Skills and tactics
Endgame basics
Xiangqi endings are sharper than their chess cousins - the general fights, soldiers never promote but never need to, and the defensive pieces can build genuine fortresses. Four fundamentals cover the vast majority of practical endings: how a single soldier wins, why the cannon needs a platform, what the chariot conversion looks like, and which material combinations simply cannot win at all. Learn these before any middlegame course; knowing where the game is going is what the middlegame decisions are for.
The lone soldier win
A single crossed soldier with the general’s support beats a bare general - but only with the technique the diagram begins: the attacking general takes the centre file first (the white-face pattern from the checkmate guide), forbidding the defender the file, and only then does the soldier walk in, herding the enemy general into the covered half of the palace. Soldier first, general second is a draw; general first is the win. A soldier still on its own side of the river, for the record, wins nothing at all - it can never reach the palace.
Against a defender who still owns an advisor, one soldier draws and two win; against the full advisor-elephant shell you need three, or heavier metal. These counts are the endgame’s multiplication table - memorise them and half your simplification decisions make themselves.
Cannon endings need a platform
A cannon with only its own general for company cannot mate a defended king - it has nothing to screen with. The standard winning setup is cannon plus one advisor: the advisor steps out as a portable screen (the "cannon carries the advisor" technique), letting the cannon check from behind its own furniture. Against a bare general the cannon-advisor pair wins cleanly; each defensive piece the opponent keeps adds a layer of technique, and cannon against the full shell is a book draw.
The deeper habit: in cannon endings, count screens before counting material. A cannon "up a piece" with no platforms is frequently just a draw, and knowing that changes which trades you allow three moves earlier.
The chariot conversion
Chariot against advisors-and-elephants is the workhorse win of practical play, and it is a procedure, not an adventure: centralise your general (the file pressure again), fix the defensive pieces with threats they must answer, and dismantle the shell one guarded point at a time - the chariot wins every one-on-one it can force. Chariot against chariot-and-shell, by contrast, is a fortress draw unless soldiers create a second front, which is why the earlier soldier counts govern even the heavy endings.
The scooping-the-moon pattern from the checkmate guide is this section’s capstone: chariot and cannon versus chariot-and-shell converts by force. Recognising two moves earlier that your middlegame is heading into a known-won ending - or a known-drawn one - is the entire art of simplification.
Fortresses: the draws you must know
Some material simply cannot win: a lone horse against a single advisor, a cannon without platforms, one soldier against advisors when the general-first technique is denied. These fortresses are as much a part of endgame strength as the wins - the defender half a game down who steers into one saves the point, and the attacker who cannot recognise one wastes fifty moves proving it. The repetition rules add the final layer: perpetual check is illegal - the checking side must vary or lose - so a fortress only needs to survive threats, not checks forever.
Practical rule: before trading into any "winning" ending, name the final mating shape you are heading for. If you cannot name one from the checkmate guide, you are possibly trading into somebody’s fortress.
Put it into practice
Reading about an opening is the start; the moves only become yours once your hands have played them. Every system in this library has a playable lesson on Xiangqi Arena where the board accepts only the book move and a master-level reply answers you - plus rated games, puzzles, and an archive of professional games to see how the masters handled what you just learned.