Reference

Xiangqi glossary

The terms this library uses, with the hanzi you will meet on boards, in books, and across Xiangqi Arena. Entries are alphabetical by the English term; the characters shown are the traditional playing forms.

By the Xiangqi Arena editorial team · Updated September 6, 2026

Advisor (shi)仕 / 士: The palace guard. Moves one point diagonally, never leaves the palace. Red’s are written 仕, black’s 士. Two per side; the general’s innermost shield.
Edge cannon (bianpao)边炮: A cannon developed to the a- or i-file. Also the name of the opening system built around it.
Soldier (bing/zu)兵 / 卒: The infantry. Moves one point forward; after crossing the river it may also move one point sideways. It never moves backward and never promotes. Red’s are 兵, black’s 卒.
Cannon (pao)炮 / 砲: The signature xiangqi piece. Moves like a chariot but captures only by jumping over exactly one intervening piece - the screen.
Central cannon (zhongpao)中炮: A cannon placed on the centre file, aiming at the enemy centre soldier and general; the most common opening move in xiangqi.
Chariot (ju)車 / 俥: The strongest piece: moves any distance along open files and ranks, like a chess rook. Worth roughly two minor pieces.
Check (jiang)将军: A direct attack on the general. The defender must parry it immediately; perpetual check is illegal - the checking side must vary.
Checkmate (jiangsi)将死: A check that cannot be parried. The game ends at once.
Connected chariots双車联防: Both chariots developed and defending each other along a rank or file - the classical sign that development is complete.
Crossing the river过河: Moving a piece past the central river. Soldiers gain sideways movement when they cross; a crossed soldier roughly doubles in value.
Single horse defence (dantima)单提马: Black’s defence with one horse developed to the edge instead of the classical screen; trades structure for activity.
Double check (shuangjiang)双将: Two pieces giving check simultaneously, usually by discovery. It cannot be blocked or answered by a single capture; the general must move.
Mutual pawn opening (duibingju)对兵局: Both sides open with the mirrored knight-file soldier push; the most flexible opening in the game.
Elephant (xiang)相 / 象: The outer defender. Moves exactly two points diagonally, cannot cross the river, and is blocked by a piece on the intermediate point (the elephant’s eye). Red’s are 相, black’s 象.
Elephant’s eye塞象眼: The point midway along an elephant’s move. A piece standing there blocks the move entirely - "stuffing the elephant’s eye" is a standard attacking motif.
Facing generals对面笑: The rule that the two generals may never stand on the same file with no piece between them. Exploiting it lets a general control an open file like a chariot (see white-faced general).
Counter-palace horse (fangongma)反宫马: Black’s modern defence to the central cannon: a cannon retreats to the advisor-corner square inside a tilted horse screen.
Flying elephant (feixiang)飞相局: Red’s quiet opening: elephant to the centre point on move one, completing the palace shell before attacking.
Position record局面记录: A single line of text describing a whole position - which piece stands on which point and whose turn it is. Xiangqi Arena uses the standard FEN-style format.
File路 / 线: A vertical line of points, nine in all. Named a to i in coordinate notation; traditional notation numbers them 1-9 from each player’s own right.
Fortress守和局面: A defensive setup that the attacker’s remaining material cannot break, drawing an otherwise lost-looking ending. Example: full advisor-elephant shell against a lone cannon.
General (jiang/shuai)帥 / 將: The royal piece. Moves one point orthogonally, confined to the palace. Red’s is 帥 (marshal), black’s 將 (general). Losing it loses the game.
Corner horse (guajiaoma)挂角马: A horse on the palace-corner point, covering the general’s diagonal flights; one of the named mating patterns.
Palace-corner cannon (guogongpao)过宫炮: Red’s opening where the king-side cannon crosses the palace front to the d-file, massing force on the queen-side.
Scooping the moon (haidi laoyue)海底捞月: The classic chariot-and-cannon endgame technique: the cannon travels to the enemy back rank - the sea bed - to dislodge the defending chariot from behind.
The river (Chu-Han boundary)楚河汉界: The central strip dividing the board, inscribed "Chu river, Han border" after the ancient rivalry. Elephants cannot cross it; soldiers change powers when they do.
Horse (ma)馬 / 傌: Moves one point orthogonally then one diagonally outward - like a chess knight, but blockable: a piece on the first (orthogonal) point stops the move ("tying the horse’s leg").
Horse’s leg蹩马腿: The orthogonal point a horse must pass through. A piece there - either side’s - blocks the move. The heart of horse tactics.
Initiative (xianshou)先手: Having threats the opponent must answer, and therefore choosing the game’s direction. Also the word for moving first; red starts with the initiative by definition.
Staggered chariots mate夹車: Two chariots on adjacent lines alternating checks, walking the general into a corner; one of the named mating patterns.
Kill / mating attack (sha)杀: A forced sequence ending in checkmate. Puzzle prompts like "red to kill in three" count the mating line’s length.
Two-headed snake (liangtoushe)两头蛇: Red’s structure with both knight-file soldiers advanced - the snake’s two heads - opening both horse paths.
Opposite-direction cannons (liepao)列炮: Black answers the central cannon with the cannon from the opposite wing, producing unbalanced mutual attacks.
Horse-behind-cannon mate (mahoupao)马后炮: The famous duo mate: the horse covers the general’s escapes while the cannon checks through the horse as its screen. Proverbially, decisive help that arrives at the last moment.
Smothered mate (menshaisi)闷杀: Mate against a general whose own advisors and elephants block every flight square - the "stuffy" mate.
Middlegame (zhongju)中局: The phase after development completes and before mass simplification: the domain of attacks, patterns, and plans.
Opening (buju)布局: The first phase of the game - roughly the first ten to twelve moves - in which both sides develop their pieces and choose a system. The subject of this library’s largest section.
Palace (jiugong)九宫: The 3×3 box of points each general and its advisors may never leave, marked by diagonal lines. All mating attacks aim here.
Perpetual check ban长将禁着: Endlessly repeating checks is illegal in xiangqi: the checking side must vary or lose. The same applies to perpetual chases of an unprotected piece.
Pin / fix (qianzhi)牵制: Holding an enemy piece in place - because moving it would expose something worse - or tying defenders to a threat so they cannot join the real fight.
Screen horses (pingfengma)屏风马: Black’s classical defence: both horses developed toward the centre, jointly guarding the centre soldier like the panels of a folding screen.
Point交叉点: An intersection of the board’s lines - where the pieces actually stand. The xiangqi board is a 9×10 grid of points, not squares.
Rank横线: A horizontal line of points, ten in all. Coordinate notation numbers them 0-9 from red’s back rank.
Rating (Elo)等级分: A number estimating playing strength from rated results; Xiangqi Arena uses the Elo system with rank tiers from Silver to Diamond built on top.
Three-step tiger (sanbuhu)三步虎: Red’s three-move recipe - horse out, cannon to the edge, chariot to the open file - activating the chariot at maximum speed.
Screen (paotai)炮架: The single piece a cannon jumps over to capture - friend or foe. A cannon with no screen available cannot capture at all.
Advisor-corner cannon (shijiaopao)士角炮: Red’s opening placing the queen-side cannon on the advisor-corner square, supporting a d-file and central strategy.
Same-direction cannons (shunpao)顺炮: Black mirrors the central cannon with the cannon from the same wing: symmetric, sharp, and the oldest recorded xiangqi opening.
Book / theory棋谱: Established opening knowledge - the model lines and their evaluations, as recorded in manuals from the classical era to modern databases.
Tempo (xian)先: One move’s worth of time. Gaining a tempo means making a useful move the opponent must answer with a useless one; the opening’s core currency.
Sky-and-earth cannons (tiandipao)天地炮: One cannon on the central file, one raking the enemy back rank: a two-plane battery the palace furniture cannot answer. A named mating formation.
Iron-bolt mate (tiemen shuan)铁门栓: A screened cannon on the centre file bolts the palace shut while a chariot mates along the confined half; a named mating pattern.
Trench horse (wogucao)卧槽马: A horse on the point diagonally beside the palace’s front corner, delivering the game’s purest one-piece mate threat; a named pattern.
Blunder (loudong)漏着: A move that loses material or the game to an available reply. The polite post-game word for what happened.
White-faced general (bailian jiang)白脸将: Using your own general on an open file - via the facing-generals rule - to forbid the enemy general that file while a modest piece mates; a named pattern.
Five-seven cannons (wuqipao)五七炮: Red’s attacking formation: one cannon on the centre (fifth) file and one on the seventh, generating the main modern attacks against the screen horses.
Five-six cannons (wuliupao)五六炮: The balanced sibling: centre cannon plus a sixth-file cannon, trading attacking reach for coordination.
Pointing finger (xianren zhilu)仙人指路: "The immortal points the way": the flexible opening soldier push that reveals nothing and prepares everything.
River-patrol cannon (xunhepao)巡河炮: A cannon on its own river rank, guarding the crossing squares and ready to swing to either wing along the rank.
Kill exercise (shaju)杀局: A composed or extracted position with a forced mate to find - the material of the puzzle ladder and Puzzle Storm.

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