Tesuji Flash I

Does anyone have any ideas as to what's happening on the left side of the picture? (Click on the image to enlarge.) My guess is that a doctor is removing an arrow fragment from a samurai's arm, and the samurai is using Go as a distraction from pain.

It's also interesting that the samurai is playing White (one might imagine that his opponent was the court master of Go, whose job would be to entertain and teach the samurai; so, the master would take White, being a more skilled player; then again, maybe the opponent is simply another samurai), that they are sitting on chairs, not on the floor, and that they are playing on a table board, not on a traditional floor goban (I guess that ties in well with the chairs).

[Update: see below.]

Also note the samurai's beard. Actually, the guy in the middle also has a beard and looks a little like Rabbi Y.Y. Jacobson.

In any event, on to the main part of this post:

Tesuji (local move combinations) are my favorite aspect of Go games right now. Therefore, I present you with with the following Tesuji Flash from Go World magazine, No. 1, May–June 1977.



Update: Regarding the picture — it turns out, the main character of the picture is Chinese general Guan Yu. From Wikipedia's description of the picture:

A 19th-century Japanese woodcut of Guan Yu by Utagawa Kuniyoshi. In this scene he is being attended to by the physician Hua Tuo while playing Weiqi [Chinese name for Go].

 I guess that explains the table board and the chairs.