📚 Baiju Xiangqi Pu — one hundred selected positions, Qing dynasty
Red to move. Exactly seven pieces stand on each side — the 'seven stars' of the name. Red: two Rooks, a Cannon and three Pawns. Black: one Rook, one Elephant and four Pawns. Red is a whole rook up, yet for over 200 years the classical books have concluded: draw. Red must first survive a forced sacrificial sequence at the start, and the main line runs 85 moves with long manoeuvring stretches before the honours are shared. Thất Tinh Tụ Hội, recorded in Bách Cục Tượng Kỳ Phổ and several other manuals, is hailed as the 'king of endgame compositions' and stands at the head of the Four Great Jianghu Compositions. It has not been verified by engine; the result follows the old books. The Anecdotes section tells how it has defied the world for two centuries. A rook up and still only a draw — where do you think Red's win slips away?
King of Endgame Compositions: Seven Stars That Have Defied the World for 200 Years
Seven pieces — exactly seven on each side. And a verdict debated for over 200 years: Tat Tinh Tu Hoi (Seven Stars Converge), hailed as the "king of endgame compositions", cannot actually be won by either side if both play perfectly. But to reach that draw, Red must first survive a forced "opening…
40,000 Characters for One Position: Half a Century of Unending Debate
One single position — and in 1993 an entire book devoted some 40,000 characters to it alone. How much is there to say about seven pieces a side? For Tat Tinh Tu Hoi (Seven Stars Converge), the answer of China's xiangqi world was: half a century of debate, and still not finished. The modern debate…
Three Hundred Variations: The First English Xiangqi Book Was About a Single Position
In 1916, in Shanghai, an entire English book appeared about ONE xiangqi position: "Seven Stars – A Chinese Chess Ending with Three Hundred Variations". Three hundred variations for a single endgame — and, as ChessBase notes, this was the first book on Chinese chess ever published in English. Its…
Stories around this position — storytelling, not part of the engine-verified content.
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