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The Cannons are the most interesting and difficult to use pieces in
Xiangqi, and add much to the tactical potential of the game. The earliest
versions of Xiangqi did not have the Cannons (gunpower was not invented
back then), which made them much less tactically interesting than modern
Xiangqi. Without the Cannons, one's attacking potential is a lot
smaller.
Cannons improved Xiangqi in a similar way to how the increased powers of
the Queen improved Chess. Cannons were added to Chinese Chess during the
Song Dynasty (960 - 1279 AD) when gunpower based weapons were first used.


The Cannon is a great Chinese invention (both on and off the Xiangqi
board!). The Cannon as a chess piece is unique to Chinese Chess and
variants derived from its lineage. (Such as Korean chess) If the primary
European contribution to chess games is the invention of the powerful
Queen, and the Japanese contribution is the invention of rules which
allow
one to use captured pieces as his/her own, then the Cannon, I believe, is
the major Chinese contribution to the chess family of games. This piece
combines the long-range mobility of line pieces and the penetrating power
of leapers. It can strike at the opponent's positions from a distance
like a Rook and penetrate through defensive lines to attack pieces behind
them like a Knight. Rooks have long-range attack ability but can be
obstructed easily with well defended pieces in their line of sight.
Knights can 'see through' the opponent's defenses but can only attack
from close range, where itself is often vulnerable. The Cannon combines
the advantages of both line pieces and leapers in its attack. 

Tactically speaking, the interesting thing about the Cannon is that it is
the only chess piece that can pin TWO pieces at the same time. This also
means discovered attacks involving the Cannons can be more unpredictable.
Two pieces in front of the Cannon have the potential to move off for the
Cannon to strike at the opponent (With other chess pieces, only one piece
would have this potential). When the Cannons double up to form a battery,
their advantage over the Rooks is that they can directly strike two
positions at once, with the Cannon at the rear using its companion in
front as its screen, where the doubled Rooks can only attack one point.

can i copy the texts here to my homepage?
i will claim the texts are copied from 'www.chessvariants.com' in my HP
ng goi ar.....

Thanks, John!

This is from another source 
I can use this and your reference to know of Chinese chess notation.

>>From what I remember Lau just used a straightforward translation of 
>>the Chinese move notation which has been used for a long time. If you
>>have in Chinese language books you can verify this.
> 
> 
> I don't have Chinese books (as I unfortunately don't read Chinese);
but
> Lau used a pure algebraic notation.  The standard notation uses a 
> system with the symbols +, -, = to denote moves forward, back, or side-
> ward.  Lau's notation is actually easier to follow but no one else uses
it,
> so the student has to discard it and learn the standard notation later.

He simply uses english characters to represent the same thing.  From 
what I could tell his notation is easily translatable into [WA]XF by 
replacing f,b,t with +,-,=.  I may have the characters wrong, but in 
general he uses the Chinese notation with english characters just as 
[WA]XF uses chinese notation with mathematical symbols.

You should learn the characters needed to read chinese notation.  Its 
really only a few symbols more than the pieces.  You have front, back, 
side, and the numbers 1-9.

It is a good start for beginners in understanding one of the greatest
game,
in my opinion, ever created. As to the question of Seongmo Yoon, the
website with those free e-books on Chinese Chess requires a program
called
Adobe Acrobat to view. You can find the software free to download almost
anywhere on the internet, just search for the program through google or
you can probably find it on Download.com. It was a great site for would
be
chinese chess players...highly recommended:
http://wxf.hypermart.net/eg/index.html
Thanx Seongmo Yoon. hopes this comment helps.

IS there a way for you to include link to the online multiplayer 3D Chinese
chess game I created?

http://chess.hanamifx.com/