📚 Taolue Yuanji — a Ming-dynasty endgame manual
The material gap in this position is among the most extreme in the classical manuals: Red has just five pieces — one chariot, one cannon, two pawns — while Black keeps almost the entire army, thirteen pieces with both advisors and elephants, two knights and two chariots. Red to move, and the whole assignment is a single word: draw. Yet Thao Lược Nguyên Cơ (game 29) records exactly that word. Unverified by machine; the verdict is the ancients' own. The name — 'Jin and Song Make Peace' — recalls the notorious alliance of 1120, when Song joined the rising Jin to destroy Liao, only to have its capital sacked seven years later by that very 'ally'. Why that seemingly clever move became a catastrophe is told below. Here, outnumbered thirteen to five: how would you hold the draw with Red — or do you think the old book was too generous?
Inviting the wolf to kill the guard dog: the Jin–Song alliance and the price of a 'clever' move
In 1120, the Song dynasty signed an alliance with the rising Jin state to jointly destroy Liao — its century-old enemy in the north. In 1125, Liao really was destroyed. And just two years later, the Song's own capital was flattened by the army of... its ally, and two emperors were carried off to…
Stories around this position — storytelling, not part of the engine-verified content.
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