📚 Mengru Shenji — a Ming-dynasty endgame manual
Red to move and mate in 11 — and every one of Red's eleven moves is a check. The 'two swallows' of the name are Red's two Knights, darting in turn; beside them Red has only a Cannon and a Pawn, while Black keeps a Rook, two Advisors, a Knight and two Pawns. Eleven checks in an unbroken chain, and the mate arrives on the final move. Position 112 of Mộng Nhập Thần Cơ — one of the oldest xiangqi books in existence, lost for centuries until a copy resurfaced in 1949 for sale at a grocery stall in a market, as the Anecdotes section tells. Can you keep a checking chain alive for eleven moves without letting it snap?
✓ Engine-verified — Two independent transcriptions (the endgame dataset from the Đông Bình classical books and the canju12 problem bank) agree character for character. The classical book's main line, replayed with the game's own engine: all 21 moves legal, ending in checkmate for Red — exactly mate_in 11 (2×11−1 moves); the source dataset also records Pikafish confirming checkmate in 11.
Two Swallows in Flight — and a lost book found at a grocery stall
One of the oldest xiangqi books in existence spent centuries lost — and when a copy finally resurfaced in 1949, it was not in a library or a scholar's chest. It was for sale at a grocery stall in a market. What was a Ming-dynasty treasure doing among the vegetables? The book is Mộng Nhập Thần Cơ…
Stories around this position — storytelling, not part of the engine-verified content.
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