📚 Yuanshen Haikua — a Qing-dynasty endgame manual
Red to move and checkmate in 7. This is a rare position where both armies are still nearly complete — two Rooks, two Knights, two Cannons, full Advisors and Elephants — and Black even has one extra Pawn. On a board crowded like a real battlefield, Red still finds a forced mate in just 7 moves. The position comes from the classical manual Uyên Thâm Hải Khoát (No. 134) and is named after the veteran general Nghiêm Nhan, who led a night raid on the enemy camp and rode straight into Trương Phi's trap — and what saved his life was not a weapon but a single sentence. The full story is in this page's Anecdotes section. In your view, which of Red's pieces breaks into Black's camp first on this 'night raid'?
✓ Engine-verified — The Fairy-Stockfish engine (NNUE) confirms Red checkmates in 7 moves — the main line was checked move by move, every move legal. Date checked: 2026-11-03.
An old general raids a camp by night and raids a trap — what saved him was one sentence
A general nearing seventy led a night raid on the enemy camp — and raided a trap. What saved his life was not sword or spear. It was one sentence. In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms (chapter 63), the old general Yan Yan held Jiangzhou like a wall: gates shut tight, moats dug deep, determined to…
Stories around this position — storytelling, not part of the engine-verified content.
2bak4/C3a2NR/4b4/1C7/4n4/8P/2c2pc2/2r1B1r2/4ApNn1/3RKAB2 wOpen this position in the app: try it against the computer or watch the engines play it out.
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