Game rules
1. General concepts
- The game is played between two sides: the South side (Red) and the North side (Black).
- The South side always plays the first move.
- The sides then take turns, one move each.
- A move consists of moving a single piece of one's own side, according to the rules described below.
- A captured piece is permanently removed from the board: it can never return (there are no drops, and there is no castling).
- The goal of the game is to checkmate the enemy general (see the Check section).
1.1 Definition of a legal move
A legal move is a move that respects: (1) the movement and capture rules of the piece played, (2) the promotion rules, and (3) the prohibition against leaving one's own general in check.
An illegal move is never a cause of defeat: it is simply rejected, and the player must play a different move.
2. Board and starting position
2.1 Board
- Xiongqi is played on a board of 8 columns by 8 rows (8×8).
- From the South side's point of view, the columns are named from left to right: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h.
- From the South side's point of view, the rows are numbered from bottom to top: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
- The South side occupies rows 1 and 2, the North side rows 7 and 8.
- The
river
is located between rows 4 and 5. It only affects soldiers: no other piece is hindered or advantaged by crossing it.
2.2 Pieces
At the start of the game, each side has 16 pieces:
- 1 general
- 1 empress
- 2 chariots
- 2 bears
- 2 knights
- 8 soldiers
The army maps one-to-one onto the army of Western chess: the chariot plays the role of the rook, the bear that of the bishop, the empress replaces the queen (with a different movement) and the general replaces the king. There is no queen in Xiongqi.
2.3 Starting position
The starting position is structurally identical for both sides, arranged as a mirror image.
2.3.1 South side
- Row 1 (a1 to h1): chariot, knight, bear, empress, general, bear, knight, chariot.
- Row 2: a soldier on each square (a2 to h2).
2.3.2 North side
- Row 8 (a8 to h8): chariot, knight, bear, empress, general, bear, knight, chariot.
- Row 7: a soldier on each square (a7 to h7).
Rows 3 to 6 are empty. The empress occupies the d-column and the general the e-column: as in Western chess, the position is therefore symmetric neither under a left-right reflection nor under a 180° rotation.
2.4 Piece designation conventions
By convention, each piece type is associated with a character and a distinct Latin abbreviation depending on the side (uppercase for South, lowercase for North). These conventions are useful in notation and implementation, but do not modify the rules.
| Piece type | South side | North side | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Character | Abbr. | Character | Abbr. | |
| Bear | 雄 | B |
熊 | b |
| Chariot | 俥 | R |
車 | r |
| Empress | 妃 | E |
騛 | e |
| General | 帥 | G |
將 | g |
| Knight | 傌 | N |
馬 | n |
| Soldier | 兵 | S |
卒 | s |
The general, knight, chariot and soldier use the traditional Xiangqi character pairs
(帥/將, 傌/馬, 俥/車, 兵/卒); the bear and the empress use homophonic pairs specific to Xiongqi
(雄/熊, both xióng; 妃/騛, both fēi).
The name of the game, 熊棋 (bear chess
), is written with the North side's bear character, 熊.
3. Movement, capture and pieces
3.1 General principles
- On their turn, a side moves exactly one piece of their own side.
- A move takes a piece from a starting square to a destination square.
- The destination square must be either empty or occupied by an enemy piece.
- A piece can never move to a square occupied by a piece of its own side.
-
If the destination square is occupied by an enemy piece, that piece is captured:
it is removed from the board and the moving piece takes its place.
(The only exception is the
en passant
capture, described below, where the captured piece stands just behind the destination square.) - Unless otherwise stated in a piece's description, a piece cannot jump: all squares between the starting square and the destination square must be empty.
3.2 Pieces
The following sections describe, for each piece type, its movement and capture rules. Unless explicitly stated, a piece captures by moving according to its normal rules onto a square occupied by an enemy piece.
3.2.1 General
The general is the royal piece: it is the piece one checkmates.
- Movement without capture
-
- The general moves one square, horizontally or vertically, onto an empty square.
- It can move to any square on the board.
- Capture
-
- The general captures like a chariot: along its row or column, at any distance.
- It cannot jump: it stops at the first piece encountered, and captures it only if it is an enemy piece.
The general has no diagonal action whatsoever, neither in movement nor in capture.
Its long-range capture gives rise to the flying general
threat,
described in the Check and the flying general section.
3.2.2 Empress
The empress is the most powerful piece in the game. It combines the powers of a chariot and a knight, and captures the same way it moves.
- Chariot component
-
- Horizontal or vertical movement, any number of squares.
- No jumping: all intermediate squares must be empty.
- Knight component
-
- Movement in an
L
shape: two squares in one orthogonal direction, then one square perpendicular to it, in all 8 possible directions. - This component allows jumping over other pieces.
- Movement in an
The empress has no diagonal movement: that is the bear's domain.
3.2.3 Chariot
- The chariot moves horizontally or vertically, any number of squares.
- It cannot jump: all intermediate squares must be empty.
- Its movement is identical to that of the rook in Western chess.
3.2.4 Bear
- The bear moves any number of squares diagonally.
- It cannot jump: all intermediate squares must be empty.
- Its movement is identical to that of the bishop in Western chess.
3.2.5 Knight
-
The knight moves in an
L
shape: two squares in one orthogonal direction (up, down, left or right), then one square perpendicular to it. - It has all 8
L
directions available, i.e. up to 8 destinations from any square. - The knight jumps over other pieces: no intermediate square can block it.
-
Its movement is identical to that of the knight in Western chess:
unlike the horse in Xiangqi, it cannot be
hobbled
.
3.2.6 Soldier
A soldier moves and captures straight forward, and gains a sideways step after crossing the river. It never moves or captures diagonally or backward.
The soldiers of each side advance in opposite directions:
- South side soldiers advance toward the North (increasing rows: from 2 toward 8).
- North side soldiers advance toward the South (decreasing rows: from 7 toward 1).
3.2.6.1 Before the river
- A South side soldier is
before the river
as long as it is on rows 1 to 4. - A North side soldier is
before the river
as long as it is on rows 5 to 8. -
Before the river, a soldier:
- moves one square straight forward, onto an empty square;
- captures the same way, one square straight forward;
- can neither move backward, nor sideways, nor act diagonally.
3.2.6.2 Double step
- A soldier that has never been moved (still on its starting row: row 2 for South, row 7 for North) may advance two squares straight forward in a single move.
- Both the intermediate square and the destination square must be empty.
- The double step cannot capture.
- This ability is permanently lost on the soldier's first move, whether it advanced one or two squares.
-
A double step may expose the soldier to an
en passant
capture (see the En passant capture section).
3.2.6.3 After the river
- A South side soldier has crossed the river once it reaches row 5 or beyond.
- A North side soldier has crossed the river once it reaches row 4 or a lower row.
-
After the river, a soldier:
- keeps its one-square straight-forward movement and capture;
- gains a one-square sideways step (left or right, on the same row), to move or to capture;
- still can neither move backward nor act diagonally.
The sideways step stays on the same row: it can therefore never reach the last row. A promotion is always the result of a forward move.
3.2.6.4 En passant capture
When an enemy soldier has just advanced two squares by a double step,
thereby passing
over an intermediate square (the skipped square
),
it may be captured en passant
on the immediately following move, and on that move only.
Because a soldier captures sideways (not diagonally), the en passant capture is a sideways step onto the skipped square:
- The capturing soldier must stand on the skipped square's row, on a column directly adjacent (left or right) to that of the enemy soldier. It has necessarily crossed the river, since the sideways step only exists after the river.
- It steps sideways onto the skipped square, and the enemy soldier is removed from its landing square.
This is the only capture in the game where the captured piece is not on the destination square: it stands on the square directly behind it, from the capturing soldier's point of view.
Example: a North soldier plays the double step f7 → f5 (skipped square: f6). A South soldier standing on e6 or g6 may, on the following move, step sideways onto f6 and capture the North soldier standing on f5. Symmetrically, after the South double step f2 → f4, a North soldier on e3 or g3 may capture on f3.
4. Check and the flying general
4.1 Check
- A general is in check when it is attacked by an enemy piece, that is, when the opponent could capture it on their next move.
- A side whose general is in check must play a move that ends the check: moving the general to a safe square, capturing the checking piece, or interposing a piece on the line of attack.
- Any move that places or leaves one's own general in check is illegal, whether it creates a new check or fails to resolve an existing one.
- Announcing check is not mandatory.
Since self-check is illegal, the general is never actually captured during a regular game: a side in check with no legal move to remedy it is checkmated and loses the game (see the End of game section).
4.2 Flying general
Because the general captures at a distance like a chariot, a general that shares
an open column or row (with no piece between them)
with the enemy general gives it check: this is the so-called flying general
relationship,
inherited from Xiangqi, which is here nothing more than an ordinary long-range threat.
- It is illegal to move one's own general onto an open line facing the enemy general: that would be self-check.
- If a move opens such a line against a side, that side is in check and must respond to it as to any other check.
- A chariot or an empress on an open line facing the enemy general threatens it in exactly the same way.
5. Soldier promotion
- When a soldier ends a forward move on the last row (row 8 for the South side, row 1 for the North side), it is mandatorily promoted.
- The soldier is immediately replaced, on the same square, by a piece of the player's choice among: chariot, knight, bear or empress.
- The soldier may neither remain a soldier nor become a general.
- The choice is free: a player may thus own several pieces of the same type, for example two empresses.
- A piece resulting from a promotion is identical in every respect to a piece of the same type present since the beginning of the game.
In practice, most players choose the empress, the most powerful piece.
6. End of game
A game has exactly one of three results: a win for the South side (1–0), a draw (½–½), or a win for the North side (0–1).
6.1 Checkmate
The side to move immediately loses if its general is in check and no legal move can remedy it. Checkmate is the decisive condition of the game: since self-check is illegal, the general is never actually captured.
6.2 Stalemate
The game is a draw if the side to move has no legal move available while its general is not in check. This rule follows Western chess and differs from Xiangqi, where the stalemated side loses.
6.3 Draw by threefold repetition
If one and the same position occurs three times during the game — not necessarily on consecutive moves — the game is a draw.
Two positions are considered identical if and only if:
- every square holds the same piece, with the same rights (double-step ability, possibility of an en passant capture);
- the pieces captured on either side are the same;
- the same side has the move.
Repetitions remain permitted: only the third occurrence of one and the same position ends the game.
The draw by perpetual
therefore remains a defensive resource, as in Western chess —
and unlike Xiangqi, where perpetual check loses.
6.4 Draw by dead position
The game is immediately a draw if it becomes impossible, for either side, to checkmate the enemy general by any sequence of legal moves.
The simplest material case is general versus general
, alone on the board:
no checkmate can then be achieved.
Conversely, almost any additional material is enough to make a checkmate possible,
because the general captures at a distance: general and bear, or general and knight,
can checkmate, and a single soldier can be promoted to an empress.
6.5 Draw by the 50-move rule
The game is automatically a draw if 50 moves by each side (i.e. 100 half-moves) are played without any capture and without any soldier move (pieces resulting from a promotion are no longer soldiers: their moves do not reset this counter).
6.6 Resignation and mutual agreement
- A player may resign at any time: their opponent immediately wins.
- The players may agree to a draw at any time: the game ends immediately (½–½).
The management of thinking time (clocks, losses on time) is a matter of game organization and not of the present rules.