📚 Shiqing Yaqu — the famous Ming-dynasty collection of entertaining endgame compositions
Red to move with exactly three fighting pieces: one knight, one chariot, one cannon — no advisor, no elephant, not a single pawn. Black has everything: the advisor–elephant pair around the palace, a chariot and three pawns. On a count of pieces Red looks like a fugitive in a dead end; yet the classical manual Thích Tình Nhã Thú (game 239) concludes: draw — three pieces are enough to hold out. Not machine-verified; the result follows the book. The name tells of Wu Zixu at Zhaoguan Pass — the life-or-death barrier on his flight from Chu, where one night of dread turned his hair white, and that white hair carried him through the pass next morning. What happened that fateful night is told in the anecdote below. And you, holding Red's three pieces inside the ring: can you make it 'through the pass'?
一夜で白髪に――伍子胥と生死を分けた昭関
楚で最も追われる男が、呉への逃亡路の最後の関所に立った。関を抜ければ生、見破られれば死。翌朝、番兵たちは目の前の白髪の男を見て……通してしまった。その運命の夜に何が起きたのか？ 伍子胥（伍員とも）は、楚の太子太傅・伍奢の子だった。佞臣・費無極の中傷により、楚の平王は父と兄を殺した（紀元前522年）。子胥は逃亡し、友・申包胥に誓った。「私は楚を滅ぼす」と。司馬遷『史記』はその旅路を記す。漁師が川を渡してくれた（子胥は宝剣を差し出したが漁師は拒んだ）。彼は公子光の呉王即位を助けた。紀元前506年、呉軍は楚の都を落とし、子胥は平王の屍を掘り出して300回鞭打った――「墓を掘り屍を鞭打つ」復讐は、中…
Stories around this position — storytelling, not part of the engine-verified content.
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