📚 Shiqing Yaqu — the famous Ming-dynasty collection of entertaining endgame compositions
Red to move. Red has only a Cannon and two Pawns left; Black has exactly one piece — a Rook, the strongest on the board. A Rook hunting a Cannon and two Pawns in the endgame is usually a one-sided chase, yet the classical manual Thích Tình Nhã Thú (No. 524) concludes: draw. This position has not been verified by engine; the result follows the old book. The name is the idiom 'one cry startles everyone' — three years of silence, then a single call that shakes the world — tied to King Trang of Chu and the metaphor of the strange bird that sat on a mound for three years without flying or singing. The story is told in this page's Anecdotes section. In your view, how must Red's two little Pawns combine with the Cannon so that their 'one cry' is enough to hold off an entire Rook?
Three years neither flying nor singing: the strange bird perched on a mound in Chu
"In Chu there is a bird perched on a mound that for three years has neither flown nor sung — what bird is it?" The minister who asked that question was staking his life: the king he asked had decreed that anyone who dared remonstrate would be executed. King Zhuang of Chu had spent three years on…
Stories around this position — storytelling, not part of the engine-verified content.
4k4/9/9/4C4/4PP3/9/5r3/9/9/4K4 wOpen this position in the app: try it against the computer or watch the engines play it out.
▶ Play this studyLoad this position into the Setup editor: rearrange it, edit it and try your own variations.
🧩 Open in Setup