Xiangqi is an abstract strategy board game for two players. It is one of the most popular board games in China, and is in the same family as international chess, chaturanga, shogi, Indian chess and janggi. Besides China and areas with significant ethnic Chinese communities, xiangqi is also a popular pastime in Vietnam.

The game represents a battle between two armies, with the object of capturing the enemy's general (king). Distinctive features of xiangqi include the cannon (pao), which must jump to capture; a rule prohibiting the generals from facing each other directly; areas on the board called the riverand palace, which restrict the movement of some pieces (but enhance that of others); and placement of the pieces on the intersections of the board lines, rather than within the squares.


The commonly accepted theory, developed by Harold James Ruthven Murray, author of A History of Chess, is that games from the chess family originated in India. From there, they spread to the rest of the world, and one offshoot evolved into modern xiangqi in China, possibly influenced by other games already played there.

References to a game called xiangqi date back to the Warring States period; according to the first century BC text Shuo yuan , it was one of Lord Mengchang of Qi's interests. Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou wrote a book in AD 569 called Xiang Jing. It is believed to have described the rules of an astronomically themed game called xiangqi or xiangxi. The word xiàngqí is usually translated as "elephant game" or "figure game", because the Chinese character xiang means "elephant" and "figure"; it originated as a stylized drawing of an elephant, and was used to write a word meaning "figure", likely because the two words were pronounced the same. But the name can also mean "constellation game", and sometimes the xiàngqí board's "river" is called the "heavenly river", which may mean the Milky Way.

For these reasons, Murray theorized that "in China [chess] took over the board and name of a game called xiàngqí in the sense of 'Astronomical Game', which represented the apparent movements of naked-eye-visible astronomical objects in the night sky, and that the earliest Chinese references to xiàngqí meant the Astronomical Game and not Chinese chess". Previous games called xiàngqí may have been based on the movements of sky objects. However, the connection between xiàng and astronomy is marginal, and arose from constellations being called "figures" in astronomical contexts where other meanings of "figure" were less likely; this usage may have led some ancient Chinese authors to theorize that the game xiàngqí started as a simulation of astronomy.

To support his argument, Murray quoted an old Chinese source that says that in the older xiangqi (which modern xiangqi may have taken some of its rules from) the game pieces could beshuffled, which does not happen in the modern chess-style xiangqi. Murray also wrote that in ancient China there was more than one game called xiangqi. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Chess