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An Introduction to Chinese Chess

by (Terence) Peter Donnelly
Author of Hsiang Ch’i: The Chinese Game of Chess (1974)

Chinese Chess, or xiangqi, is perhaps the most popular board game in the world, played by millions of people in China, other parts of Asia, and wherever Chinese have settled. In recent years it has started to become better known among non-Chinese. Westernized sets of boards and pieces sometimes show up in specialty games shops, and there have been several computer versions. But this wonderful game is still not as well known as it deserves to be.

For sheer fun, it’s hard to think of a two-player board game that matches Chinese chess. It exercises the brain in much the same way as Western (international) chess, but it is much faster moving. The movement of the pieces tends to be more fluid, the positions more open. In a sense, it is all "middle game." There is no careful buildup of pawn structures, the major pieces come into play immediately, and drawn-out endgames are rare. Although the openings have been classified, my sense (as a pure amateur) is that it is possible to become a good player without a lot of rote learning.

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History

All forms of chess are thought to have a common ancestor, but the dating and placing of the prototypical game are contentious. Following the lead of the chess historian H.J.R. Murray (whose scholarship may have been wider than it was deep), it has frequently been asserted that chess originated in India as chaturanga around the middle of the first millenium CE. Others, citing the lack of direct literary or archaeological evidence for chess in India at that time, point to Persia or some part of central Asia. The only thing known for certain is that an early form of the game was known in Persia by the seventh century. Called shatranj, it was played on a board identical to that used in modern Western chess, and with the same configuration of pieces, although some of the moves were more limited.

Chess spread westward through the Islamic world until it arrived in Europe in the Middle Ages. At the same time, it travelled into China and thence to Japan, where it took a very distinct form as shogi. There is also a Korean version very similar to the Chinese one. (Further south, the chess of Thailand, which is holding its own as a national pastime, appears to be on a different evolutionary branch.) By the end of the Song dynasty (960-1279), the modern Chinese game was fully developed.

Some authorities insist that China is the birthplace of chess. If this is so, the game must have been exported very early in its development, because the present Chinese game is an obvious improvement on chaturanga/shatranj. What seems more likely is that the prototypical chess converged with one or more native Chinese games. The modern game may even contain traces of an ancient system of divination in which pieces representing celestial bodies were moved about a map of the cosmos, divided by the Milky Way. The Milky Way is called a river by the Chinese, and the chessboard, as we shall see, has a river running through it. Charles Kliene gives more evidence of this association in the highly entertaining Preface to his Seven Stars: A Chinese Chess Variation with Three Hundred Endings. See also Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilization in China, vol. 4 pt. 1, pp. 314 ff, and H.J.R. Murray’s A History of Chess (1913), p. 122.

Even the name of the game may suggest a connection with some type of astrological tablet. Qi qi means a strategy game, and xiang xiang is the character that appears on the so-called elephants of the black side. (The equivalent red pieces are called by a homonym that signifies "adviser" or "augur".) Like so many Chinese words, xiang has several meanings: it can indeed mean "elephant", but it might equally refer to the ivory from which some sets are made, or it might signify "image" or "symbol" or even (according to Mathews’ Chinese-English Dictionary) "star" or "heavenly body". Thus xiangqi might be translated "celestial game". "Elephant game" is a possible translation, but it does not seem apt, given the very limited role of the elephant in play; unless the name simply suggests the game's Indian origins.

It is interesting to compare the evolution of chess in China and the West. The game of chaturanga/shatranj suffered from several weaknesses, and these weaknesses were remedied in very different ways, as follows:

  1. The pawns in the original game were slow to come into contact with the enemy. In Western chess, this problem was solved by allowing the pawns their initial two-step move. The Chinese solution was to set up the pawns in a forward position.
  2. The original game suffered from a lack of mobile attacking forces. Among the major pieces, only the rook and knight had their modern moves. The bishop moved just two squares diagonally, the queen just one. In the West, this problem was solved first by extending the move of the bishop, then finally during the Renaissance by the unleashing of the modern queen -- delightfully called in Italian the dama rabiosa. In China, the queen and bishop became if anything weaker than in chaturanga/shatranj, but two powerful new mobile pieces, the cannons, were added. Moreover, reducing the number of pawns to five opened up files for the rapid deployment of the rooks.
  3. Games of chaturanga/shatranj that reached the endgame must often have ended in a draw, because the pawn only promoted to the weak queen. In the West, the extension of the powers of the queen made it easier to enforce checkmate in the endgame. In China, the approach was very different: the king was confined to a small part of the board, making him easier to pin down, and the pawns were promoted earlier, being granted lateral movement as soon as they passed the river at the centre of the board. In addition, the king was given the extraordinary power of striking across the board like a rook against the opposing king, making it easier to checkmate with just a few pieces left on the board.

An important part of the game’s history is the development of the problem. Unlike Western chess problems of the "black to move and mate in three" variety, xiangqi problems (perhaps more accurately called studies) usually offer one side an easy forced win, given the first move, but can also be won by the other side if the advantage is reversed. Charles Kliene has documented one such ending, and gives a colourful description of the hustlers (baiqishidi, which translates as something like "powers of chess layout") who would set up such jeux partis at the side of the road and challenge all comers. Evidently this custom is still alive today.

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Basic Rules

Player take alternate turns. In each turn, a player must make a single move with a single piece. If a piece ends its move on a point occupied by an enemy piece, that piece is captured and permanently removed from play.

The object of the game is to capture the enemy general. The game is won as soon as one player can make no move that prevents capture of his general. This is checkmate. Stalemate, where one player has no legal move but is not in check, is a win for the last player to move.

It is illegal to make any move that exposes your general to immediate capture. This is called moving into check.

It is illegal to avoid defeat or attempt to force a draw by repeating the same series of moves over and over. In particular, perpetual check is not allowed, and the onus is on the attacker to vary his move.

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The Board

As can be seen from the diagram, the board is very different from the one used for Western chess. The pieces are played on the lines, not on the squares; the playing field is therefore a grid of nine files (numbered here for traditional game notation) and ten ranks, making it 40 percent larger than the Western chessboard.

The board

The markings on the board have the following significance:

  1. The blank strip dividing the two sides is the river. This is important for two pieces: the elephant, which can advance only as far as the near bank, and the soldier, which achieves greater power of movement (promotion) as soon as it reaches the far bank. The river is usually decorated with a calligraphic inscription such as "River Boundary" hejie, or sometimes a more elaborate motto.
  2. The nine points marked by an X on each side constitute the castle or palace. The general and his two mandarins cannot leave this area.
  3. The small markings on the third and fourth ranks on each side are simply an aid to the initial placement of the soldiers and the cannons. All other pieces are placed on the first rank.

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The Pieces

The pieces are small discs of wood, plastic, or some other material. Pieces are identified by Chinese ideograms in the team colours, typically black (sometimes another dark colour) and red. The names of some of the pieces differ on the two sides. The character on the red elephant, for example, actually means minister or augur. However, discussions of the game in English invariably assign the same names to the pieces on both sides.

There is also some variation in the form of the characters, especially in older sets.

Although the pieces are often referred to by the names of their Western equivalents, I believe this practice dishonours the distinct tradition of the Chinese game, and I prefer to use translations of the Chinese names. I have, however, retained the standard abbreviations of the pieces for notation.

ImageNameNo. on each sideAbbreviation
GeneralGeneralGeneral (King)1K
MandarinMandarinMandarin (Assistant)2A
ElephantElephantElephant2E
HorseHorseHorse2H
ChariotChariotChariot (Rook)2R
CannonCannonCannon2C
SoldierSoldierSoldier (Pawn)5P

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Moves of the Pieces

In all cases except that of the cannon, pieces move when capturing just as they do when not capturing.

General. One point in any non-diagonal direction. Cannot move outside the castle. In addition, the general has the theoretical power of moving like a rook along a file from his own castle to the enemy castle, to capture the opposing general. Therefore it is illegal to make any move that leaves your own general on an open file opposite the opposing general, because to do so would be to move into check.

Mandarin. One point in any diagonal direction. Cannot move outside the castle.

Elephant. Two points in any diagonal direction. It must move two points, and cannot leap another piece of either colour. Cannot cross the river. An elephant can thus reach only seven points on the board.

Horse. One point in any non-diagonal direction, followed by one point in a diagonal direction, so that it ends two points away from where it started. This is similar to the knight’s move in Western chess, except that the move is blocked by any piece occupying the point at the "elbow" of the move. Hence it is important to remember that the non-diagonal part of the move comes first.

Chariot. Any number of points in any non-diagonal direction. Cannot leap. This is just like the rook’s move in Western chess.

Cannon. When not capturing, moves just like the chariot. When capturing, must leap a single piece of either colour before proceeding to the point occupied by the target piece. This intervening piece is called a screen.

Soldier. One point straight forward. After it reaches the opposite river bank, can move one point forward or directly sideways. Never moves diagonally or backward. No further promotion is gained when a soldier reaches the farthest rank of the board.

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Setup and Sample Game

The pieces are set up as shown in the following diagram. Red moves first. (Some older books have black moving first; see note).

Using the viewer applet you can also see the moves of a sample game, from a collection published in Shanghai in 1958. This game is by no means typical in its brilliancy, but it does show the fast-moving, tactical nature of Chinese chess.

Note: If you do not see the viewer applet, you may be running a recent version of Windows that does not include the Java Runtime Engine. You can install it here. (Install v. 6 for Windows Vista.)

Click here for a popup reminder of the pieces and how they move.

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Game Notation

Two systems of notation are commonly used.

In the traditional system, the files are numbered 1-9 from right to left for each player separately. As you look at the diagrams, red’s 9 file and black’s 1 file are at your left. The ranks are not numbered. Moves are indicated in the following syntax.

(1) Name of piece; (2) Original file; (3) Direction ("advances" jin, "retreats" tui, or "traverses" ping); (4) Destination file or Distance

When two pieces of the same kind occupy a file, the number of the original file is replaced by the word "front" qian or "rear" hou, depending on the relative position of the moving piece to the player who owns it. (There are ways of dealing with more than two soldiers on a file, but this is such a rare situation that I won't go into them here.)

The final element is always the destination file for the mandarin, elephant, or horse, and for other pieces when they are "traversing", i.e. moving laterally. Otherwise it is the number of points directly forward or backward that the piece moves.

Some examples:

In the shorthand or international form of this notation, the above moves would appear as follows:

For more examples, see the notation of the sample game above on this page.

The following scan shows the beginning of a game, from a collection published in mainland China in 1958. Black is at the bottom of the diagram and moves first. Black's moves are given entirely in Chinese numerals, while Arabic numerals are used for red. (This distinction is more useful in the traditional top-to-bottom, right-to-left system of writing, where the moves of the two players are not in separate columns.) Note the character for "rear" identifying the cannon in black's ninth move. The annotations are in numbered footnotes, and the character for "diagram" appears at the end of the tenth move.

Chinese notation

The second system of notation identifies the points of board by file and rank, A being the leftmost file, and 0 being the rank at the bottom of the diagram. Moves are indicated by start and end points.

In my own book, I numbered the files in tens and the ranks in units, so that points were numbered from 10 to 99. However, I’m now convinced that the traditional notation is the easiest to follow.

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Games and Classic Endings

The following five annotated games are from my book, translated into the standard notation. (Game 6 is the sample game above on this page.) I’m also publishing some endgames, including a selection from Charles Kliene’s 1916 classic Seven Stars: A Chinese Chess Ending with Three Hundred Variations.

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Other Resources

Boards and pieces can be bought cheaply in general stores catering to the Chinese community. The pieces generally come in a small box with a folded playing mat of paper or plastic film.

Several Chinese chess programs for the PC have appeared in the last decade or so. The most easily obtainable is probably the one in Microsoft’s Classic Board Games collection. At hard level, this plays a competent game, but the openings are not based on a library and are therefore repetitious. A better opponent -- indeed, the 2004 computer xiangqi champion -- is XieXie.

Yutopian.com sells other Chinese chess software, most of it with a Chinese interface, as well as dedicated chess computers and books. Their site also has a lot of information, including some classic endings in PDF format. (To read the diagrams, you have to download a special font.)

Other sites devoted to the game are appearing (and disappearing) regularly. I will mention only the World Xiangqi Federation site, on which you can find the full text, in English, of several books on tactics, as well as other resources. Several sites offer online play, including ChessHub.


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