Xiangqi Pieces Explained: What Every Piece Does

The seven piece types, at a glance

Xiangqi has seven kinds of pieces, split sixteen-a-side. Each type moves in a completely different way, which is most of what makes the game click once you know them. Here's the full roster before we go piece by piece.

That's sixteen pieces a side, and Red moves first. The "value" column is a rough guide — sources differ, and a piece is worth more or less depending on the position it's sitting in. Treat it as a starting point, not a rulebook.

The defenders: general, advisors, and elephants

These three pieces mostly stay home and protect the king-equivalent. None of them can cross the river, so you won't see them charging into enemy territory.

The general moves one point at a time, straight up, down, left, or right — and it can never step outside the palace, the 3-by-3 box with the diagonal lines drawn through it, in the middle of each side's back edge. That sounds weak, but there's a twist: the two generals may never end up facing each other on the same file with nothing between them. A move that creates this is simply illegal. In practice, if only one piece stands between the two generals on a file, that piece is pinned: moving it off the file would leave the generals facing each other. We go deeper on this in why the general stays in the palace.

The advisor moves one point diagonally, and only along the two diagonal lines drawn inside the palace. That limits it to five possible points for its entire life. It exists to guard the general at close range and to block checks.

The elephant moves exactly two points diagonally — never one, never three — and can't cross the river. That gives it seven reachable points on its own side of the board. If the point directly between its start and end point is occupied, the elephant can't make that move — players call this "blocking the elephant's eye" (cản mắt tượng). Since it can't leave home territory, its real job is defense — parking on key points to stop enemy chariots and cannons breaking through to the general.

Tip: don't shuffle your advisors and elephants around without a reason. Every one of their moves is slow and mostly defensive, so save them for when you need to block something or protect a weak point.

The chariot and cannon: your long-range attackers

The chariot moves any distance in a straight line, exactly like a rook in international chess, and can be blocked by any piece in its path. Nothing else on the board covers that much ground with a single move, which is why it's usually rated the strongest piece by a clear margin. A common piece of opening advice is to get your chariots into play early — they do more work than any other piece once the position opens up.

The cannon slides like a chariot when just moving, but capturing works differently. To capture, it must jump over exactly one piece — of either colour — landing on the first enemy piece past it. That "screen" is essential: with no piece to jump, or two or more in the way, it can't capture on that line. This makes the cannon deadly in a crowded middlegame, and weaker once the board thins out. For the full picture, including common cannon tricks, see our cannon deep dive.

The horse: powerful, but easy to trip up

The horse lands on the same points as a knight in international chess — one point orthogonally, then one point diagonally outward. The difference is how it gets there. A xiangqi horse doesn't jump: if the point next to it, in the direction it's about to step, is occupied by any piece, that direction is blocked. Players call this "hobbling the horse's leg" (cản chân mã). It's the biggest thing that trips up players coming from international chess, where the knight hops over everything.

That blocking rule creates a neat asymmetry — a horse can sometimes attack a piece that has no way to attack it back, because the attacker's leg is clear while the defender's is not. Horses tend to shine most in the endgame, when the board has emptied out and there are fewer pieces around to block their legs. For a full side-by-side comparison with the chess knight, read xiangqi horse vs chess knight.

Tip: before you commit a horse to an attack, check whether its own leg is blocked by one of your other pieces. It's an easy thing to forget mid-game.

The soldiers: five quiet foot pieces

Each side starts with five soldiers, and they're the simplest piece to learn. Before crossing the river, a soldier can only move one point straight ahead — never sideways, never backward. Once it crosses the river into enemy territory, it gains the ability to move one point sideways as well, though it still can never retreat. There's no promotion in xiangqi: a soldier that reaches the far rank just sits there, only able to shuffle sideways.

A soldier is worth very little before it crosses the river, but its value roughly doubles once it does, since it can now support other pieces from the side as well as the front. Push your soldiers with a purpose — to open a file for your chariot, or to support an attack — rather than just because you can.

Why red and black use different characters

If you've looked closely at the table above, you'll notice Red and Black don't write the same piece the same way. Red's general is 帥 (closer to "marshal"), Black's is 將 ("general"); Red's elephant is 相, Black's is 象; and so on down the list. This is tradition, not a rule difference — the two sides have traditionally used slightly different names for the same roles, partly so they're easy to tell apart at a glance. Some sets simplify this and use one shared character for both sides on the horse and chariot, so don't be surprised if a board you see online looks slightly different.

Either way, every piece still moves exactly the same regardless of which character is carved into it. If you'd rather skip the characters altogether, Fun Xiangqi lets you switch every piece to show a simple symbol instead of its Chinese character, any time mid-game — so you can start playing today without learning to read Chinese first.

Quick questions

Which piece is the most valuable? The chariot, by a clear margin. It moves any distance in a straight line and nothing blocks it except an actual piece in its path.

Why does the general have two different characters for Red and Black? It's tradition, not a rule — Red and Black traditionally use slightly different titles for the same pieces.

Can a cannon capture without jumping over anything? No. A cannon must jump exactly one piece, from either side, to make a capture. With no piece to jump, or with two or more in the way, it can't capture on that line.

Do soldiers ever move sideways before crossing the river? No. A soldier only steps straight forward until it crosses the river — sideways movement only opens up afterward, and it can never move backward at all.

Curious how all seven pieces play out together on a real board? Try Fun Xiangqi for free — every piece can show a symbol instead of a character, so you can jump straight into a game without reading a word of Chinese.