Xiangqi is an archaic Chinese chess variant, with a totally different character than western Chess. Its most outstanding feature is the division of the battlefield in two camps, separated by a 'river'. In the camps, the generals occupy 3x3 headquarters they may not leave, assisted by two 'mandarins', who share five of the headquarters' nine cells. Another piece, the 'elephant', is restricted to a mere seven cells of its own camp.

Seasoned players are of course totally familiar with the Chinese symbols for distinguishing pieces, but beginning players may profit from the westernized symbols used in the app below.

Play XiangQi interactively or against an AI

no Sound  -  Flip board Broken canvas... to move             Tao HanMing - Zhao GuoRong 2007 (annotated by CM Ge Weipu)

We're not re-inventing the wheel here, so instead of repeating the rules here , we'll provide the links to some excellent Xiangqi sites, where just about everyting about the game can be found. External links