Luzhanqi – Chinese Army Chess (Flip Mode)

Luzhanqi (Chinese army chess) is played on a board of 12 rows and 5 columns. Each side of the board contains 5 camps (行营), drawn as circles, and 2 headquarters (大本营) on the back row. Thick double lines are railways; thin single lines are roads, and each camp is also linked to its diagonal neighbours. In flip mode no setup phase is needed: both armies — 25 pieces each — are shuffled together and dealt face-down onto every point except the camps, 50 pieces in all.

Starting and colors

The first player flips any hidden piece. The color of that piece (Red or Blue) becomes the first player's army, and the opponent takes the other color. From then on, the two players alternate turns.

Your three options each turn

• Flip any hidden piece, revealing it for both players.
• Move one of your revealed pieces: one step along a road or railway, or any number of points in a straight line along a railway, as long as nothing blocks the way.
• Attack an adjacent revealed enemy piece (or the first enemy reached along a railway line).

Engineers and railways

Only engineers may turn corners on the railway network: an engineer can travel from any railway point to any other connected railway point in one move, provided every intermediate point is empty. All other pieces moving by railway must travel in a straight line — they may follow the line across the whole board but may never turn at a junction.

Camps and headquarters

A piece standing in a camp is protected: no enemy may attack it, although it can leave and attack normally. Any piece that stands in a headquarters — including pieces dealt there at the start — can never move again.

Combat resolution

• Higher rank wins: Field Marshal > General > Maj. General > Brigadier > Colonel > Major > Captain > Lieutenant > Engineer.
• Equal ranks destroy each other.
• A bomb destroys any piece it attacks or is attacked by — both are removed.
• Only an engineer can capture a land mine; any other attacker is lost while the mine stays.
• Hidden pieces cannot be attacked — flip them instead.

How to win

There are two ways to win. Capture the flag: you must first destroy all three enemy land mines (engineers digging them or bombs clearing them both count), and then an engineer must capture the enemy flag — no other piece may take it. Stalemate: if the opponent has no legal action on their turn — nothing left to flip and no move or attack available — they lose. As on most online platforms, endless shuffling is also broken up by a step limit: if 120 consecutive moves pass with no flip and no capture, the side with more pieces on the board wins.

Count what is hidden. Every flip is public information. Track which ranks are still face-down: when only three mines and a handful of officers remain unknown, engineers become the most valuable pieces on the board.

Flip with the neighbourhood in mind. Flipping a piece next to your own valuable officer is risky — a strong enemy may appear there and threaten it. Prefer flips in quiet areas, and flip near weak enemy pieces when you hope to reveal something you can beat.

Fight the exchange math. Attacking a revealed piece has a known result, so only trade when the material math favors you: capture upward, accept equal trades only when the enemy piece matters more, and never throw officers at mines.

Guard your flag hunters. You can only win by flag with an engineer, and only after all enemy mines are gone. Keep at least one engineer alive deep into the endgame, and remember the enemy will hunt yours.

Spend bombs wisely. A bomb trades itself for anything — its best targets are a revealed Field Marshal or General. Avoid burning a bomb on a lieutenant unless it opens the path to the flag.

Use camps and railways. A threatened piece can step into a camp for free shelter; railway lines let strong pieces redeploy across the whole board in one move — and the same is true for the enemy.

Luzhanqi (陆战棋, "land battle chess"), also known as Junqi (军棋, army chess), is a classic Chinese board game for two players. It descends from the late-19th-century French game L'Attaque and its relatives, which also inspired Stratego, but developed its own distinctive railway-and-camp board, officer hierarchy and referee-adjudicated hidden combat in 20th-century China.

The traditional game is played with upright hidden pieces and a referee. The flip variant (翻棋) removes both the setup phase and the referee: all pieces start face-down in a shared pool, the first flip assigns the colors, and every battle is resolved openly by the rank matrix. This page implements that flip mode with a built-in computer opponent.

A four-player team version (四国军棋) became hugely popular on Chinese online game platforms from the late 1990s, but the two-player flip game remains the quickest way to learn the piece system.