Xiangqi
Xiangqi, commonly known as Chinese chess or elephant chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is the most popular board game in China. Xiangqi is in the same family of games as shogi, janggi, Western chess, chaturanga, and Indian chess. Besides China and areas with significant ethnic Chinese communities, this game is also a popular pastime in Vietnam, where it is known as cờ tướng, literally 'General's chess', in contrast with Western chess or cờ vua, literally 'King's chess'.
The game represents a battle between two armies, with the primary object being to checkmate the enemy's [|general]. Distinctive features of xiangqi include the cannon, which must jump to capture; a rule prohibiting the generals from facing each other directly; areas on the board called the river and palace, which restrict the movement of some pieces but enhance that of others; and the placement of the pieces on the intersections of the board lines, rather than within the squares.
Board
Xiangqi is played on a board nine lines wide and ten lines long. As in the game Go, the pieces are placed on the intersections, which are known as points. The vertical lines are known as files, and the horizontal lines are known as ranks.Centred at the first to third and eighth to tenth ranks of the board are two zones, each three points by three points, demarcated by two diagonal lines connecting opposite corners and intersecting at the centre point. Each of these areas is known as 宮, a palace.
Dividing the two opposing sides, between the fifth and sixth ranks, is 河 hé, the "river". The river is usually marked with the phrases 楚河, meaning "River of the Chu", and 漢界, meaning "Border of the Han", a reference to the Chu–Han War. Although the river provides a visual division between the two sides, only two pieces are affected by its presence: soldiers have an enhanced move after crossing the river, and elephants cannot cross it. The starting points of the soldiers and cannons are usually, but not always, marked with small crosses.
Rules
The pieces start in the position shown in the diagram above. Which player moves first has varied throughout history and from one part of China to another. Different xiangqi books advise either that the black or red side moves first. Some books refer to the two sides as north and south; which direction corresponds to which colour also varies from source to source. Generally, Red moves first in most modern tournaments.Each player in turn moves one piece from the point it occupies, to another point. Pieces are generally not permitted to move through points occupied by other pieces, the exception being the cannon’s capturing move. A piece can be moved onto a point occupied by an enemy piece, in which case the enemy piece is captured and removed from the board. A player cannot capture one of their own pieces. Pieces are never promoted, although the soldier gains the ability to move sideways after it crosses the river. Almost all pieces capture using their normal moves, while the cannon has a special capture move described below.
Image:XiangqiCheckmate.png|thumb|right|An instance of checkmate that assumes the cannon is safe and Black cannot block the check. The horse is not needed for this checkmate.
The game ends when one player checkmates the other's general. When the general is in danger of being captured by the enemy player on their next move, the enemy player has "delivered a check", and the general is "in check". A check should be announced. If the general's player can make no move to prevent the general's capture, the situation is called "checkmate". Unlike in chess, in which stalemate is a draw, in xiangqi, it is a loss for the stalemated player.
In xiangqi, a player—often with a material or positional disadvantage—may attempt to check or chase pieces in a way such that the moves fall in a cycle, preventing the opponent from winning. While this is accepted in Western chess, in xiangqi, the following special rules are used to make it harder to draw the game by endless checking or chasing, regardless of whether the positions of the pieces are repeated or not:
- Perpetual checks with one piece or several pieces are not allowed; doing so results in a loss.
- Perpetual chases of any one unprotected piece with one or more pieces, excluding generals and soldiers, are similarly prohibited.
- If one side perpetually checks and the other side perpetually chases, the checking side has to stop or be ruled to have lost.
- When neither side violates the rules and both persist in not making an alternate move, the game can be ruled as a draw.
- When both sides violate the same rule at the same time and both persist in not making an alternate move, the game can be ruled as a draw.
The above rules to prevent perpetual checking and chasing, while popular, are not the only ones; there are numerous end game situations.
Pieces
Each player controls an army of 16 pieces; the armies are usually coloured red and black. Pieces are flat circular disks labelled or engraved with a Chinese character identifying the piece type, and in a colour indicating which player has ownership. The black pieces are marked with somewhat different characters from the corresponding red pieces.Even in mainland China, most sets still use traditional Chinese characters. Modern pieces are usually plastic, though some sets are wooden, and more expensive sets may use jade. In more ancient times, many sets were simple unpainted woodcarvings; thus, to distinguish between pieces of the two sides, most corresponding pieces used characters that were similar but varied slightly. This practice may have originated in situations where there was only one material available to make the pieces from and no colouring material available to distinguish the opposing armies. The oldest xiangqi piece found to date is a 俥 piece. It is kept in the Three Gorges Museum.
General
Generals are labelled 將 / 将 on the black side and 帥 / 帅 on the red side.The general starts the game at the midpoint of the back edge, within the palace. The general may move and capture one point orthogonally and may not leave the palace, with the following exception.
If the two generals face each other along the same file with no intervening pieces, the 飛將 move may be executed, in which the general to move crosses the board to capture the enemy general. In practice, this rule means that creating this situation in the first place means moving into check, and is therefore not allowed.
The Indian name king for this piece was changed to general because of Chinese naming taboos; China's rulers objected to their royal titles being given to game pieces. Despite this, the general is sometimes called the "king" by English-speaking players, due to their similar functions as royal pieces.
Advisor
Advisors are labelled 士 for Black and 仕 for Red. Rarely, sets use the character 士 for both colours.The advisors start on either side of the general. They move and capture one point diagonally and may not leave the palace, which confines them to five points on the board. The advisor is probably derived from the mantri in chaturanga, like the queen in Western chess.
There is some controversy about whether "士" really is intended to mean "scholar", "gentleman" which would be "士人", or "guard", "guardian" which would be "衛士". One argument for the latter is that their functionality seems to be to guard/protect the general. The common Western translation "advisor" does not reflect this layer of meaning.
Elephant
Elephants are labeled 象 xiàng for Black and 相 xiàng for Red. They are located next to the advisors. These pieces move and capture exactly two points diagonally and may not jump over intervening pieces; the move is described as being like the character 田 Tián, in reference to the board's squares. Blocking an elephant with a diagonally adjacent piece is known as "blocking the elephant's eye".Elephants may not cross the river to attack the enemy general, and serve as defensive pieces. Because an elephant's movement is restricted to just seven board positions, it can be easily trapped or threatened. The two elephants are often used to defend each other.
The Chinese characters for "minister" and "elephant" are homophones in Mandarin and both have alternative meanings as "appearance" or "image". However, in English, both are referred to as elephants, and less commonly as "bishops", due to their similar movements.
Horse
Horses are labelled 馬 for Black and 傌 mǎ for Red in sets marked with Traditional Chinese characters and 马 mǎ for both Black and Red in sets marked with Simplified Chinese characters. Some sets use 馬 for both colours. Horses begin the game next to the elephants, on their outside flanks. A horse moves and captures one point orthogonally and then one point diagonally away from its former position, a move which is traditionally described as being like the character 日 Rì. The horse does not jump as the knight does in Western chess, and can be blocked by a piece of either colour located one point horizontally or vertically adjacent to it. Blocking a horse is called "hobbling the horse's leg". The diagram on the right illustrates the horse's movement.Since horses can be blocked, and the path of a horse from one point to another is not the same as the reverse move, it is possible for one player's horse to have an asymmetric attack advantage if an opponent's horse is blocked, as seen in the diagram on the right.
The horse is sometimes called the "knight" by English-speaking players, due to their similar movements.