📜 How to Play Xiangqi
A quick guide to the board, the pieces, and the special rules.
🀄 The Board
Xiangqi is played on a grid of 9 vertical lines and 10 horizontal lines - pieces sit on the intersections, not inside squares. A river runs across the middle of the board, and each side has a 3x3 palace at the back where the General and Advisors must stay.
🎯 Objective
Checkmate the opponent's General: trap it so it has no legal move left to escape check. There are no draws by stalemate in Xiangqi - see the special rules below.
♟️ The Pieces
| Red | Black | Name | How it moves |
|---|---|---|---|
| 帥 | 將 | General | Moves one point orthogonally, and must stay inside its own palace (the 3x3 box). |
| 仕 | 士 | Advisor | Moves one point diagonally, and must stay inside its own palace. |
| 相 | 象 | Elephant | Moves exactly two points diagonally ("flies" over the midpoint, called the eye). Cannot cross the river, and cannot move if the eye is occupied. |
| 傌 | 馬 | Horse | Moves in an L-shape (one point orthogonally, then one point diagonally outward). Cannot jump if the adjacent orthogonal point ("the horse's leg") is occupied. |
| 俥 | 車 | Chariot | Moves any distance horizontally or vertically, like a rook in international chess. Cannot jump over pieces. |
| 炮 | 砲 | Cannon | Moves like the Chariot when not capturing. To capture, it must jump over exactly one piece (of either side) in a straight line and land on the enemy piece beyond it. |
| 兵 | 卒 | Soldier | Moves one point forward only, before crossing the river. After crossing the river, it may also move one point sideways (left or right), but never backward. |
✨ Special Rules
Flying General
The two Generals may never face each other directly on the same open column with no piece between them. A move that would create this position is illegal.
Cannon captures need a screen
The Cannon can only capture by jumping over exactly one piece - friend or foe - anywhere between it and the target. It cannot capture without a "screen" piece in between, and cannot capture the screen piece itself.
No draws by stalemate
Unlike international chess, a player with no legal move who is not in check still loses the game - it is not a draw.
Checkmate ends the game
A player who is in check with no legal move that escapes it is checkmated and loses immediately.