Screen
炮架 · pào jià · cannon mount
The single piece a Cannon jumps over in order to capture, which may belong to either player.
A Cannon captures only when there is exactly one piece between it and its target. That piece is the screen, or the mount, and it does not matter whose it is. Your own soldier can be the mount for your cannon, and so can the opponent's horse.
This is the mechanism behind almost every cannon tactic. Adding a screen creates a threat out of nothing; removing one defuses a threat without moving the attacked piece; and moving a screen away with tempo is the xiangqi version of a discovered attack.
In practice
Every time a piece leaves a file, check what cannons on that file can suddenly do. Half of all cannon accidents are discoveries the loser never looked for.
Related terms
- Cannon炮 / 砲A piece that moves like a chariot but can only capture by jumping exactly one piece, called the screen, on its way to the target.
- Hollow cannon空头炮A cannon on the middle file with nothing between it and the enemy General, which paralyses the defence and usually wins.
- Double cannons重炮Two cannons on the same file, one behind the other, where the front cannon is the screen for the back one and checkmate follows.
- Discovered attack闪击Moving one piece so that another, standing behind it, is suddenly attacking something.