The White-Faced General

The white-faced general is one of the most fundamental checkmate in xiangqi. In this mate pattern, we use our general to control the midline, such that the opponent’s general cannot escape to the middle, and use the cannon or the chariot to attack our opponent’s general vertically.

There are two typical coordinations in the white-faced general mate:

1. Chariot-General Coordination

2. Cannon-General Coordination

Let’s look at some concrete examples below:

In this example, the red general already controls the midline. Red can now move the E5 chariot to E4.

After this move, the J4 general is attacked by the E4 chariot. With the help of the A5 general, the black general cannot escape to J5. Red wins.

In this case, once again the red general is already controlling the midline. Now that the red cannon on A4 is aiming at the J4 general. Red can move its B5 advisor to C4.

This move provides a mount for the cannon to attack the general. The black general failed to find any escape routes, red wins.

In this Xiangqi tutorial, we talked about the white-faced general mate pattern. This is one of the most basic mate pattern in xiangqi, and it becomes really useful when you enter the endgame phase in a xiangqi game.

Below is an exercise about the white-faced general . Try out the puzzle to see whether you can apply what you learn in this tutorial!

Practice makes perfect