How to play Chinese Chess

Set up. Each player has a general, two advisors, two elephants, two horses, two chariots, two cannons and five soldiers. The pieces stand on the points where the lines cross, not inside the squares.
Red moves first. One side is called red and the other black, and red makes the first move. Here, whoever goes first in a round plays red; in the next round the other player does.
Take turns moving one piece. Every piece moves in its own way (see the table below).
Capture by moving onto a point held by a rival piece, which leaves the board. Cannons are different: they capture by jumping over one piece.
Check: when a move attacks the other general, that player must get the general out of danger straight away.
Win by checkmate, when the other general is attacked and can't be saved. In Chinese chess you also win if your rival has no legal move at all.

How the pieces move

Piece	Red	Black	Moves
General	帥	將	One point straight up, down or sideways. It never leaves the palace.
Advisor	仕	士	One point diagonally. It never leaves the palace either, so it only ever stands on five points.
Elephant	相	象	Exactly two points diagonally. It can't cross the river, and it is blocked if a piece stands on the point in between.
Horse	傌	馬	One point straight, then one point diagonally outwards. It is blocked if a piece stands on the first point.
Chariot	俥	車	Any number of points straight up, down or sideways, like a rook in chess.
Cannon	炮	砲	Moves like a chariot, but captures only by jumping over exactly one piece.
Soldier	兵	卒	One point forwards. Once across the river it may also step one point sideways. It never moves backwards.

The two sides' pieces have different characters but move in exactly the same way. Some sets use simpler characters, such as 帅, 将, 马 and 车, or one character for both sides. Choose Pictures before you start if you'd rather see a crown, a fan, an elephant, a horse, a wheel, a cannon and a helmet.

The river, the palaces and the generals

The river runs across the middle of the board. Only two kinds of piece notice it: elephants can never cross it, and soldiers gain their sideways step once they reach the far bank. Everything else crosses as if it weren't there.

The palaces are the three-by-three boxes with the crossed lines, one at each end. The general and the two advisors must stay inside their own palace for the whole game, which makes guarding the general a team job.

The generals may never face each other. If both generals stand on the same file with no piece between them, that's not allowed: you can't make a move that leaves them facing, just as you can't leave your general in check. This "flying general" rule means a general controls its whole file, and it often helps trap the other general.

Blocked horses and elephants. A horse moves one point straight and then one diagonally, and a piece of either colour on that first point stops it going that way. Players call this hobbling the horse's leg. An elephant is stopped the same way by a piece on the point between its start and its landing point, which is called blocking the elephant's eye.

The cannon's jump. To capture, a cannon needs exactly one piece of either colour, called the screen, between it and its target, along a straight line. Any number of empty points may lie before and after the screen. Without a capture, a cannon moves just like a chariot and can't jump at all.

How a game ends

Checkmate wins.
No legal move: a player who can't move at all, even without being in check, loses. Unlike in chess, this is a win for the other side, not a draw.
Perpetual check loses. If the same position (the same pieces on the same points, with the same player to move) comes up for the third time, and one player gave check with every move along the way, that player loses.
Repetition: otherwise, the third time the same position comes up, the game is a draw.
No captures: if 60 moves each go by without a capture, the game is a draw.
No attackers: if neither side has a chariot, horse, cannon or soldier left, neither general can ever be attacked, so the game is a draw.

Tournament rules go further: they also forbid endlessly chasing an unprotected piece, and set out in detail what counts as perpetual. To keep things simple, this game only judges checks.

Controls

Move: tap one of your pieces to see where it can go, then tap a point. A dot marks an empty point, a ring a piece you can capture.
Pieces: choose Characters for the traditional pieces or Pictures for drawings before you start.
Keyboard: Tab moves between the points you can use, Enter picks one and Esc cancels.

Orange always sits at the bottom of the board. The player who goes first in a round plays red and moves first. The pieces each player has captured wait in their tray, next to their face. With two players on a phone, the top player's pieces and tray face them across the table.

Computer levels

The computer plays by the same rules and only sees the board, as you do. It judges a position by the pieces each side has, where they stand (soldiers across the river, horses and cannons near the middle), how freely its chariots, horses and cannons can move, and how well each general is guarded by its advisors and elephants.

Level	How it plays
Easy	Looks one move ahead and follows captures through, with plenty of randomness. Now and then it plays a random move.
Medium	Looks two moves ahead, its move and your reply, with a little randomness, and very rarely a random move.
Hard	Looks four moves ahead, following every capture until the position is quiet.
Expert	Looks further ahead, a move deeper at a time, for about two and a half seconds a move.

Tips to win

Bring out your chariots. They are the strongest pieces on the board, but they start in the corners. Open a path for them early.
Try the central cannon. Moving a cannon to the middle file on your first move is the most common opening. It aims straight at the other general, with the middle soldier as a screen.
Free your horses. A horse with a piece on its leg can't go that way. Move the blocking piece, or move the horse somewhere it has room.
Keep your guards. Advisors and elephants can't attack, but they shield the general from horses, chariots and cannons. Trading them away carelessly leaves your palace open.
Mind the screens. Before you move a piece onto a cannon's line, check whether it would give the cannon something to jump over.
Use your general. Thanks to the flying-general rule, your general stops the other general from stepping onto its file. That often helps you finish a checkmate.
Cross the river with soldiers. On the far side they can step sideways too, and two soldiers side by side near the palace are hard to stop.

About Chinese Chess

Xiangqi (象棋) is a strategy game for two players that comes from China and is widely played in China and Vietnam, where it is called cờ tướng. It belongs to the same family as Western chess, shogi and the Korean game janggi, and most historians think that, like chess, it grew out of the old Indian game chaturanga. The earliest known description of its rules is in a story from the Tang dynasty, and by the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279) it was played much as it is today.

The name is usually translated as "elephant chess", although the character 象 can also mean ivory or a figure. The words in the river, 楚河 and 漢界, mean "River of the Chu" and "Border of the Han", a reference to the Chu–Han War, fought more than 2,000 years ago. The rules here are the standard ones, with the simpler repetition rules described above.

Questions

Is Chinese chess the same as chess?

They're cousins. Both are about trapping the king, called the general in Chinese chess, and the chariot moves like a rook. But Chinese chess has a river, palaces, cannons that capture by jumping, horses and elephants that can be blocked, and no queen. The pieces stand on the points, not in the squares, and a player with no legal move loses.

Why are the pieces orange and purple instead of red and black?

Orange and purple are the players' colours all over this site. The side that moves first still carries the red side's characters (帥, 仕, 相, 傌, 俥, 炮, 兵) and the other side the black side's (將, 士, 象, 馬, 車, 砲, 卒), so the pieces read just as they do on a traditional set.

Which pieces can cross the river?

All of them except the elephants, the advisors and the general. Advisors and the general stay inside their palace, and elephants stay on their own side of the river.

Why can't my general move there?

Either the point is outside the palace, the general would be in check there, or it would end up facing the other general on an open file. All three are against the rules, so the game only offers the points it can really go to.

Do I have to read Chinese characters to play?

No. Choose Pictures before you start and every piece shows a drawing instead. The table above gives the characters too, so you can learn them as you go.

Who moves first?

Red moves first, as in most tournaments today. Here, the player who goes first in a round plays red, and that switches every round.

Is Chinese Chess free?

Yes. It's free in your browser, with no download, no sign-up and no ads during a game.

Updated 10 November 2026