How to Play Xiangqi (Chinese Chess)

Xiangqi — also called Chinese Chess or Cờ Tướng — is a two-player strategy game. Your goal is to checkmate the enemy General. The rules take minutes to learn and a lifetime to master.

The board

Xiangqi is played on a grid 9 lines wide and 10 lines long. Pieces sit on the intersections (the points), not inside the squares — so there are 90 playable points. A blank horizontal band across the middle, the river, divides the two sides. At each player's back edge sits a 3×3 palace, marked with a diagonal cross. The river and the palace are not decoration: the Elephant may never cross the river, the Soldier changes how it moves once it does, and the General and Advisors can never leave the palace.

Setting up

Each side starts with 16 pieces in a mirror-image position. Along the back rank, left to right, stand the Chariot, Horse, Elephant, Advisor, General, Advisor, Elephant, Horse, and Chariot. The two Cannons sit on the rank just in front of the Horses. Five Soldiers line up on alternating points, one rank back from the river. Red traditionally moves first, and players then alternate turns.

How to win

You win by checkmating the enemy General — threatening to capture it with no legal way for your opponent to escape. The General is never actually removed from the board; the game ends the moment checkmate is unavoidable. You also win if your opponent has no legal move at all (see below), resigns, runs out of time, or is forced to break an illegal repetition.

How the pieces move

Every piece moves and captures differently, and several can be blocked by pieces in the way. See the full Piece Guide for each piece's movement, captures, and the horse-leg and elephant-eye blocking rules.

Special rules

A few rules are unique to Xiangqi. The flying general rule forbids the two Generals from facing each other directly along an open file with no piece between them — any move that would create that face-off is illegal. There is no promotion (a Soldier that reaches the far edge keeps its sideways step, but never becomes a stronger piece), no castling, and no en passant. You also may not give endless check (perpetual check) or endlessly harass the same unprotected piece (perpetual chase) to force a repetition — the offending side must vary or be ruled to lose.

How a game ends

Most games end in checkmate. A key difference from Western chess: if the player to move has no legal move but is not in check (stalemate), that player loses — it is not a draw. Draws do happen, but are comparatively rare: by mutual agreement, when a position repeats and neither side is breaking the perpetual-check or perpetual-chase rules, when both sides are committing the same prohibited cycle, or when neither side has enough material to force a win.

Want a twist? Try Cờ Úp

Cờ Úp (hidden Xiangqi) uses the same board and pieces, but almost everything starts face-down — you discover what your own army is only as pieces move and reveal themselves. Learn how to play Cờ Úp →

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