📚 Shiqing Yaqu — the famous Ming-dynasty collection of entertaining endgame compositions
Red to move — checkmate in 12, machine-verified. This is a long siege, not a lightning strike: Red has the larger force — two chariots, two knights, a full advisor–elephant set — but no cannon; Black has a cannon, two knights and a chariot, and a king with room to slip away. Twelve moves, each tightening the net a little more — exactly the strategy carried in the position's name. The position is preserved in Thích Tình Nhã Thú (game 46). 'Viễn giao cận công' — befriend the distant, attack the near — was the maxim of Phạm Thư, a man beaten half to death on a false charge of treason, who fled into enemy country under a borrowed name and rose to become Qin's chancellor. His full saying and his road there are told in the anecdote below. On this board: do you have the patience to 'swallow it inch by inch' through all 12 moves?
✓ Engine-verified — The Fairy-Stockfish engine (NNUE) confirms Red checkmates in 12 moves — the main line was checked move by move, every move legal. Date checked: 2026-11-03.
「得た一寸はすべて王の一寸」――一文で帝国を呑んだ戦略
ある策士は、謀反の濡れ衣で死ぬ寸前まで打たれ、偽名で敵国へ逃れた。数年後、その同じ男が宰相の座に座り、彼の一文が、秦を中国統一へ導く国家戦略となった。その一文とは何だったのか？ その男は范雎。魏の家臣で、宰相・魏斉に謀反の嫌疑をかけられ、半死半生まで打たれて秦へ逃げ、張禄と名乗った。秦の昭襄王に拝謁した彼は、韓と魏を越えて遠い斉を攻める計画の欠陥を指摘した。あれほど遠くで得た土地は保持できない――斉はかつて楚の千里の地を奪いながら「一寸も保てなかった」。彼の戦略は『史記』に記録され、「遠交近攻（えんこうきんこう）」と呼ばれる。「得た一寸は王の一寸、得た一尺は王の一尺」である。秦は数十年にわた…
Stories around this position — storytelling, not part of the engine-verified content.
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