Xiangqi

Xiangqi, known in the West as Chinese chess, is a strategy board game for two players and the single most popular board game in China, played widely as a domestic pastime as well as competitively; the Sport atlas already carries Xiangqi as a competitive game entity, and this hobby entity records the same game as it is played and practiced for its own sake at home. It belongs to the same family of games as shogi, janggi, Western chess, chaturanga and Indian chess, and it is likewise popular in Vietnam, where it is called co tuong, or general's chess, to distinguish it from Western chess, called co vua, or king's chess. Play represents a battle between two armies, and the primary object is to checkmate the opposing general; the game is distinguished by its cannon piece, which must jump over another piece to capture, by a rule forbidding the two generals from ever facing each other along a clear file, by river and palace zones on the board that restrict or enhance the movement of particular pieces, and by pieces that sit on the intersections of the board's lines rather than inside its squares.