A Banquet on the Night of the Lantern Festival 元夜张宴

Nguyên Dạ Trương Yến (元夜张宴) evokes the Lantern Festival night: streets ablaze with lights and banquet tables laid out in the open — a festive scene, and this study from Lạn Kha Thần Cơ, recorded without a game number and preserved by two independent transcriptions, throws its attacking banquet in exactly that spirit, with chariot, horse, cannon and pawn all taking part. Black is hardly weak either: two chariots, a cannon, an advisor, an elephant and a pawn, an almost complete army. What saves Red is placement — one black chariot stands marooned deep in Red's camp, while Red's pawn already presses the palace and its horse and chariot occupy ideal attacking squares. The engine-verified main line runs 9 Red moves, and its star is that red pawn: it trudges into the middle of the feast and captures, in three consecutive takes, Black's elephant, advisor and cannon, throwing the whole defence into chaos before finally letting the black general capture it. Straight after, Red's chariot switches direction to remove the black chariot that rushed back, the horse leaps to its commanding square to seal the exits, and that same chariot climbs to the top rank and sweeps across to deliver the final checkmate, with the red cannon posted above it as its screen. Moderate in difficulty, its brightest lesson is to never underestimate a pawn inside the banquet.

✓ Engine-verified — The Fairy-Stockfish engine (NNUE) confirms Red checkmates in 9 moves — the main line was checked move by move, every move legal. Date checked: 2026-11-02.

Source

爛柯神機（无局号）

Book result

Red wins

Verification

✓ Engine-verified

Side to move

Red to move

Difficulty

Medium

Red forces

King, Horse, Chariot, Cannon, Pawn

Black forces

King, Advisor, Elephant, Chariot ×2, Cannon, Pawn

FEN

3k1a3/5P3/4b4/2N6/9/4c2C1/4r4/4R4/3p1r3/4K4 w

Transcribed from

GitHub weiyinfu/xqp: 残局/烂柯神机/元夜张宴 红胜.xqfGitHub · liudada1980/canju12