📚 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?
川を背に、前に20万――韓信の「自殺的」布陣
紀元前204年10月、韓信は軍を率いて井陘の関を抜け、趙に迫った。そして両軍を唖然とさせることをした。1万の兵を川を背にして布陣させたのだ――兵法書が禁じる、まさにその配置だった。趙の兵は笑った。この将軍は戦争を知らない、と。だが笑いはすぐに止んだ。なぜか？ 『史記』（第92巻・淮陰侯列伝）が語る。前夜、韓信は軽騎兵2,000人を送り、各人に韓の赤い旗を持たせ、脇道から趙の陣営の近くに潜ませていた。夜明けに彼は1万を川を背に布陣させ、自ら太鼓と旗を率いて進み、敗れたふりをして太鼓も旗も捨て、川の線まで退いた。退路を断たれた1万は死に物狂いで戦った。趙軍は捨てられた旗を奪おうと陣営からなだれ出…
Stories around this position — storytelling, not part of the engine-verified content.
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