Xiangqi (Chinese Chess): Board, Pieces and Rules

Xiangqi, often called Chinese chess, is a two-player strategy board game that originated in China and is widely played in China, Vietnam and Chinese and Vietnamese communities elsewhere. As in chess, the aim is to checkmate the opposing king, which is called the general. The game differs from Western chess in its board, its pieces and several rules.

Board and pieces

The board is nine lines wide and ten lines long, and the pieces stand on the intersections instead of inside squares. Each side has a palace, a three-by-three area at the back, and a river runs between the fifth and sixth ranks and splits the two armies. Each side has sixteen pieces:

• one general, which moves one point orthogonally inside the palace;
• two advisors, which move one point diagonally inside the palace;
• two elephants, which move exactly two points diagonally and cannot cross the river;
• two horses, which move one point orthogonally and then one diagonally, and can be blocked;
• two chariots, which move any distance orthogonally;
• two cannons, which move like chariots but capture only by jumping over exactly one piece;
• five soldiers, which move forward and, after crossing the river, sideways.

Special rules

If the two generals face each other on the same file with nothing between them, the position is illegal, so a player cannot make a move that creates it. Perpetual check is not allowed, and perpetual chases of an unprotected piece are prohibited, with an exception for generals and soldiers. Stalemate is not a draw: a player with no legal move loses, which is the opposite of the chess rule.

Writing and reading the pieces

Xiangqi pieces are discs marked with Chinese characters, and the two sides use different characters for the same piece. Red writes general as 帥, advisor as 仕, elephant as 相, horse as 傌 or 马, chariot as 俥 or 车, cannon as 炮 and soldier as 兵. Black writes 將, 士, 象, 馬, 車, 砲 or 包, and 卒. Red is the side that usually moves first in modern tournaments. Pieces are never promoted, which shapes the whole endgame.

Details of movement

Two pieces can be blocked. The horse is hobbled if a piece stands on the point next to it in the direction of its orthogonal step, and the elephant is blocked if a piece sits on the diagonal midpoint of its two-point move, known as its eye. The elephant also never crosses the river. The advisor has only five points to move on, those of the palace diagonals. The cannon needs a screen to capture: it jumps exactly one piece, of either side, and takes the piece directly behind it, while its non-capturing moves are those of a chariot. The soldier steps one point forward and gains sideways steps only after crossing the river. It never retreats.

Relative values and opening play

A common rule of thumb gives the chariot 9 points, the horse and the cannon 4 each, the advisor and the elephant 2 each, and the soldier 1 before the river and 2 after it. Cannons are usually stronger early and horses stronger late, and a horse with a cannon is generally better than two horses or two cannons. The most common opening is the central cannon, in Chinese 當頭炮, which puts a cannon on the middle file at once. The usual reply is the screen horses defence, 屏風馬. The pair is summed up in a Chinese rhyme, 當頭炮，馬來跳.

How it differs from chess and shogi

Several features set the game apart. There is no promotion, and soldiers have no two-step first move. The concept of opposition does not exist, and the flying general rule does its work instead. Soldiers start isolated and rarely defend each other, so at least five soldier moves are needed before two of them protect each other. Most drawn endings are fortresses, and only the cannon and the chariot can lose a tempo by triangulation. The game tree is estimated at around 10 to the power of 150, and in 2004 a projection held that a top human would be beaten by a program before 2010.

Notation and handicaps

The Chess of China describes one system in which ranks are numbered 1 to 10 from the player’s own side and files 1 to 9 from right to left. The Chinese form of notation uses the terms 平 for sideways, 進 for forward and 退 for backward, so 炮二平五 means the cannon on file two moves sideways to file five, which is the central cannon move. A third system labels files a to i and ranks 1 to 10, resembling algebraic notation. Handicap games are common: the stronger player removes a chariot, a cannon or one or two horses, or gives extra moves, usually one to three.

Early history

A game called xiangqi is mentioned in the Shuo Yuan, a text of the first century BC, but its rules are not given and it may not be the modern game. Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou wrote the Xiang Jing in AD 569, describing an astronomical game called xiangxi. David H. Li has argued that Han Xin developed the game in the winter of 204 to 203 BC, though other researchers have questioned that. The first description of rules close to the modern ones is in Niu Sengru’s Xuanguai lu, written in the middle of the Tang dynasty.

Governing bodies and titles

The World Xiangqi Championship is organised by the World Xiangqi Federation and has been held every two years since 1991, with the first edition in Singapore in 1990. Later hosts include Kunming in 1991, Beijing in 1993, Hong Kong in 1997 and 2003, Paris in 2005, Jakarta in 2011, Manila in 2017, Vancouver in 2019 and Houston in 2023. The 2015 edition in Munich was the fourteenth, with Zheng Weitong of China winning the men’s individual title and Wang Linna the women’s. The Asian Xiangqi Federation ranks players with an Elo-like system and awards grandmaster titles, of which there were about 100 in 2020. Blitz games usually give each player five to ten minutes.

History and competition

The oldest xiangqi piece found so far is a chariot held in the Three Gorges Museum, and the game is traced from the Southern Song dynasty. The article on the World Xiangqi Championship follows the title events from Singapore in 1990 to the present, including the Munich edition of 2015. The game also has its own pieces in the Unicode standard, described under Unicode chess symbols, and it appears among the festivals covered on the chess history page.

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