Thirty-two pieces, one game of where you are now
Xiangqi is a book of strategy, and this reading looks at the position you are in:
advance, hold, turn, or give up a piece to protect the general.
Three short stories before you turn a piece
The consort and her thirty-two pieces
In the year the Northern Song fell, Consort Wei was taken north as a captive. Cao Xun recorded in his memoir that she used the thirty-two pieces of a chess set to divine the fates of the imperial princes, and that only the piece bearing the name of the Prince of Kang came true. That prince became Emperor Gaozong. Nearly a thousand years ago, in the deepest kind of trouble, someone asked heaven with a chess set.
Han Xin’s sand table
Tradition credits the game to Han Xin, a general of the early Han, who is said to have built it to drill his troops through battle scenarios. Strategy is in its bones: every piece is a way of using force — the chariot charges straight, the horse jumps, the cannon strikes over a screen, the soldier crosses the river. This reading borrows that strategic eye and treats your question as a position on the board.
The river between Chu and Han
The line across the middle of the board is the ravine where Liu Bang and Xiang Yu faced each other. Every game replays that contest, and every reading is the position you are standing in now. Before you turn a piece, get the question clear in your mind — the impulse in that moment is the door into the reading.
Red and black are the upright and the reversed
Nothing gets turned upside down here. Among the thirty-two pieces every role exists twice, once red and once black. Red is yang, the flowing face of that energy; black is yin, the same energy showing its work. The red chariot is drive out in the open; the black chariot is the weight carried quietly out of sight. Drawing black means the theme is arriving as work to be done, and it is pointing at something you have half known for a while.
Read the full method: the three registers and the five opening pieces →
Start with one concrete question
The more concrete the question, the sharper the position reads. Something like “should I change this job” or “where does this relationship go next”. Holding it silently works, and typing it out sharpens your focus and lets the reading answer it directly.
The board, face down
All thirty-two pieces are shuffled face down. Hold your question andpick five on instinct, or let the board turn them for you.
The first is the centre — the matter itself. The next four fall in order: how it opens, how it carries, where it turns, how it closes.
The opening
Read this position
Above is what each piece means on its own. The paid in-depth reading strings the whole position together: every piece read against your question, the shape of the game explained, the sticking point named along with the way out. It arrives in your inbox and is saved to your library.
The English site sells each reading on its own — there is no membership or subscription.
The position is clear — now it is your move
This reading looks at how the matter moves right now. If you want to know why you keep meeting this same kind of position, the Personal User Manual is where that lives.
Xiangqi divination · questions people ask
What is xiangqi divination?
Xiangqi divination is a folk method carried on in Taiwan: take an ordinary Chinese chess set of thirty-two pieces, shuffle them face down, hold your question and turn some over. It needs no birth data — it works from the impulse in the moment you turn a piece, and it shows the position you are standing in. Because the game is built on strategy, the reading is about position: advance, hold, turn, or give up a piece to protect the general.
Does it have any historical basis?
It does. Cao Xun’s late Northern Song memoir records Consort Wei using the thirty-two pieces to divine the fates of the princes while held captive, with only the piece bearing the name of the future Emperor Gaozong proving out. Divining with pieces goes back further still, to the Ling Qi Jing. The version popular in Taiwan today is a folk development of that line.
How do you read the five opening pieces?
Turn five pieces. The first is the centre, the matter itself. The next four are placed upper right, upper left, lower left, lower right, standing for how it opens, carries, turns and closes. Read the centre piece first — its role and whether it is red or black — then follow the four around in time, then step back and look at the shape of the whole.
How do upright and reversed work here?
It is built into the colours. Red is yang, the flowing and active face of that energy; black is yin, the same energy showing its work and its weight. The red chariot is drive out in the open; the black chariot is the load carried quietly. Drawing black means the theme is arriving as work to be done, pointing at something you have half known for a while.
How does it differ from tarot or Xiao Liu Ren?
Tarot’s seventy-eight cards work through story and archetype. Xiao Liu Ren reads the tempo of a matter across six palaces. The thirty-two chess pieces read position and strategy, with a general’s eye: attack, defend, turn, or give something up for now. None of the three needs birth data, and the chess imagery is the most everyday of them — general, advisor, chariot, horse and cannon are pieces anyone recognises.