Is there a river in janggi?

No. The board is the same size as a xiangqi board but has no river, and no piece is restricted to its own half — the elephants in particular cross freely.

Can you pass in janggi?

Yes. A player who is not in check may pass instead of moving, which is why janggi has no stalemate.

What happens when the two generals face each other?

That is bikjang. Under the Korea Janggi Association rules this site follows, if the generals face down an open file at the start of a turn and the player to move leaves them facing, the game is drawn.

Can a cannon capture another cannon?

No. A cannon may never capture a cannon and may never use one as its screen. An enemy cannon on your cannon’s line is a wall, not a target.

Janggi rules

Janggi is the chess of Korea. It uses the same nine-by-ten board as xiangqi and then changes almost everything on it: no river, a general who starts in the middle of his palace, elephants with a longer leap, and a legal right to do nothing at all.

Updated 5 September 2026

The board and the two armies

Janggi is played on a grid of nine lines one way and ten the other. Pieces stand on the crossing points, not inside the squares, so there are ninety playable points.

There is no river. A xiangqi player will look for the blank band across the middle and not find it. Nothing stops a piece halfway, and no piece is confined to its own half.

At each end sits a palace: nine points, three by three, with both diagonals drawn across it. Those diagonals are not decoration. They are lines like any other, and a piece standing on one may travel along it.

The two sides are Cho and Han, named after the rival Chinese houses of Chu and Han whose war the game stages. Cho is usually green or blue, Han usually red. Cho moves first.

Each side has sixteen pieces: one general, two guards, two elephants, two horses, two chariots, two cannons and five soldiers. The discs are coloured by side and marked with Chinese characters, and the two generals carry different ones — 楚 for Cho, 漢 for Han.

Setting the board, and the choice before the first move

Put a chariot on each corner point of your back rank. Beside each chariot goes a horse, beside each horse an elephant, and beside each elephant a guard, so the two guards end up on the back corners of your palace.

The general does not stand on the back rank. He stands on the centre point of his own palace, one rank forward, a guard behind him to either side. That is the first surprise for anyone arriving from another chess game, and it is why the palace diagonals matter so much: he starts on the one point where both of them cross.

The five soldiers stand on your fourth rank, on every second file starting from either edge. The two cannons stand on your third rank, one file in from each edge.

That leaves the four points on your back rank between the chariots and the guards. Nobody moves until both players have said how they want them filled. There are four legal arrangements:

Both elephants inside, next to the guards, horses outside next to the chariots. This is the base layout and the one to take while you are learning.
Both elephants outside, next to the chariots, horses inside.
The elephant outside on your left wing only, the other elephant inside.
The elephant outside on your right wing only, the other elephant inside.

Han declares first, and the choice is shown to both players. Cho then declares, having seen Han’s. Cho then makes the first move. Each player chooses only for their own back rank, so the two armies need not match.

How the pieces move

General: One point at a time along a drawn line, and never out of the palace. The diagonals count as lines, so a general on the centre point has all eight neighbours available and a general anywhere else has fewer. He may never be left in check.
Guard: Exactly the general’s move: one point along a drawn line, never leaving the palace. Two per side, and there is nowhere else for them to go.
Elephant: One point straight, then two more diagonally, continuing outward. It passes over two points and both must be empty or the leap is blocked. It is not confined to its own half, and it reaches further than the xiangqi elephant.
Horse: One point straight, then one diagonally outward. If the point it steps through is occupied by anything of either colour, that route is closed.
Chariot: Any distance along a clear file or rank. While it stands inside either palace it may also run along that palace’s diagonals, corner to corner through the centre if the centre is empty. The strongest piece on the board.
Cannon: Moves and captures only by jumping. It needs exactly one piece ahead of it on the line — its screen — and may then land on any empty point beyond, or capture the first piece beyond. Either colour will serve as a screen, but a cannon may never jump a cannon and never capture one. It may use the palace diagonals.
Soldier: One point straight forward or one point sideways, from its first move to its last. Never backwards. On a diagonal point inside the enemy palace it may step along that diagonal, so long as the step carries it forward. It is never promoted.

Every piece captures by moving onto an enemy piece and taking its point. No piece captures differently from the way it moves, and the cannon is no exception: it jumps to move and it jumps to capture.

Taking a turn

Cho moves first, then the players alternate. A turn is one move and one move only.

A player may also pass. Passing is a legal turn: nothing on the board changes and it is your opponent’s move. The one restriction is that you may not pass out of check.

Because a pass is always available to a player who is not in check, janggi has no stalemate. A side with nothing it wants to do simply does nothing, and the game carries on.

When a general is attacked the attack must be answered on the very next turn: move him, block the line, or take the attacker. Korean players announce it as janggun.

Three rules that decide janggi games

The palace diagonals are why the centre of a palace is the strongest point on the board and why attacks on a palace so often go wrong. Five kinds of piece use them: the general, the guards, a chariot standing inside a palace, a cannon standing inside a palace, and an enemy soldier that has fought its way in. A chariot stepping onto one palace corner covers the opposite corner as well.

A cannon with nothing to jump is furniture. It cannot advance, retreat or capture, and it may have no legal move at all. Everything it does depends on a screen, and a screen can be pulled away by either player. Half of janggi is arranging screens for your own cannons and removing them from under your opponent’s.

Bikjang is the position in which the two generals stand on the same file with nothing whatever between them.

Winning

Checkmate: the enemy general is attacked and no legal turn ends the attack. A pass does not answer a check.
Resignation, or loss on time in a game with a clock.
A checking repetition: if the same checking position comes up for a third time, the player giving check loses. Perpetual check is a losing plan in janggi, not a saving one.

There is no bare-general rule and the general is never actually captured. The game stops at mate.

Draws

Bikjang: generals facing down an open file, and the player to move leaves them facing.
Insufficient material, when neither side has the pieces left to force a mate.
The no-progress limit: 120 half-moves — 120 turns, counting both players — with no capture. Any capture resets the count to zero.
Repetition without check. Repeated checks are not drawn; they lose for the checker.
A double pass. If both players pass in succession the game ends level.
Agreement.

Those are the endings of the standard game. The tournament preset keeps every rule above and changes only what becomes of some of those draws.

What is different here

Everything above is the game as most people play it. Each rule set below changes something — sometimes a single win condition, sometimes the whole character of the game. Follow any of them for its full rules.

Tournament
The standard game exactly as the Korea Janggi Association writes it — the baseline every other preset here is measured against.
Full rules
Point count
Every KJA rule still stands, but a game that would end level on the move limit, a double pass or repetition is awarded instead to whoever has more material.
Full rules

Common questions

Is there a river in janggi?: No. The board is the same size as a xiangqi board but has no river, and no piece is restricted to its own half — the elephants in particular cross freely.
Can you pass in janggi?: Yes. A player who is not in check may pass instead of moving, which is why janggi has no stalemate.
What happens when the two generals face each other?: That is bikjang. Under the Korea Janggi Association rules this site follows, if the generals face down an open file at the start of a turn and the player to move leaves them facing, the game is drawn.
Can a cannon capture another cannon?: No. A cannon may never capture a cannon and may never use one as its screen. An enemy cannon on your cannon’s line is a wall, not a target.