Xiangqi

Chinese Chess

Xiangqi, known in the west as Chinese Chess, is an extremely popular game in the
Eastern Hemisphere. It is currently played by millions (or tens of millions) in China,
Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Hong Kong and other Asian countries.
Xiangqi has remained in its present form for centuries. It is commonly believed that
both Xiangqi and Orthodox Chess derive from the original Indian game
of Chanturanga, but some, such as SamSloan and DavidLi, maintain that Chess is
actually Chinese in origin. Whatever the relation between Xiangqi and Chaturanga, it
seems highly likely that they are related, for the similarities between them are too hard
to explain as just coincidences. The two games are played by approximately the same
rules, and except for the Cannon, every Xiangqi piece is very similar to the
Chaturanga piece that occupies roughly the same position and bears a name similar or
identical in meaning.
(xing)
(q) translates to Elephant Game. In Mandarin it is written as either
Xiangqi, Xiang Qi or Hsiang-Ch`i and pronounced "Shiang-Chi". In Cantonese it is
written as Jeuhng Keih and pronounced "Junk Kay". The name is written as two
Chinese characters. The first is used in the game for the Elephant piece. The second
means strategy game, and it also signifies one of the fourarts -- qin (music), hua
(brush painting), shu (calligraphy) and q (strategy games) -- that a Chinese gentleman
scholar was supposed to be proficient in. The word may have originally referred to the
game now called Weiqi or Go, though in current usage it just means strategy board
game.
There is much literature on Xiangqi, most of it in Chinese. There are, however, a
few books available in English and other languages.

Rules

If you know how to play Chess, the rules of Xiangqi will be familiar. The general idea
is the same. Each player controls an army of pieces, moves one piece at a time, and
tries to get the opponent's royal piece. It differs from Chess mainly in the object, the
board, and the pieces.
Object
The object of Xiangqi is to either checkmate or stalemate your opponent. Checkmate
is the same in both games. In Xiangqi, the piece to checkmate is the opponent's
General. You have checkmated your opponent when you have attacked his General
(placed it in check), and he cannot eliminate the check with any move. Unlike Chess,
where a stalemate counts as a draw, a stalemate in Xiangqi wins the game for the
player delivering it. To avoid any confusion among Chess players who consider
stalemate synonymous with draw, let me spell out the difference. Stalemate is when a
player has no legal move. A draw is when a game ends in a tie. In Chess, stalemate is
one condition in the game, among others, that leads to a draw. In Xiangqi, a player
with no legal move loses.
Board
The traditional Xiangqi board is a grid of ten horizontal lines and nine vertical lines.
The vertical lines are interrupted in the middle, so that the board appears as two grids
of five horizontal lines by nine veritical lines. This interruption is called the river. It
serves as a barrier to the Elephants. Other pieces can pass over it as though it's not
there, Pawns gaining the ability to move sideways after crossing it. The board appears
very similar to other uncheckered boards, such as the boards Shogi and Chaturanga
are played on, but instead of going in the space demarcated by the lines, pieces go on
the intersections. These intersections are called points. It is believed that this type of
piece placement is borrowed from WeiQi (known in the west as Go). Two palaces are
positioned at opposite sides of the board. Each is distinguished by an x-shaped cross
connecting its four corner points. Throughout the game, each player's General and
Advisors must remain in the palace.

The above board shows various L-shaped markings in order to mark the
setup points of Pawns and Cannons. These markings are not present on all commercial
boards, and they have no bearing on the course of the game.

Setup
At the beginning of the game, pieces are placed like so. Besides the traditional board
described above, a checkered board with western pieces is also shown. The rules of
the game do not require the traditional board, and western players may find the game
less forbidding with more familiar equipment. The checkered board used here is
patterned after one that came with a commercial Chinese Chess set called Cambaluc
Chinese Chess. Like the traditional board, it marks the river, the palaces, and the
spaces that Cannons and Pawns begin on.

Traditional Pieces, Board, and Notation

Western Pieces, Cambaluc Board,

Algebraic Notation

From left to right on the bottom and top rows, you see: a Chariot, a Horse, an
Elephant, an Advisor, a General, an Advisor, an Elephant, a Horse, and a Chariot. On
the third rows, you see the Cannons in front of the Horses, and on the fourth row you
see the Pawns, one space between each Pawn. The side shown at the bottom of the

board is normally called Red, the other side Black, though sometimes Blue or Green.

Pieces
Chinese
Pieces

Movement

Chariots / Rooks
The Chariot (or Rook) moves exactly the same as
the Rook in Chess. It moves in a straight line
horizontally or vertically across any number of empty
spaces, stopping either on an empty space or the first
space it comes to that is occupied by one of the
opponent's pieces. It may not pass over occupied spaces.
The character used for the Chinese piece, , is the
pictograph of a chariot from above, showing wheels at
top and bottom.

Horses / Knights
The Horse, commonly known in Fairy Chess literature as
the Mao, is capable of reaching all the same spaces that
the Chess Knight can reach, but it cannot leap over
pieces. When it moves, it first moves one
space orthogonally followed by one more
space diagonally outward. When the first space it would
move over is occupied, its movement in that direction is
blocked. It may never stop on the first space of its
movement. So it cannot reach any space a Chess Knight
could not reach.

Westernized
Pieces

Known as m in Chinese, the character for this piece, ,

is the pictograph of a horse, showing its head, mane,
legs, and tail. The Chinese name is similar to the English
word mare, which means female horse.

Minister / Elephant
The Red piece is called a Minister, the black piece an
Elephant. Some literature on Chinese Chess will stick to
one name or the other. H. T. Lau calls them both
Ministers, while the World Xiangqi Federation calls
them both Elephants. We tend to favor Elephant, as
shown in the western pieces used. By whatever name,
this piece moves two spaces in the same diagonal
direction. Like the Horse, it may not leap over occupied
spaces. So if the first step of its move is over an
occupied space, it is blocked and may not make that
move. Additionally, Elephants are confined to their own
side of the river. Due to these limitations, the Elephant
can reach only seven spaces of the board.
The two characters used for this piece are homonyms in
Chinese, both transliterated as xing. The character for
the Black piece, , is the pictograph of an elephant. The
character for the Red piece, , shows an eye behind
a tree . The tree is the figure on the left, and the eye is
the thing that looks like a ladder. As a verb, it means to
examine or study. As a noun, it means prime minister.

Advisors / Guards
The Advisor (also known as Councellor, Mandarin or
Guard) moves one space diagonally. On the traditional
board, the diagonal lines in the palace connect
the points the Advisor may reach. It may never leave
the palace. Aside from this restriction, it is identical to

the Shatranj piece commonly known as a Ferz

It's Chinese name of sh means scholar. The character for
the Black piece, , combines the characters for 1 ()
and 10 () to mean one who knows all from one to ten.
The Red character, , combines the characters for
person, , with scholar, , essentially keeping the
meaning the same. The names of Advisor (used by the
World Xiangqi Federation) and Councellor (used by H.
T. Lau) are close in meaning to this. Councellor is a
common translation of both sh and ferz, but Advisor has
the advantage of not beginning with the same letter as
Cannon while meaning essentially the same thing. The
names of Guard and Mandarin were both popularized by
John Gollon. The name of Guard describes the function
of the piece in the game. A Mandarin was a kind of
public official in the Chinese empire. Neither seems to
be an accurate translation.

General / King
The General moves one space orthogonally within the
confines of the palace. The two Generals cannot face
each other on an open file. For example, a red General
on e1 and a black General on e10, with no piece on the
e-file between them, is an illegal position. If either
General sits exposed on an open file, the other General
may not move to occupy that file. Unlike the King in
Chess, the General may not move diagonallly.
The Black character for this piece, , tranliterated
as jing, combines a character for law, , in the lower
right corner, with a phonetic. It means will or going to.
The Red character, , transliterated as shui, combines
characters for hill and banner . The hill is on the
left side, the banner on the right. As a noun, it means
commander, as an adjective, handsome.

Cannons
The Cannon moves differently when it moves to
capture than when it moves passively. It moves the same
as the Chariot when it is not capturing a piece, and it
moves in the same directions when capturing except that
to make the capture it must hop over a single intervening
piece, referred to as the screen. In other words, Cannons
capture by hopping over asecond piece in order to
capture a third piece. For example, a Cannon on a1 can
take a piece on f1 when exactly one of the spaces b1, c1,
d1, or e1 is occupied by a piece of either color. Cannons
only capture when hopping and only hop when
capturing. They may never hop over more than one piece
in a given move.
The character for the Red piece, , shows fire on the
left and the phonetic for its Chinese name of po, .
The character for the Black piece shown here just has the
phonetic, but in some sets the Black piece is displayed as
, showing a stone with the phonetic. The
Chinese po sounds like the English sound effect pow,
and given that the character includes the phonetic for this
sound, it is likely that the Chinese name for the Cannon
is onomatopoeic.

Soldiers / Pawns
The Xiangqi Pawn moves one space vertically forward.
Upon crossing the river, it gains the additional ability to
move one space sideways. Unlike orthodox Pawns,
its passive moveand capture move are always the same,
it never gets a double move, and it does not promote to
another piece on the last rank. Being unable to move
forward any longer, a Pawn on the last rank can only
move left or right.

The Red piece, , transliterated as bing, shows hands

wielding an axe . The Black piece, , transliterated
as z, combines the pictograph of a cloak with the
number 1 . Both characters mean soldier.

Other rules
1. Red moves first.
2. Perpetual check is forbidden. You cannot check your opponent more than three
times in a row with the same piece and same board positions.
3. You cannot force an enemy piece to move to and from the same two spaces,
indefinitely, in order to avoid capture. If you move a Rook to e5, threatening a
Cannon on e6, and your opponent's only viable move is Cannon to f6, then you
cannot force that Cannon to and from e6 and f6 by moving your Rook to and
from e5 and f5, indefinitely. The purpose of this rule (and the above rule) is to
avoid perpetual-check draws. Some of these situations are complicated, but the
person who is forcing the perpetual move must usually break it off.
4. The game is a draw when neither side can force a checkmate or a stalemate.

Notation
Traditional Notation

The traditional notation used by the Chinese writes a move in four parts. This consists
of (1) The character for the piece. (2) The number identifying the file the piece is on.
Files are numbered 1 to 9 from each player's right hand side. Chinese numerals are
used for Red and Arabic numerals for Black. In the traditional diagram shown above,
the Chinese numerals at the bottom of the board are 9 to 1 going left to right. If the
board were flipped around to Black's perspective, then they would be going from 1 to
9, just as the Arabic numerals are currently going. When a player has two pieces of the
same type on the same file and moves one, the file number is not used to designate
which piece moved. Instead, the character for the piece is preceded by (xn) for
front or (han) for rear. (3) A direction indicator, (jn) for advancing forward,
(ti) for retreating backward, or (png) for traversing horizontally. For pieces that

move only along ranks and files, the choice of direction indicator is dictated by the
move. For pieces that change both rank and file with a move, only the forward and
backward direction indicators are used. (4) The file the piece moves to, or, for purely
vertical movement, the number of ranks moved. Again, this will be in Chinese for Red
and in Arabic for Black.
In his book Chinese Chess, H. T. Lau adapts this style of notation to English. Instead
of Chinese characters for the pieces, he uses these English letters: K for King, S for
Councellor, M for Minister, R for Rook, N for Knight, C for Cannon, and P for Pawn.
He uses Arabic numerals for both sides. For the direction indicators, he uses f for
forward, b for backward, and h for horizontal. When two pieces of the same type
occupy the same file, he precedes its letter with f for front or r for rear.
The WorldXiangqiFederation has also adapted this style of notation to English.
Instead of Chinese characters for the pieces, they use these English letters: K for King,
R for Rook, E for Elephant, H for Horse, C for Cannon, and P for Pawn. They use
Arabic numerals for both sides. For the direction indicators, they use + for forward, for backward, and = or . for horizontal. When two pieces of the same type occupy the
same file, WXF notation precedes its letter with + for the front piece or - for the rear
piece. For multiple Pawns on the same file, a rare occurrence in most games, further
details are described on theWXFnotation page from the World Xiangqi Federation's
website. WXF notation is supported by the programs Coffee Chinese
Chess and Qianhong. The XiangqiDatabase has over 20,000 Xiangqi games
stored in WXF notation.

Algebraic Notation

Borrowed from Chess, algebraic notation assigns fixed designations to each rank and
file, using these to assign a unique name to each location on the board. Following
Chess as our model, these should be the letters a through i for the files and the
numbers 1 through 10 for the ranks, as shown in the western setup diagram above.
This coordinate system is used by Zillions-of-Games, by Game Courier, and by D. B.
Pritchard in his book The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants. But there has not been
uniform agreement on this matter. The International Chinese Chess Server (ICCS)
numbers the ranks from 0 to 9, and the ICCS standard is supported by
the Qianhong program. The Chinese Chess program that comes in Global Star's Ten

Pro Board Games collection uses numbers for the files and letters for the ranks,
perhaps taking its cue from Shogi, which is included in the same collection of
programs.
The simplest type of algebraic notation, commonly used by computer programs,
designates a move by two coordinates, the first indicating where the piece moved
from, the second indicating where the piece moves to. ICCS, Zillions-of-Games, and
Game Courier all use algebraic notation of this sort. Algebraic notation can also
follow the style common for Chess of writing the move as briefly as possible. D. B.
Pritchard uses notation of this sort in the Xiangqi entry of his Encyclopedia of Chess
Variants. In this manner, a Pawn move is designated by just its destination, most
normal moves by the piece notation and the destination, captures with an x and the
notation for the piece captured, and ambiguous moves by also indicating which space
the piece moves from.
Tactics
The Block

Attacks by Chariots, Horses, Elephants, and Cannons can be blocked by moving

another piece into the line of attack. But doing so can allow your opponent to pin your
piece.
The Pin

When a move by a piece would reveal a check on the same player's General or an
attack on a more valuable piece, then it is pinned. A pinned piece is less mobile than
other pieces. It may not be able to flee from an attack, and it may not be able to
defend a space it could otherwise move to. Like its counterpart in Chess, the Chariot
can pin pieces. Because of the rule against opposing Generals, a General can pin a
piece on one of the three central files. Since Horses and Elephants step to their
destination instead of leaping there as the Chess Knight does, they are also capable of
pinning pieces.
The Double Pin

The double pin is a tactic of Chinese Chess that is unavailable in Chess. Since a
Cannon hops over an intervening piece to capture, it takes two pieces to block a

Cannon attack. If one piece moves away, the Cannon can hop over the other one to
capture a piece. This allows a Cannon to pin two pieces in the same line of attack.
The Fork

A fork is an attack on two or more pieces by the same piece. Your opponent will be
able to move only piece away on his next turn, leaving the other available to be
captured. In some cases, it is possible to cancel both attacks of a fork with one move.
For example, the piece that moves away may move to block the other attack.
The Skewer

The skewer is an attack on the General or some other valuable piece that is blocking
an attack on another piece. Once the attacked piece moves away, the other piece can
be captured. Note that the skewer doesn't work so effectively when your aim is to
capture a Cannon, for the Cannon can hop over the allegedly skewered piece to
capture your Chariot. The skewer tactic is available only to Chariots and Cannons in
Xiangqi. Although Horses and Elephants can be pinned, they cannot skewer, because
they cannot capture on the first step of their move.