River & Palace • Piece Moves • Flying General Rule • 60 Deep Research Topics
The Xiangqi board consists of 9 vertical files and 10 horizontal ranks (90 point intersections total), separated by the Chu River (楚河 漢界)!
Strongest attacking piece on the board. Controls entire open files and ranks.
Long-range attacker. Needs a screen to capture; highly effective in early & mid game.
L-shaped mover. Prone to Horse Leg blocking in crowded midgames; dominates endgames.
Home territory defensive shield. Cannot cross the Chu River.
Palace bodyguard. Protects the General from direct Chariot and Cannon checks.
Moves 1 step forward. After crossing the River, gains sideways (left/right) mobility!
Click on any piece below to inspect its legal moves, movement restrictions, and capture mechanics!
Moves 1 step orthogonally inside the 3x3 Palace. Cannot leave the Palace!
The two Generals can NEVER face each other directly in the same vertical file without any intervening pieces! Moving into direct line of sight is illegal.
In Xiangqi design, Elephants represent home defensive commanders. Their 2x2 diagonal movement pattern is mathematically constrained to the 7 home points on their side of the Chu River to serve as the primary defensive shield for the Palace.
A Horse moves 1 step orthogonally then 1 step diagonally (L-shape). If any piece (friendly or enemy) occupies the point directly adjacent to the Horse in the orthogonal direction of travel, that 'Horse Leg' is blocked and the Horse cannot leap in that direction!
The two Generals can NEVER face each other directly along the same file without at least one intervening piece. Moving a piece out of the file to reveal direct line-of-sight between Generals is an ILLEGAL move.
Perpetually checking an enemy General for more than 3 consecutive turns is STRICTLY FORBIDDEN. The checking player must change their move or lose the game by forfeiture!
Perpetually attacking/chasing an unprotected enemy piece (except Generals or Soldiers) for more than 3 turns is forbidden. The attacker must break the chase.
In Western Chess, stalemating your opponent results in a Draw. In Xiangqi, if a player has no legal moves on their turn, they are **Stalemated (困斃)** and IMMEDIATELY LOSE THE GAME!
**Pikafish** is a state-of-the-art open-source Xiangqi engine based on Stockfish, utilizing Efficiently Updatable Neural Networks (NNUE) to achieve ELO ratings over 3800, easily defeating human Grandmasters!
Endgame Tablebases pre-calculate all possible positions containing 7 or fewer total pieces on the board, providing 100% mathematical win/draw solution paths for endgames like Single Chariot vs Dual Advisors & Single Elephant.
Moving the right Cannon to the central 5th file on move 1. An aggressive opening that puts immediate pressure on the Black central pawn file.
Developing both Horses to the 3rd and 7th files to form a tight defensive shield protecting the central pawn against Central Cannon attacks.
A classic dual-piece checkmate combination where a Cannon uses a friendly Horse as a screen to deliver an inescapable checkmate against the enemy General!
Using a Chariot backed by a central Cannon to pin the enemy General inside the Palace while an attacking piece delivers the finishing blow.
Lining up both Cannons on the same file, using the front Cannon as the screen for the back Cannon to deliver checkmate.
Coordinating both Chariots along adjacent files or ranks to alternative-check the enemy General until checkmate is reached!