"The Huarong Trail"  is a traditional Chinese intelligence-boosting game tool. The name of the game comes from the story of the same name from Romance of the Three Kingdoms. There are lots of changes and strategies with great unpredictability in the game. The players will never get bored. It’s been listed as one of “the top three incredible intelligence games in the world”.

The game is designed according to the plot of Guan Yu letting Cao Cao go in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. “The Huarong Trail” game tool has a chessboard with 20 small checkers, symbolizing the Huarong Trial. There’s a two-checker-long exit at the bottom of the chessboard for Cao Cao’s escape. There are ten chess pieces of different sizes placed on the chessboard, respectively symbolizing Cao Cao, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, Ma Chao, Huang Zhong, Guan Yu and four soldiers.

There are only two unoccupied checkers on the chessboard. The rule of the game is to move the pieces by using these two checkers to help Cao Cao reach the middle of the board bottom for his escape from the initial place in the fewest possible steps. You can’t move the pieces by skipping; Cao Cao is the only chess piece allowed out. The player is expected to move Cao Cao out by using the fewest steps. There are dozens of arraying methods in the game of “Huarong Trail”.

The game is extremely difficult. Along with other traditional Chinese intelligence-boosting games like the jigsaw puzzle and nine interlocking rings, it’s nicknamed “Chinese Difficult Problem”.