What is Three Kingdoms Xiangqi?
Three Kingdoms xiangqi is Chinese chess for three players. Each player leads one of the kingdoms of Shu, Wu and Wei, with a full xiangqi army on a half-board of its own. The three halves surround a six-sided board, and a river with three arms runs between them, so every kingdom borders both of the others.
The pieces move as in standard xiangqi, read along the lines of the joined board. Across each river arm, the right half of one kingdom's bank faces the left half of its neighbour's, and the three middle files meet in a small central triangle, where a chariot, cannon or soldier coming up the middle can turn towards either neighbour. Each army also has two bannermen, extra pieces that leap like a stretched horse; they can be switched off in the table setup.
A kingdom that is checkmated or stalemated is out: its general leaves the board and the kingdom that left it without a move takes over the rest of its army, which then fights for its new master. The last kingdom with a general wins. That makes every alliance short: help one rival against the other, and the winner of that fight grows stronger.
The game needs exactly three players. Choose it in the table setup; a table for three always plays it.
Rule changes
| Rule | Standard Xiangqi | Three Kingdoms Xiangqi |
|---|---|---|
| Players | Standard XiangqiTwo players, Red and Black. | Three Kingdoms XiangqiThree players, each leading a kingdom: Shu in red, Wu in green and Wei in blue. There are no teams. |
| Board | Standard XiangqiOne board of 9 by 10 points, with a river across the middle and a palace on each side. | Three Kingdoms XiangqiThree half-boards of 9 by 5 points, 135 points in all, around a six-sided board. Each half has its own palace. A river with three arms separates the halves, and the three middle files meet in a central triangle of three points joined to each other. |
| Starting position | Standard XiangqiEach side has sixteen pieces on its own half: a general, two advisors, two elephants, two horses, two chariots, two cannons and five soldiers. | Three Kingdoms XiangqiEach kingdom has the same sixteen pieces on the same points of its own half, plus two bannermen when they are in play. |
| Bannermen | Standard XiangqiNot used. | Three Kingdoms XiangqiTwo per kingdom, starting on the front corners of the palace. A bannerman moves two points straight along a line, then one point diagonally outward, and can't jump over pieces on the way. They are in play unless you switch them off in the table setup. |
| Crossing the river | Standard XiangqiEvery file runs straight across the river into the opponent's half. | Three Kingdoms XiangqiThe right half of each river bank faces the left half of the next kingdom's bank, so most files lead into one neighbour only. The middle file reaches the central triangle, and a piece coming up it may carry on into either neighbour's middle file. Elephants still never cross, and generals and advisors stay in their palace. |
| Turns | Standard XiangqiRed moves first, then Red and Black alternate. | Three Kingdoms XiangqiShu moves first, then Wu, then Wei, anticlockwise round the board. A defeated kingdom's turn is skipped. |
| Check | Standard XiangqiYou may not leave your general in check, and the two generals may never face each other on an open file. | Three Kingdoms XiangqiYou may not leave your general attacked by either rival, or facing either rival's general along an open line, through the central triangle too. If one rival's move opens a line onto your general for the other rival, that rival may capture the general on its turn. |
| Checkmate and stalemate | Standard XiangqiA player who is checkmated or stalemated loses, and the game is over. | Three Kingdoms XiangqiA kingdom with no legal move on its turn, in check or not, is defeated. Its general leaves the board and the kingdom whose move left it stuck takes over all its other pieces, which keep moving as before. A kingdom whose general is captured is defeated too, and the capturer takes its army. |
| How to win | Standard XiangqiCheckmate the opposing general, or leave the opponent without a legal move. | Three Kingdoms XiangqiBe the last kingdom with a general on the board. Whoever defeats the first rival gets its army for the fight that follows. |
| Draws | Standard XiangqiA position repeated a third time ends the game: a side keeping up a perpetual check or chase loses, otherwise it is a draw. | Three Kingdoms XiangqiA position repeated a third time is a draw; there is no perpetual-check rule with three players. As a safety limit, 180 moves in a row without a capture or a defeat also end the game as a draw, and the result says which rule ended it. |
| Resigning and leaving | Standard XiangqiA player who resigns, runs out of time or leaves loses, and the opponent wins. | Three Kingdoms XiangqiA kingdom still in play that resigns, runs out of time or leaves loses and ends the game: if only one other kingdom is still in play it wins, and if two are, they share the win. A kingdom already defeated can leave the table without stopping the game. |
History
The game is named after the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history, the third century AD, when the states of Wei, Shu and Wu divided China between them after the fall of the Han dynasty. In Chinese it is called sānguó qí, the game of the three kingdoms. When it was invented is unclear: accounts place it either in the Southern Song dynasty or in the Qing dynasty, and both of the Chinese texts that described it are lost.
What is known comes through European writers. In 1876 the German scholar O. von Möllendorff described the game in an article on Chinese chess, with a six-sided board made of three xiangqi half-boards, and H. J. R. Murray repeated his account in A History of Chess in 1913. The collections of chess variants by John Gollon (1968) and David Pritchard (1994) describe it too. They give each kingdom a colour, red for Shu, green for Wu and blue for Wei, and name the bannermen flag for Wei, fire for Shu and wind for Wu, though all three move alike.
The surviving accounts leave a lot open, including exactly how lines join between the halves. Some describe the defeated general being removed on a separate turn, and the bannermen are not always used. This table removes a defeated general at once, makes the bannermen an option, and fills the gaps with conventions of its own: the river joins and the central triangle described above, and the draw rules for repetition and long games without a capture.