Xiangqi (象棋) is the chess of China and the most played board game on earth. Two armies of sixteen face each other across a river, and each is trying to trap the other's general. It shares an ancestor with Western chess, so much of it looks familiar — and the two pieces with no Western equivalent, the cannon that captures by jumping and the elephant that may never cross the river, are where it becomes a different game.
象棋是中国的棋，也是全世界下的人最多的棋类。两支十六个子的军队隔河相望，各自想把对方的将困住。它和国际象棋同源，所以很多地方看着眼熟——而真正让它成为另一种棋的，是两个国际象棋里没有的子：隔子打的炮，和永远过不了河的象。