📚 Yuanshen Haikua — a Qing-dynasty endgame manual
Red to move, and Red holds the bigger army — two chariots, two cannons and a solid row of five pawns — yet the old book concludes only: draw. The name explains the trap: Black's smaller force is curled into one compact block, and every Red attack runs into a siege wall built in reverse. “An Ambush from Ten Sides” names the classic encirclement at Gaixia in 202 BC, where Xiang Yu heard the songs of his homeland Chu rising from all four sides in the night and understood that Chu was already lost. The anecdote below retells that night — and what broke an army before the battle had even begun. The position is no. 174 of Uyên Thâm Hải Khoát, one of the four great classical endgame manuals. Can you find any way to break this balance — or is a draw the only possible ending?
Ambush on ten sides: the night the songs of Chu surrounded Xiang Yu
An army trapped at Gaixia heard something terrifying in the dark: from every direction, the folk songs of their own homeland. Han Xin's ambush was complete before a blade was drawn — the sound itself told Xiang Yu's soldiers that home had already fallen. What weapon is that? The Shiji records the…
Stories around this position — storytelling, not part of the engine-verified content.
1c1a1k3/3PPr3/b1PP1rP1C/8C/9/9/4n4/R3B3R/4p4/1p1K5 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