📚 Yuanshen Haikua — a Qing-dynasty endgame manual
Red to move. Two Red pawns have pushed deep into Black's camp, backed by two chariots and a cannon ready to press home. Black has more pieces — an advisor, two elephants, a knight, a chariot, a cannon — but Black's king stands in a formation already hollowed out. Yet the classical manual Uyên Thâm Hải Khoát (game 8) concludes only: draw. The position has not been machine-verified; the result follows the book. The name is the most famous spy tale of the Three Kingdoms age: Jiang Gan, visiting his old friend Zhou Yu, 'stole' a secret letter at midnight — and thereby made Cao Cao execute his own two finest naval commanders. Except, as the anecdote below points out, that letter theft never happened in the historical record. And on the board: with two pawns already at the palace door, can you find a way to turn this draw into a win?
二人の提督を殺した偽の手紙――赤壁で最も有名な逸話は…起きなかった
赤壁の戦いの前、蒋幹は旧友・周瑜の陣営を訪れ、真夜中に「秘密の手紙」を盗んだ。曹操の水軍提督・蔡瑁と張允が、曹操の首を届けて降伏すると約束している、と。曹操は激怒して二人の提督を斬首した――計略に嵌まったことを知るのは、その後だった。素晴らしく、劇的な物語である。ただ一つ問題がある。そんなことは起きていないのだ。では本当の蒋幹は、川を渡って実際に何をしたのか？ 偽の手紙の版は『三国志演義』（第45回、第47回）に由来する。小説では蒋幹は二度曹操を破滅させる。一度目に二人の提督を失わせ、二度目に龐統を連れてきて「連環の計」を献じさせる。実際の歴史では、蔡瑁は処刑されていない。彼は生きて曹操に栄…
Stories around this position — storytelling, not part of the engine-verified content.
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