Xiangqi quick start: the rules, then your first game
Chinese chess for complete beginners — the board setup, how every piece moves, and how to win, step by step.
The board & the goal
The complete rules of Xiangqi
Everything the tutorial above shows on the board, written down. Read it once, keep it for reference, and come back for the rules that decide close games: the flying general, the repetition rules and the stalemate rule that surprises every chess player.
The board
Xiangqi is played on a grid of nine vertical lines, called files, and ten horizontal lines, called ranks. Unlike Western chess the pieces sit on the intersections of the lines, not inside the squares, so each side has ninety points to play on. A gap between the fifth and sixth ranks is the river, usually marked 楚河 and 漢界, the Chu river and the Han border, after the two kingdoms whose war the game is said to depict.
At each end, the three-by-three box of points with an X drawn through it is the palace. The General and its two Advisors never leave it. The river matters for two pieces: Elephants can never cross it, and Soldiers grow stronger once they have.
Setting up
Each player has sixteen pieces: one General, two Advisors, two Elephants, two Horses, two Chariots, two Cannons and five Soldiers. On the back rank, from the corner inward, stand Chariot, Horse, Elephant, Advisor, then the General on the centre point, and the same again in mirror image. The two Cannons sit on the third rank, one point in from each side, directly in front of the Horses. The five Soldiers stand on the fourth rank on alternate files: the first, third, fifth, seventh and ninth.
Red moves first, then the players alternate. Red's pieces carry the person-radical characters (俥傌相仕帥炮兵) and Black's the plain forms (車馬象士將砲卒); the pieces are the same, the calligraphy is the only difference. On a real set the characters face the player who owns them.
How the pieces move
In each diagram the ringed piece is the one being described. Green dots are the points it may move to; a dashed ring marks a piece it may capture. The positions are the real engine's answer, not an artist's.
General
The General is the king. It moves one point at a time, up, down, left or right, and it never leaves the palace: the three-by-three box marked with an X at each end of the board. Lose the General and you lose the game.
Because it is confined to nine points, the General is the easiest piece on the board to trap, and almost every checkmate pattern in Xiangqi is a way of taking those nine points away one at a time.
Advisors
Each side has two Advisors, which flank the General. An Advisor moves exactly one point diagonally and, like the General, may never leave the palace, which limits it to five points for the whole game.
Advisors are pure defenders. They block the diagonals into the palace and give the General a bodyguard against Chariots and Cannons. Trading them off early is the classic beginner's mistake.
Elephants
The Elephant moves exactly two points diagonally, like a long bishop step, and cannot cross the river. That leaves it seven points on its own half of the board. If the point halfway along its diagonal is occupied, the Elephant is blocked and cannot make that move.
Think of the two Elephants as a second line of defence outside the palace. A full guard of two Advisors and two Elephants is worth keeping intact deep into the endgame.
Horses
The Horse moves like a chess knight, one point straight and then one point diagonally outward, but with a difference that decides games: it can be blocked. If the point directly adjacent in the straight direction is occupied, the Horse cannot go that way.
In the diagram the Horse can reach the two points in front of it, but not the ones to its side, because its own Elephant and Chariot stand in the way. Hobbling a Horse by placing a piece on its leg is one of the most common tactics in the game.
Chariots
The Chariot moves any distance in a straight line, along a rank or a file, and captures the first enemy piece it meets. It is the rook of Xiangqi and by far the strongest piece: a Chariot is worth roughly two Horses or two Cannons.
From the corner it can only reach the two points ahead before its own Soldier blocks the file. Getting the Chariots out early, onto open files, is the first principle of the opening.
Cannons
The Cannon moves exactly like a Chariot but captures differently: to take a piece it must jump over exactly one other piece, of either colour, which acts as its screen. It cannot capture an adjacent piece and it cannot jump two.
The diagram shows both halves of the rule. The Cannon can slide to any empty point along its file and rank, and it can capture the Black Horse at the far end, jumping the Black Cannon that stands between them. There is no piece like it in Western chess, and it is the reason Xiangqi attacks come so early.
Soldiers
A Soldier moves one point straight forward and captures the same way. It never moves backward. Once it has crossed the river it gains the ability to move one point sideways as well, which turns a slow pawn into a useful attacker.
In the diagram a Red Soldier has crossed the river: it can step forward to capture the Black Soldier, or sideways in either direction. Soldiers do not promote; reaching the last rank leaves them able to move only sideways.
Check, checkmate and stalemate
When a piece attacks the enemy General, the General is in check, and the player to move must deal with it: move the General, capture the attacker, or block the line (a Horse's move and a Cannon's jump can also be spoiled by placing or removing a screen). If none of those is possible, it is checkmate and the game is over. You may not make a move that leaves your own General in check.
The rule that trips chess players: a player who has no legal move loses. There is no stalemate draw in Xiangqi. If it is your turn and every move you could make is illegal, you have lost, exactly as if you had been mated. This makes endgames with very little material far more decisive than in chess.
The flying general
The two Generals may never face each other along an open file with nothing between them. A move that would leave them facing is illegal, and a move that removes the last piece between them is also illegal. In practice this means a General controls the file it stands on, as if it were a Chariot that could only see the other General.
Strong players use it as a weapon. Step your General onto a file and the enemy General cannot step onto it, and any enemy piece standing between them is pinned: it cannot leave the file, because doing so would expose the two Generals to each other. Many endgame wins depend on this rule alone.
Perpetual check and perpetual chase
You may not give check indefinitely. If the same position repeats three times with one side checking on every move, the side giving the checks must vary or lose. The same applies to a perpetual chase: repeatedly attacking an unprotected piece that has no defence except to run. Chasing is judged by what the piece could capture, not by whether it did; the detailed cases fill a chapter of the official rulebook.
The everyday version is simple: if you are the one repeating and your repeated moves are checks or chases, you must stop. If both players are repeating without checking or chasing, the game is a draw. XiangqiPlay applies the Asian Xiangqi Federation rules automatically, so a perpetual check is never a way to save a lost game here.
Draws
A game is drawn by agreement, by a repetition in which neither side is checking or chasing, or when neither side has enough material to force a mate. In tournament play a limit on the number of moves without a capture also applies, usually sixty. Because stalemate is a loss and the flying general rule adds a fresh attacker in every ending, draws are rarer than in chess and a lone Chariot against a bare General is always a win.
Reading the notation
The international standard is the World Xiangqi Federation notation. Each move is four characters: the piece, the file it starts on, a direction, and a number. Pieces are K (General), A (Advisor), E (Elephant), H (Horse), R (Chariot), C (Cannon) and P (Soldier). Files are numbered one to nine from each player's own right, so Red's file 1 is Black's file 9.
The direction is + for forward, - for backward and = for sideways. For a piece moving along a file the final number is how many points it moves; for a sideways move, or for a Horse, Elephant or Advisor, it is the file the piece lands on. So C2=5 is a Cannon on the second file moving sideways to the fifth: the Central Cannon, the most played first move in the game. H2+3 is a Horse on the second file moving forward to the third. The boards on XiangqiPlay show every move in this notation so it becomes familiar without study.
Your first game: five principles
- Get the big pieces out. Chariots to open files, Horses toward the centre, a Cannon to the middle. A piece on its starting point is not playing.
- Keep the guard. Advisors and Elephants exist to defend. Do not trade them for Soldiers, and do not move them without a reason.
- Count before you capture. A Cannon needs a screen; a Horse can be blocked; the Generals cannot face. Half of all beginner blunders are captures that were never legal.
- Cross the river with purpose. A Soldier across the river is worth more, a Chariot across the river is an attack; an Elephant never crosses at all.
- Use your General. In the endgame the flying general rule makes it a piece. Put it on the file the enemy General needs and watch the ending win itself.
When you are ready, the openings page plays every named line on a board, and the mate-in-one puzzles teach the shapes that end games.
Xiangqi vs chess at a glance
| Rule | Xiangqi | Western chess |
|---|---|---|
| Board | 9×10 points, pieces on intersections | 8×8 squares |
| Pieces per side | 16, seven types | 16, six types |
| King | Confined to the palace; cannot face the other | Free to roam |
| Unique piece | Cannon, captures by jumping a screen | Queen |
| Knight / Horse | Can be blocked | Jumps |
| Bishop / Elephant | Two points, cannot cross the river | Any distance |
| Pawn / Soldier | Moves sideways after the river; never promotes | Promotes on the last rank |
| Stalemate | A loss for the stalemated side | A draw |
| Perpetual check | Illegal: the checker must vary | A draw |
| First move | Red | White |
The full comparison, piece by piece, is in Xiangqi vs chess.
Chinese chess questions, answered
- What is Chinese chess?
- Chinese chess is Xiangqi (象棋), a two-player strategy game played in China and across Asia for over a thousand years. It is played on the intersections of a 9×10 board split by a river, with each side commanding a General, two Advisors, two Elephants, two Horses, two Chariots, two Cannons and five Soldiers. You win by checkmating the opposing General.
- How do you set up a Chinese chess board?
- On your back rank, from left to right: Chariot, Horse, Elephant, Advisor, General, Advisor, Elephant, Horse, Chariot. The two Cannons go on the third rank, in front of and one point inside each Horse. The five Soldiers sit on the fourth rank on alternate files — the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th. Pieces sit on the intersections, not inside the squares, and Red moves first.
- Is Chinese chess harder than chess?
- Neither game is objectively harder — they are hard in different ways. Xiangqi's open board and jumping Cannon make tactics sharper and games shorter, so blunders are punished faster, while Western chess rewards long positional planning and has far more published opening theory. Chess players usually learn the Xiangqi rules within an hour, then spend months adjusting to the Cannon's screen and the blockable Horse.
- How do you play Xiangqi for beginners?
- Learn how each of the seven piece types moves, keep your General safe inside the palace, develop your Chariots and Cannons onto open files, and aim to checkmate the opposing General. XiangqiPlay's interactive tutorial demonstrates every rule right on the board.
- What is the goal of Xiangqi?
- The goal is to checkmate the opposing General — to attack it so that it cannot escape, block the attack, or capture the attacker. Unlike Western chess, being stalemated (having no legal move) is also a loss.
- How is Xiangqi different from Western chess?
- Xiangqi is played on the intersections of a 9×10 grid rather than on squares, features a river and palaces, and has unique pieces like the Cannon (which jumps to capture) and the Elephant. The Generals also cannot face each other on an open file.
- How does the Cannon move in Xiangqi?
- The Cannon moves any distance in a straight line like a Chariot, but to capture a piece it must leap over exactly one other piece — friendly or enemy — that acts as a screen.
Keep going
- The xiangqi glossary explains every term you will hear, from the river to a hobbled horse.
- The named openings give you a plan for the first ten moves, with a board for each line.
- Tactics puzzles turn the rules into the patterns that actually win games.
Know the rules? Play Xiangqi against the computer free or play Chinese chess against a real opponent.