Chinese Chess (Xiang Qi)

  


Explaination:
Xiangqi (Chinese: 象棋; pinyin: Xiàngqí) is a two-player Chinese board game in the same family as Western chess, chaturanga, shogi, Indian chess and janggi. The present-day form of Xiangqi originated in China and is therefore commonly called Chinese chess in English. Xiangqi is one of the most popular board games in China. 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" piece. Distinctive features of Xiangqi include the unique movement of the pao ("cannon") piece, a rule prohibiting the generals (similar to chess kings) from facing each other directly, and the river and palace board features, which restrict the movement of some pieces.
Its Chinese name can be treated as meaning "Image Game" or "Elephant Game":

象 originally, and primarily, means "elephant" and is derived from a stylized drawing of an elephant; it was later used to mean "image", as a jiajie (re-use for another word which was pronounced the same); also, elephant ivory was commonly used as a material for carving models.

棋 means "board game".

Xiangqi contains features which are not in Indian chess: the river, the palace, and the placing of the pieces on the intersections of the lines, rather than within the squares. These features may have come from an earlier Chinese board game (perhaps a war-type game) which was also called 象棋 (Xiangqi). As in an astronomical context 象 sometimes means "constellation" or "asterism" (i.e., in both cases, a figure made of stars), there were early Chinese theorizings (which Harold James Ruthven Murray followed and believed) that the older Xiangqi simulated the movements of stars and other celestial objects in the sky.


Video

How to play xiang qi