| 1 | p.boxed. |
| 2 | Chinese chess, with different pieces behaving |
| 3 | differently than orthodox chess. |
| 4 | |
| 5 | p. |
| 6 | Pieces stand on intersections rather than squares: this is purely aesthetic, |
| 7 | and doesn't affect movements' descriptions. |
| 8 | |
| 9 | figure |
| 10 | img.img-center(src="/variants/Xiangqi/Boards.png") |
| 11 | figcaption |
| 12 | | Xiangqi boards borrowed from |
| 13 | a(href="https://www.pychess.org/variant/xiangqi") pychess-variants |
| 14 | | . Chinese pieces on the right, international ones on the left. |
| 15 | |
| 16 | p. |
| 17 | The central area between rows 5 and 6 is called the "river". |
| 18 | It affects some pieces behavior. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | p. |
| 21 | Only the rooks behave exactly as in standard chess. |
| 22 | All other pieces are quite different: |
| 23 | ul |
| 24 | li. |
| 25 | The King moves orthogonaly by one square, and cannot leave the "palace" |
| 26 | consisting of the nine intersections of the grey rectangles |
| 27 | on the diagram above. |
| 28 | li. |
| 29 | The pieces surrounding the king are Advisors: they move by one square |
| 30 | at a time, diagonally only. They are also restricted to the palace. |
| 31 | li. |
| 32 | The pawns ("Soldiers") move - and capture - by going up one intersection. |
| 33 | After they reach the second half of the board, they can then also move |
| 34 | (and capture) by one square lateraly. |
| 35 | li. |
| 36 | The Elephant moves by two intersections diagonally. It cannot jump over |
| 37 | obstacles: the midpoint intersection should be vacant. |
| 38 | The elephants cannot cross the river. |
| 39 | li. |
| 40 | The knights ("Horses") also cannot jump over obstacles, although they |
| 41 | appear to move as in orthodox chess. They make an orthogonal step first, |
| 42 | and then a diagonal step so that they are at a regular "knight distance" |
| 43 | from the initial intersection. |
| 44 | However, the square after first step must be empty. |
| 45 | li. |
| 46 | The Cannons move like a rook but capture by jumping first over an |
| 47 | obstacle (friendly or enemy). After such a jump the cannon can only |
| 48 | capture (no normal moves). |
| 49 | |
| 50 | figure.diagram-container |
| 51 | .diagram.diag12 |
| 52 | img(src="/variants/Xiangqi/ElephantDiagram.png") |
| 53 | .diagram.diag22 |
| 54 | img(src="/variants/Xiangqi/HorseDiagram.png") |
| 55 | figcaption |
| 56 | | Elephant and Horse moves illustrated, from |
| 57 | a(href="https://www.pychess.org/variant/xiangqi") pychess-variants |
| 58 | | . |
| 59 | |
| 60 | h3 More information |
| 61 | |
| 62 | p |
| 63 | | Many resources are available online: just search with keywords Xiangqi |
| 64 | | or Chinese chess. You can play it on |
| 65 | a(href="https://www.pychess.org") pychess-variants |
| 66 | | , against humans or a bot (Fairy-Stockfish). |
| 67 | | See also |
| 68 | a(href="https://www.xiangqi.com/") xiangqi.com |
| 69 | | . |