📚 Lanke Shenji — a Ming-dynasty endgame manual
Red to move, and Lạn Kha Thần Cơ awards Red the win — but do not celebrate early: Red's palace stands bare, no advisor, no elephant, while Black keeps both elephants, two knights and more pieces overall. Red fields two chariots against one, plus knight, cannon and three pawns; one careless moment in the hunt and Red's own king becomes the prey. The position has not been machine-verified; the result follows the classical book. The name is the most humiliating moment of Cao Cao's life — as told in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms (chapter 58, Tong Pass, 211): hunted down at full gallop by Ma Chao, Cao Cao had to cut off his legendary beard and throw away his red robe to escape. How the age's most feared hunter became the hunted is told below. On this board the roles are reversed: Red does the hunting. Can you finish the pursuit?
'The long-bearded man is Cao Cao!' — and the legendary beard was cut off on horseback
For a lifetime of deep schemes that sent others fleeing, Cao Cao too had a day when he had to cut off his own beard to run. In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms (chapter 58, the Tong Pass campaign of 211), that was the day Ma Chao hunted him down. Ma Chao shouted across the field: "The man in the…
Stories around this position — storytelling, not part of the engine-verified content.
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