◇ Just read — no move neededThe river bank is a highway
Rank 4 — the river bank on your side — is a highway with no traffic lights: nine points, every one of them one move from every other. A chariot parked there eyes both enemy wings at once, escorts your own pawns forward, and can drop onto any open file the moment one appears. The old manuals gave this posting a name of its own — 巡河车, the river-patrolling chariot — and the cannon chapter will hand the very same bank to the cannon as the 巡河炮.