and two pawns, with no advisor screening the king. Black has more pieces, both advisors, and the larger pawn force. Yet Bách Cục Tượng Kỳ Phổ Tinh Biên (game 52) concludes: draw. Note the name: this is the REVISED version of the 'Eight Immortals Cross the Sea' — later hands reworked it; does the revision still preserve the original result? The position has not been machine-verified. The Eight Immortals would not ride the clouds across the Sea: each tossed a treasure into the water and crossed by his own magic. That folk legend is told below. Eight immortals, eight ways across; here, each of Red's few pieces must work its own small miracle to survive. Can you find their tricks — or has this revision spoiled the draw?
Eight Immortals cross the sea: none will ride a cloud — each throws a treasure into the water
Eight immortals stood before the vast Eastern Sea, and not one would cross it the ordinary way, by riding a cloud. In high spirits, Lü Dongbin proposed: let each throw his own treasure into the water and ride that across — and see who was best! The eight were Tieguai Li, Han Zhongli, Zhang Guolao,…
Stories around this position — storytelling, not part of the engine-verified content.
3a5/3k1C3/2Pa2P2/5R3/9/9/p6p1/9/1p2r4/3K2B2 wOpen this position in the app: try it against the computer or watch the engines play it out.
▶ Play this studyLoad this position into the Setup editor: rearrange it, edit it and try your own variations.
🧩 Open in Setup