📚 Lanke Shenji — a Ming-dynasty endgame manual
Red to move, and the machine has confirmed the outcome: checkmate in 14 moves. The hard-to-believe part is the balance of forces — Black has two chariots, two cannons and five pawns, while Red's only heavy piece is a single chariot, the rest being two knights, two cannons and one pawn. But a fire attack does not need a big army. The name evokes the Battle of Yiling in 222, when Lu Xun burned Liu Bei's linked camps stretching seven hundred li — and, as the anecdote below tells it, each Wu soldier carried exactly one bundle of dry straw. The position is preserved in Lạn Kha Thần Cơ. Can you find Red's first “bundle of straw” in this position?
✓ Engine-verified — The Fairy-Stockfish engine (NNUE) confirms Red checkmates in 14 moves — the main line was checked move by move, every move legal. Date checked: 2026-11-03.
700 li of linked camps — and each enemy soldier carried exactly one bundle of straw
Seven hundred li of camps linked one to another through forest and mountain. To burn it all, the enemy needed no mighty army — each soldier needed to carry exactly one bundle of dry straw. In 222, Liu Bei had lost both Guan Yu and Zhang Fei; defying all counsel, he threw his whole army against Wu…
Stories around this position — storytelling, not part of the engine-verified content.
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