📚 Taolue Yuanji — a Ming-dynasty endgame manual
Red to move — and the assignment sounds almost impossible: hold a draw. Count the pieces and Black dominates: two chariots, five pawns, a full palace guard of advisors and elephants, against Red's single chariot, two cannons and three pawns. Yet the classical manual Thao Lược Nguyên Cơ (game 59) still gives the verdict: draw. Red's lifeline is that Black's king is far from safe either, and Red's cannon pair is strong enough to keep the position from collapsing. The name points to the famous gamble behind it: in 204 BC Han Xin arrayed ten thousand men with their backs to the river before two hundred thousand Zhao troops — a formation both armies called suicide, whose ending is told in the anecdote below. On this board, can you find the way for the outnumbered side to stand its ground to the end?
Back to the river, 200,000 ahead: Han Xin's 'suicidal' formation
In October 204 BC, Han Xin led his army through Jingxing Pass against Zhao. Then he did something that stunned both sides: he arrayed 10,000 men with their backs to the river — exactly what the manuals forbade. Zhao's soldiers laughed: this general knew nothing of war. The laughter soon stopped.…
Stories around this position — storytelling, not part of the engine-verified content.
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