Hu Ronghua first won the Chinese National Xiangqi Championship in 1960, at age 15, the youngest record ever.
By the mid-1990s, people thought that he was past his prime, and that younger generations of top players would eventually replace him.
In 2011 he launched a reality show called Let's Play Chess to find a new personal apprentice.
The Hu Rule is aimed at eliminating "negative draw games" and making xiangqi more spectator-friendly.
In 2022, Hu Ronghua made grandmaster live commentary at a major exposition of advanced Artificial Intelligence algorithms, applied directly to xiangqi.