Chinese chess strategy
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Direct answer
Xiangqi strategy comes down to four habits: keep pieces active rather than passive even at the cost of a pawn, contest the central files because most attacks travel down them, trade when you are ahead in material or under attack and avoid trading when you are not, and never strip your own advisors and elephants away from an undamaged defence. Everything else — specific openings, specific tactics — sits underneath these.
Activity over material
A soldier that has crossed the river and cannot be dislodged is often worth more than the horse it would cost to remove it. A chariot on an open file is doing real work; the same chariot boxed in behind its own soldiers is nearly furniture. Before counting points, ask which pieces on the board are actually doing something — see what the pieces are worth for when the standard values stop applying.
Fight for the central files
The general lives on the central file and can never leave the palace, which makes that file the one worth contesting all game, not only in the opening. A cannon or chariot that owns it is aiming at the enemy camp; one that has been chased off it is playing defence. Opening principles covers this for the first few moves — the same fight for the centre continues well past them.
When to trade, and when not to
Trade when you are ahead in material — fewer pieces on the board makes an advantage easier to convert and harder for the opponent to complicate. Trade when you are under attack and can remove the attacking piece, even at some material cost, because a defended king that survives the middlegame usually wins the endgame. Avoid trading when you are behind, when you are the one attacking, or when the piece you would give up is more active than the one you would receive for it: an even trade on paper can still hand the initiative to the other side.
Building an attack on the palace
An attack on the general's palace is rarely one piece's work. It needs at least two attackers coordinating — a cannon supplying the screen a chariot or horse needs to land a check — and it needs the defender's advisors and elephants weakened or removed first, because an intact pair of each is what makes most direct attacks fail outright. How an attack is actually built goes through this move by move.
Do not undress your own general
The mirror image of the point above: giving up your own advisors or elephants to win a pawn, or to force a trade two moves earlier than necessary, is the single most common way a winning position turns into a losing one. Keep the defensive structure intact until an attack against you has actually been refuted, not merely slowed down.
Related questions
What is the most important strategic principle in xiangqi?
Piece activity. A game is far more often lost by a piece doing nothing than by being a single pawn down — check what every piece on the board is actually doing before counting material.
When should I trade pieces in Chinese chess?
When you are ahead in material, or when a trade removes a piece that is attacking you. Avoid trading when you are behind or when you are the side attacking, since fewer pieces on the board generally favours whoever already has the advantage.
How do you attack the general in xiangqi?
With at least two coordinating pieces — commonly a cannon providing the screen a chariot or horse needs — aimed at a palace whose advisors and elephants have already been weakened. See how an attack is actually built.
Is xiangqi strategy different from chess strategy?
The instincts largely transfer, but the confined general and the cannon's screen change what “activity” and “attack” mean in practice. See xiangqi vs chess for the underlying rule differences that drive this.
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