Nine Links - Nine Links

Japanese: 九連環 - きゅうれんかん

...The Cross Breaker in Figure 35 is in the same series, and a book called Sei Shonagon's Wisdom Board (1742) was discovered in Japan that describes a tool similar to Tangram. The Nine Links in Figure 36a is a puzzle in which you remove a stick from nine links, and it also originated in China. It seems to have been introduced to the West at an early stage, when it was called the Chinese Ring, and in the 16th century the Italian mathematician G. Cardano considered the number of moves required to remove a stick. ...

From [Puzzle Ring]

...The game is to remove the pole from the ring. In China, there was a Chinese ring with nine rings called the nine-ring ring. The jade ring that appears in "The Warring States Strategy" written by Liu Xiang (77-6 BC) is said to be this nine-ring ring....

*Some of the terminology explanations that mention "Ku-ren-kan" are listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

Japanese:

…これと同系列のものには図35のクロス･ブレーカーがあり，日本でもタングラムと似た用具を解説した《清少納言知恵の板》(1742)という本が発見されている。図36のaの九連環は9個の環から棒を抜く知恵の輪パズルで，発祥はやはり中国である。早くから西洋に伝わったようで，チャイニーズ･リングと呼ばれ，16世紀にはイタリアの数学者G.カルダーノが抜き取る手数を考察している。…