📚 Baiju Xiangqi Pu — one hundred selected positions, Qing dynasty
Red to move — checkmate in 5, and the machine has confirmed it. What is strange is that the board is still crowded almost to full strength: Red fields both advisors and elephants, two chariots, two cannons, a knight and two pawns; Black is barely poorer, missing only the knight. Amid that packed battlefield, Black's king is so tightly boxed in that five moves suffice to finish — if you find the right road. The position is preserved in Bách Cục Tượng Kỳ Phổ and bears a beautifully odd name: 'Thất Hiền Quá Quan' — the Seven Sages passing the barrier. Yet no classical manual explains who those seven sages are, or where their barrier stands; the anecdote below follows what few clues survive. Before reading on, take the challenge: can you find the first move of the 5-move mate?
✓ Engine-verified — The Fairy-Stockfish engine (NNUE) confirms Red checkmates in 5 moves — the main line was checked move by move, every move legal. Date checked: 2026-11-03.
Seven Sages Pass the Gate: A Beautiful Name the Old Books Never Explain
The Hundred Endgames manual records this composition under a poetic name: Seven Sages Pass the Gate. Yet nowhere in the classical chess books is there a line explaining why it bears that name, who the seven sages were, or which gate they had to cross. Where does the secret lie? In Chinese culture,…
Stories around this position — storytelling, not part of the engine-verified content.
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