River's already drawn. Red and black are waiting. Move a cannon — it'll only bite if something sits in between.
Local table
A quiet game against the local AI. No lobby, no waiting.
Red opens. Moves will list here after the first piece lands.
Kept in this browser only. Clearing site data wipes it.
You came to play, so the board is already here — river painted, red on your side. No “Play” button to unlock the pieces, no email signup before the first move.
Close the tab whenever you like. Nothing waits for you in a lobby. The position stays in this browser until you clear it or start a new game.
People who heard an elder say “xiangqi” and typed the English label. People who typed Chinese chess and meant the river game. Students with ten minutes between classes. Western chess players who keep importing bishop habits and need the gap named out loud. Folks who only wanted to know why the cannon stares down an empty file and refuses to bite.
If you wanted fifty other browser games in a neon grid, you’re in the wrong house. This domain keeps one board — no lobby queue, no club signup desk before move one.
Nine files, ten ranks. Pieces stand on the intersections, not inside western-style squares — ninety points to land on, not sixty-four. Across the middle runs the river, marked the old way: 楚河 on one side, 汉界 on the other. Soldiers change once they cross; elephants never do. At each end sits a palace — a three-by-three fortress crossed with diagonals. The general and both advisors stay inside it for the whole game. That isn’t a house rule. That’s the shape of the table.
Red moves first. You’re red and the computer keeps black unless you switch Play as. Flip only turns the camera. Clocks on the side are for rhythm, not for tournament arbiters yelling at your phone.
Seven kinds a side, written as characters on wooden discs instead of carved western shapes. The chariot runs any distance in a straight line — your rook cousin, and usually the loudest piece on the table. The horse steps one then one diagonally out, and gets hobbled if something sits on its leg. The elephant jumps two diagonally, blocked at the midpoint, and never crosses the river. Advisors shuffle diagonally inside the palace. The general steps one orthogonally inside the palace and may never face the other general down an open file — “flying general” ends badly, and beginners learn that the hard way.
The cannon is the piece western chess has no answer for. It slides like a chariot when the path is empty, but it only captures by jumping exactly one screen — your piece or theirs, no more, no fewer. An empty file looks safe until it isn’t. Soldiers step forward; after the river they may also step sideways. They never promote into queens. They just keep pressing.
Want every disc named with legal dots on the board? Open the pieces page — the cannon is usually waiting there already selected so the jump reads immediately.
Tap one of your discs. Legal landings get a small lacquer mark; a disc you can take gets a ring. Tap where you want it. Missed the piece? Tap another, or tap empty wood to put it down. On a phone it’s the same two taps. On a desktop, a mouse click is enough — we don’t require drag-and-drop theater.
After you move, black thinks for a beat. That pause is your own device looking at the same board you see — not a spinner that says “connecting…” while some distant server decides whether you get a reply. Then it’s your turn again, unless the general is already trapped.
Hint draws a suggestion when we can. Undo takes back a full round when it can. New game clears the mess. Flip board turns the wood around if your eyes prefer the other shore. Sound stays quiet until you poke it — parks and shared couches exist.
Easy trades freely and will hand you a horse if you leave the door open — good for rusty afternoons and first games after years away. Medium guards its palace and punishes a loose cannon. Hard looks four plies; Master reaches six and rarely gifts a chariot. None of them are “national team.” They’re just harder or easier — no monthly fee.
Home is the quiet table: board up, medium mood, fewer sermons. If you specifically typed “against computer” like a mission, the difficulty page has clearer labels — same board, same computer.
You win by checkmating the other general. Check must be answered immediately — even if that means giving up a chariot. There is no castling. There is no underpromotion parade. A soldier that reaches the last rank just keeps sliding sideways when the river has already taught it how.
If a side has no legal move at all, it loses (困毙) — that matches ordinary Xiangqi; don’t wait for a western stalemate hug. Draws on this desk are simpler than a tournament sheet: sixty full moves with no capture end the game as a draw; the same position three times (same side to move) is a draw, unless one side’s moves in that cycle were all checks (长将) — then that side loses. We don’t fully enforce perpetual chase (长捉) and the rest of the arbiter catalog; those loops usually become a threefold draw here. Offer draw is the local AI’s call by material, not competition etiquette.
Chinese chess openings have deep books. You don’t need them to sit down. Three park-table habits show up constantly: central cannon pressure (炮 aiming at the middle soldier), horses developing before they get hobbled, and chariots finding open files early. Black often answers with a “screen horse” shape — both horses guarding the middle — which is why so many first games feel like a fight over the center file.
We’re not shipping an openings wiki on this domain. If a short openings page arrives later, it will stay short. For now, play a slow Easy game, notice when your horse can’t move, and remember the cannon needs a screen before it eats.
Not western chess. Not a matchmaking lobby. Not an APK. Not a club membership desk. Not a portal that parks Xiangqi next to fifty unrelated games so someone can sell ads on the hallway. Related doors stay inside this family — how-to, pieces, the pinyin name, the vs-chess comparison — instead of dumping you into a mall.
Below the board we take time on the river, the palace, and the FAQ — enough that a new player can sit down without a coach. The computer on this page has a few difficulty levels. It does not pretend to be a friend with a personality, and it does not ask you to believe it plays like a human.
Skim before you play. Short when we can; a bit longer when a rule needs it.