The Red King and the Black King

The Red King and the Black King.

The formation of Xiangqi is closely related to the historic "Chu-Han Contest". Xiangqi pieces are divided into red and black, so also the King of each side. There is also an allusion about it.

In the early days when Xiangqi just came into the playing development, Red King used to refer to Liu Bang, and Black King to Xiang Yu, that is, red representing Liu Bang's army, black the Xiang Yu's army. The story told us that Liu Bang was leading around that time an uprising in Mangdang Mountain and one night, he slaughtered a big white snake. This story is still very popular among the people. After the snake was killed, an old lady climbing the mountain, was heard crying. When asked, she said that his son was the son of the White Emperor, changed into a snake playing in the mountain. After telling these words, the lady disappeared. This story was a suggestion that the former Qin Dynasty (which had just been destroyed) would soon be replaced by a new reign.

Since the happening of slaughtering the white snake (son of the White Emperor), Liu Bang liked to act and style himself as the son of the Red Emperor, and loved red colour very much and had all the flags changed into red.

Xiang Yu on the other hand loved black colour. His cloth, armour, and even his horse were black. 'Red King' and 'Black King' might come from it. As the Xiangqi rule stipulates, that Red King and Black King cannot face each other directly [on the same file]. In accordance with the history, during the Chu-Han wars, one day Liu Bang shouted abuse at Xiang Yu at the battlefield over the Guang Wu Mountain. He was to pay for that, for in the end, Liu Bang nearly lost his life when an arrow hit him in the eye from Chu's army.

From its formation and development, the game can be regarded as an ancient warfare on the Xiangqi board, so the Chu River-Han Boundary is named after Chu-Han contest (for the control of the country.) According to the Xiangqi rule, if both Kings are on the same file, with no piece separating them, the side who has its turn to move will win the game, as if he has the initiative to shoot an arrow at his opponent to win the battle.

~ from 'Bulletin Xiangqi' of World Xiangqi Federation