---
title: "What Is the Horse's Leg (蹩馬腿) in Xiangqi? · Xiangqi Master"
description: "The horse's leg is the orthogonal point it steps through. Any piece there blocks the move entirely — the horse never jumps."
url: https://xiangqimaster.com/blog/what-is-the-horse-leg-rule
updated: 2026-09-22
source: Xiangqi Master (https://xiangqimaster.com)
license: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
---

# What is the horse's leg in xiangqi?

These answers restate the rules implemented by our open-source engine, which follows the WXF laws and is regression-tested against the official 110-diagram repetition casebook. Where an answer refers to a specific position, that position lives on the linked reference page, where the build verifies it against the engine before publishing.

> Direct answer
>
> The **leg** (馬腿) is the orthogonal point the horse passes through on its way. A piece standing there **blocks the move completely**, and the phrase for it is 蹩馬腿, hobbling the horse's leg. This is the rule that makes the xiangqi horse a different piece from the chess knight.

## Finding the leg

Take the horse's move as "one step orthogonally, then one diagonally outward". The leg is that first step. So for a horse moving two up and one left, the leg is the point directly above it — not the point it lands on, and not the diagonal.

Because each pair of moves shares a leg, one piece removes two destinations at once.

## Using it

Blocking is the entire defence against a horse: put anything at all on the leg. In bare endgames the defender's own general is very often the piece doing it.

In attack, the reverse — clearing your own horse's legs is frequently worth a tempo, and a horse with all four legs free is a genuinely different piece.

## Related questions

Does the leg point have to be empty of enemy pieces only?

No. Any piece blocks it, yours included.

Is the elephant blocked the same way?

Yes, at the midpoint of its two-step diagonal — the 象眼, the elephant's eye.

## Related xiangqi resources

How the horse moves

An L-shape that can be blocked — it never jumps

Horse endgames

The piece that gains as the board empties

Xiangqi glossary

Every term, with the Chinese and the WXF spelling

## Try it on a real board

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