Xiangqi: the rules

The board, the river and the palace

The xiangqi board is a grid of lines, and the pieces stand on the crossings rather than in the squares. There are nine lines running away from you and ten running across, so there are ninety crossings, or points, in all. A piece always sits on a point. It never sits inside a square, because the squares are not used at all.

A line running away from you is a file; a line running across is a rank. This site names a point by its file letter and its rank number, from a0 to i9, with red’s back rank as rank 0 and black’s as rank 9. You do not need these names to play, but they are how the board is written down here.

Across the middle runs a blank band with no lines drawn through it. This is the river. The points on either bank, a4 to i4 for red and a5 to i5 for black, are ordinary points. The river matters only because two pieces care about it: elephants may never cross it, and soldiers change how they move once they have.

At each end, in the middle three files, sits a three by three block of points with diagonals drawn corner to corner. This is the palace: d0 to f2 for red, d7 to f9 for black. The general and the advisors may never step outside their own palace, for the whole game.

Red has one general, two advisors, two elephants, two horses, two chariots, two cannons and five soldiers. Black has exactly the same. Red sets up with chariots on a0 and i0, horses on b0 and h0, elephants on c0 and g0, advisors on d0 and f0, and the general on e0. The two cannons stand a little forward, on b2 and h2. The five soldiers stand on a3, c3, e3, g3 and i3, with an empty point between each pair. Black mirrors all of this: back rank on rank 9, cannons on rank 7, soldiers on rank 6.

How each piece moves

Every piece captures the same way it moves, with one exception. The cannon captures differently from the way it travels, and that exception is the heart of the game. Here is the whole army.

General

Moves one point along a line, up, down, left or right. Never diagonally, and never outside its own palace. There is one further restriction, the flying general rule, described below.

Advisor

Moves one point diagonally, along the drawn diagonals of the palace. It too may never leave the palace, so an advisor has at most five points it can ever visit: the four corners and the centre.

Elephant

Moves exactly two points diagonally, never one and never three. The point it passes over must be empty, or the move is blocked. An elephant may never cross the river, so it defends its own half and can never attack.

Horse

Moves one point along a line and then one point diagonally outward, ending a knight’s distance away. The single orthogonal point it steps through first must be empty. If a piece of either colour stands there, that whole direction is shut off.

Chariot

Moves any distance along a rank or a file, through empty points only, and captures the first enemy piece it reaches. It is the strongest piece on the board by a wide margin.

Cannon

Travels exactly like a chariot when it is not capturing: any distance along a line, over empty points only. To capture, it must jump exactly one piece of either colour, called the screen, and land on the first enemy piece beyond it.

Soldier

Moves one point straight forward. Once it has crossed the river it may also move one point sideways. It never moves backward and never moves diagonally, and it is never promoted.

Taking turns

Red moves first, then black, and so on. A turn is exactly one move. You must move; there is no passing.

A move sends one of your pieces to a point that is either empty or holds an enemy piece. A captured piece leaves the board for good; nothing ever returns to play. You may never land on one of your own pieces, and no two pieces ever share a point.

You may never make a move that leaves your own general under attack, and you may never make a move that puts the two generals in line with each other down an empty file. Anything else that follows the piece rules is legal.

The four rules that make it xiangqi

Four ideas separate xiangqi from every other chess. Learn these and you have learned the game.

The flying general. The two generals may never face each other down a file with no piece at all between them. It is not a capture and not a check; the position is simply forbidden, so any move creating it is illegal. In practice the rule is a weapon: a general on an open file quietly attacks the enemy general from the far end of the board, and pieces have to be moved out of the way with care.

The river. Only two pieces notice it. An elephant may never step across, so each side keeps both elephants at home all game as a defensive screen. A soldier that has crossed gains the sideways step and becomes roughly twice as useful, which is why pushing soldiers over is a real plan.

The blocked leg and the blocked eye. A horse steps one point orthogonally before it turns, and that first point must be empty; a piece standing there, yours or your opponent’s, is the hobbled horse and it kills that direction. An elephant passes over the midpoint of its two-point diagonal, and a piece standing on that midpoint blocks it: the blocked elephant eye. Both rules mean these pieces can be shut down by a single well-placed man, which never happens to a knight or bishop in western chess.

The cannon’s screen. A cannon moving to an empty point behaves like a chariot and needs a clear path. A cannon capturing needs exactly one piece in the way, of either colour: not none, not two. It leaps over that screen and takes the first enemy piece beyond. So defending against a cannon often means removing the screen rather than moving the target.

Check, checkmate and stalemate

When a piece attacks the enemy general, the general is in check. The player in check must answer it at once, by capturing the attacker, by blocking the line, or by moving the general to safety. There is no rule requiring you to announce check, though most players do.

If a player is in check and has no legal move that ends the check, that is checkmate and the game is lost.

Now the rule that surprises everyone coming from western chess. If a player is not in check but has no legal move at all, that player loses as well. There is no stalemate draw in xiangqi. This changes endgames completely: you do not need to mate, only to take away every move.

A player may also lose by resigning, or by running out of time in a timed game.

Draws

Xiangqi is a sharp game and draws are less common than in western chess, but they happen in three ways.

• By agreement. Either player may offer a draw and the other may accept.
• By insufficient attacking material. When neither side has enough left on the board to force a mate, the game is drawn.
• By the no-progress limit. If 120 half-moves pass with no capture at all, the game is drawn. A half-move is one player’s turn, so that is sixty moves each without a single piece leaving the board.

What happens when the same position keeps repeating is the one place where the two rule sets on this site part company. Under the federation preset, endless checking or endless chasing is punished rather than pardoned: the aggressor is made to vary or lose. Under the casual preset, a position that occurs three times is simply a draw. Each preset’s own page explains its judgement in full.

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

  Full federation xiangqi: a stalemated player loses, and repeating a position by endless checking or by chasing an undefended piece loses for the aggressor.

  Full rules

• Casual

  The same game as the federation preset, except that a position repeated three times is simply a draw, so no game is ever decided by a chase ruling.

  Full rules

Common questions

Do the pieces go on the squares or the lines?

On the crossings where the lines meet. A nine by ten grid of lines gives ninety points to stand on, including every point along the outside edge.

Can a cannon move without a screen?

Yes. A cannon moves to an empty point exactly like a chariot, needing a clear path. The screen is required only when it captures.

What happens if I have no legal move?

You lose. Xiangqi has no stalemate draw: a player who cannot move is beaten, in check or not.

Why can the two generals never see each other?

The flying general rule forbids the two generals from standing on the same file with nothing between them. Any move that would create that position is illegal.

Sources

Everything on this page is written from scratch. These are the works it leans on, and what each one settles.

• Asian Xiangqi Federation, tournament rules

  The federation’s rule set is what competitive xiangqi means in practice, and it settles the two points this site had to choose on: that a stalemated player loses, and that repeated checks and chases are judged rather than allowed to stand as draws.

• H. J. R. Murray, A History of Chess (Oxford, 1913)

  The first systematic survey of the chess family in English. It is cited here for the relationship between xiangqi and the other chess games, not for any rule of play.