📚 Yuanshen Haikua — a Qing-dynasty endgame manual
Red to move with exactly five pieces: the king, both elephants, one chariot — and a single pawn as its only other attacker. Black holds both advisors in the palace, a chariot and three pawns, clearly the larger force. Yet Uyên Thâm Hải Khoát (game 335) concludes: Red wins. A force this thin wins no war of attrition; it can only win with a single, precise strike — like a dagger waiting. The name is an assassination recorded in the histories: in 515 BC Zhuan Zhu took on killing King Liao of Wu — a king in three layers of armour, with halberd guards crowding the stairs. To reach the one spot he could strike from, Zhuan Zhu spent months on something no one expected: learning to grill fish. That detail — and the dagger hidden in the fish — is told below. On the board: five pieces, one chance — can you find Red's dagger stroke?
To kill a king in three layers of armour, an assassin had to go and learn… to grill fish
How do you kill a king who wears three layers of armour, whose guards stand halberd in hand crowding the stairs? Zhuan Zhu's answer: go and learn to grill fish — for months, until your fish is an irreplaceable masterpiece. In 515 BC, in the state of Wu, Prince Guang wanted the throne of his cousin,…
Stories around this position — storytelling, not part of the engine-verified content.
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