Chinese chess, Chinese (Pinyin) Xiangqi (Wade-Giles) Hsiang-ch’i, strategy board game played in China from about ad 700. Like orthodox chess, Chinese chess is believed to have been derived from an Indian board game known as chaturanga. As in Western chess, the object of Chinese chess is to capture the opponent’s king (also called general in Chinese chess), and each player starts with an army of 16 pieces (one side traditionally red, which moves first, and the other black) on opposite sides of a game board. While the game boards appear superficially similar—the Western board is 8 × 8, and the