Xiangqi Rules

For chess players: six rule changes

If you already play chess, most of xiangqi will feel familiar. These are the six rules that catch chess players out, each explained in full further down.

The board

The board has 9 files and 10 ranks. In the traditional presentation, pieces sit on the intersections of the lines rather than inside squares.

The palace is the 3 by 3 box on each player's back side. Generals and advisors must stay inside their own palace. The river divides the board in half. Elephants cannot cross it, and soldiers gain sideways movement after crossing it.

Setting up

Files are lettered a to i from Red's left and ranks numbered 1 to 10 from Red's side, so Red's back rank is rank 1. Each back rank holds, from one edge to the other: chariot, horse, elephant, advisor, general, advisor, elephant, horse, chariot. Each side's cannons stand on the b and h files two ranks in front of it, on rank 3 for Red, and its five soldiers stand on the a, c, e, g and i files one rank further up.

The pieces

A piece captures by landing on an enemy-occupied point, and no piece may move through an occupied point. The cannon's capturing jump is the only exception. The pieces are listed below in the traditional order.

For chess players: the chariot is exactly a rook, the horse is a knight that can be blocked, and the general is a king confined to its palace. The elephant only loosely resembles a bishop, and the advisor and the cannon have no chess counterpart.

General: moves one point horizontally or vertically and can never leave its own palace. The two generals may never face each other along an open file with nothing between them: a move that would expose that line is illegal. In effect, a general guards the file in front of it like a chariot.

Advisor: moves one point diagonally and, like the general, stays inside the palace. Both advisors share just five possible points. Their main job is to protect the general, but they can also become a liability by blocking its escape or serving as a cannon screen.

Elephant: moves exactly two points diagonally and cannot cross the river, so the two elephants share only seven possible points on their own half. It does not jump: a piece on the midpoint of the diagonal, the elephant's eye, blocks the move.

Horse: moves one point orthogonally and then one point diagonally outward, like a chess knight, but it does not jump. If the orthogonal point it steps through, the horse's leg, is occupied, the horse cannot move in that direction.

Chariot: moves any distance horizontally or vertically and cannot jump, exactly like a rook. It is the strongest piece on the board.

Cannon: moves like a chariot when it is not capturing. To capture, it jumps over exactly one piece, friend or foe, called the screen, and lands on an enemy piece beyond it.

Soldier: moves one point straight forward and never backward. After crossing the river it may also move one point sideways. It never promotes.

Check, checkmate, and endings

A general is in check when an enemy piece attacks it. Every move must leave your own general safe, so a player in check must move the general, capture the attacker, or block the attack. If no legal answer exists, it is checkmate and the checked player loses.

A player with no legal move also loses, even when the general is not in check. In Western chess that position is a stalemate draw; in xiangqi it is a win for the player who made the last move.

The rule that the generals may not face each other also works as an attack. A general can help deliver checkmate from the far end of an open file, because the enemy general cannot step onto that file.

Repetition

You cannot save a lost game by checking forever. If the same position occurs three times and one side gave check with every move of the repeating cycle, that side loses. If both sides checked on every move, or neither did, the game is drawn.

Tournament rules go one step further and also forbid chasing an unprotected piece forever. Mistboard does not judge chases, so a repeated chase is scored as a draw. A game is also drawn after 60 consecutive plies without a capture.

Mistakes chess players make

Reading xiangqi moves

Xiangqi moves are written three ways. Mistboard shows algebraic notation by default outside Chinese: the central cannon is Che3, the cannon on the h file moving to e3. WXF notation numbers files from each player's right and writes the same move C2.5: cannon on file 2 moves sideways to file 5. Chinese notation reads the same way in characters: 炮二平五, cannon two traverses to five. The move list setting switches between them.

A famous game

To see the pieces work together, step through a famous trap from a manual printed in 1632. Red gives up a horse; when Black grabs it, Red's chariots and cannons pour through the gap and checkmate on the thirteenth move.

A first opening

The most common opening is the central cannon (中炮): Red moves a cannon to the centre file, aiming at Black's central soldier and the general behind it. Black's most common answer is the screen horses (屏风马), both horses developed toward the centre to guard that soldier. Central Cannon vs Screen Horses collects model games of the pairing.

Common questions

How does each piece move in xiangqi?

General: one point along a line, inside the palace. Advisor: one point diagonally, inside the palace. Elephant: two points diagonally, never across the river. Horse: one point along a line then one diagonally out, blocked if the first point is occupied. Chariot: any distance along a line. Cannon: moves like a chariot, captures by jumping exactly one piece. Soldier: one point forward, and sideways too after crossing the river.

How big is a xiangqi board, and how many pieces are there?

The board has 9 files and 10 ranks, 90 points in all, with pieces standing on the points rather than in squares. There are 32 pieces, 16 per side: one general, two advisors, two elephants, two horses, two chariots, two cannons and five soldiers.

What do the Chinese characters on xiangqi pieces mean?

Each piece is named by one character, and Red and Black mostly write the same word two ways. The generals differ: Red's 帥 means commander and Black's 將 means general. The advisors, 仕 and 士, are both read shì and mean a scholar-official. Red's elephant 相 means minister and Black's 象 means elephant, and the two are pronounced alike. The horse (傌 / 馬), chariot (俥 / 車) and cannon (炮 / 砲) are one word each, with one component added or swapped on one side: Red's cannon takes the fire radical and Black's the stone radical. The soldiers differ again: Red's 兵 is a soldier and Black's 卒 a foot soldier.

What can a soldier capture?

Any enemy piece on a point it could move to: the point straight ahead, and after crossing the river the points to its left and right as well. It never captures backward or diagonally, and it never promotes.

Can the general capture a soldier?

Yes. The general captures any enemy piece on an adjacent point along a line, including a soldier, as long as it stays inside the palace and the move does not leave the two generals facing each other on an open file.

What is the flying general rule?

It is the rule that the two generals may never face each other on an open file with nothing between them (飞将 in Chinese). The name comes from the idea that a general facing the other could fly down the file and capture it. In practice any move that would leave the generals facing each other is illegal, so a general controls the file in front of it like a chariot.

Which xiangqi pieces are worth the most?

The usual rule of thumb: chariot 9, cannon 4.5, horse 4, advisor 2, elephant 2, soldier 1 before crossing the river and 2 after. The chariot is worth about two of any other piece, so a trade of a horse or cannon for a chariot is nearly always good.

How do you win at xiangqi?

Checkmate the general, or leave your opponent with no legal move: unlike Western chess, stalemate is a loss for the player who cannot move. In practice games are decided by getting the chariots onto open files early, keeping cannons behind a screen, and using soldiers that have crossed the river as attacking pieces. The eight engine levels on this page start well below club strength, and the post-game review shows where a game turned.

Is perpetual check allowed in xiangqi?

No. A player who repeats the position by giving check on every move loses. On Mistboard the side that checked on every move of a threefold repetition loses; if both sides checked throughout, or neither did, it is a draw.

When was xiangqi invented?

The modern game, with the cannon on the board, took shape in China during the Song dynasty (960 to 1279). Its ancestors run several centuries earlier, and it shares a root with chess, shogi, and janggi in the older Indian game chaturanga.

What is the difference between xiangqi and chess?

Pieces sit on the intersections of a 9 by 10 grid, not inside squares. A river splits the board and a palace confines the general and advisors. The cannon captures by jumping, the horse can be blocked, elephants cannot cross the river, and soldiers never promote. Stalemate loses instead of drawing.

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