📚 Mengru Shenji — a Ming-dynasty endgame manual
No chariots, no cannons — Red has only two knights and five pawns, yet the machine confirms: Red checkmates in 20 moves. The opponent, meanwhile, is nearly complete: both advisors, both elephants, two knights and a cannon. This is a position of patience and camouflage, exactly like its name: “reducing the stoves” was Sun Bin's ruse — cooking fewer stoves each day so the enemy believed his army was deserting and melting away. The end of that trap at Maling, with the words carved on a tree trunk that Pang Juan read by his own torchlight, is told in the anecdote below; the position comes from Mộng Nhập Thần Cơ. Here on the board: do you have the patience to walk two knights through the whole 20-move road?
✓ Engine-verified — The Fairy-Stockfish engine (NNUE) confirms Red checkmates in 20 moves — the main line was checked move by move, every move legal. Date checked: 2026-11-03.
敵将は自らの死刑宣告文を読むために松明を灯した――その炎こそ殺害の合図だった
道端の木の幹に、白く数文字が書かれていた。追撃する将軍は読むために松明を灯した。「龐涓この樹の下に死す」。読み終えるか終えないかのうちに、暗い森から一万の矢が雨と降った――彼自身が灯した松明こそ、伏兵開始の合図だったのだ。 罠を仕掛けたのは孫臏である。同門の龐涓はその才を妬み、罠にはめて膝の骨を削らせた――彼の名の「臏」の字はその刑の痕である。彼は狂人を装い、斉の使者に馬車で密かに運び出されてようやく逃れた。紀元前342年、二人は馬陵で再び相まみえた。一方は斉軍を率い、他方は魏軍を率いて追撃した。 孫臏の策は、かまどの数だった。斉の撤退は計算されていた。初日は十万、第二日は五万、第三日はわずか…
Stories around this position — storytelling, not part of the engine-verified content.
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