Beginner's Guide to Yugan Flying Treasure Mahjong

Yugan Flying Treasure Mahjong (余干飞宝麻将, Yugan Feibao Majiang) is a four-player mahjong variant from Yugan County in Jiangxi Province, where the name Feibao translates literally as "flying treasure." The whole game turns on a single mechanic: at the start of every hand, one rank of tile is anointed as a Spirit Tile (精牌, jingpai), and those Spirit Tiles act as both wildcards and bonus-scoring tiles when you hold them at the win, and as penalty multipliers when you discard them and someone else wins. Flying Treasure is a household game across the Yugan region and a fixture on Chinese online play platforms, with a reputation for high-variance, gambling-flavored play.

Tiles to Play Flying Treasure Mahjong With

You need one standard 136-tile mahjong set, with no flowers, no seasons, and no jokers. The set breaks into three numbered suits and two honor suits. The numbered suits are Characters (万子, wanzi), Dots (筒子, tongzi), and Bamboo (条子, tiaozi), each running from 1 through 9 with four copies of every rank, for 108 numbered tiles in total. The honor suits are the four Winds (风牌, fengpai): East (东), South (南), West (西), and North (北)—and the three Dragons (箭牌, jianpai): Red Dragon (中, hongzhong), Green Dragon (发, facai), and White Dragon (白, baiban). Each honor has four copies, adding 28 honor tiles and bringing the total to 136.

Basic Rules of Flying Treasure Mahjong

Every turn runs through the same short loop:

1. The active player draws one tile from the wall.
2. The active player discards one tile face up into their discard row.
3. The other three players have a brief window to claim that discard.
4. If no one claims, the turn passes to the next player, who draws.

Play moves counter-clockwise around the table. East (the dealer) draws first. Turns pass to the right (South), across (West), left (North), and back to East. When a tile hits the discard area, any of the other three players may call for it, and the three kinds of claims are:

• Sequence (chi 吃): three tiles in a row of the same suit, like 4-5-6 of Dots. Uses the discarded tile plus two consecutive tiles from your hand.
• Triplet (also called Pong, peng 碰): three identical tiles. Uses the discarded tile plus a matching pair from your hand.
• Quad (also called Kong, gang 杠): four identical tiles as one group. Uses the discarded tile plus a matching triplet from your hand, or is built entirely from your own draws.

A Triplet claim outranks a Sequence claim, and a Quad claim also outranks a Sequence claim. Winning outranks every other claim, so if you can complete your hand on someone's discard, you take it and the hand ends immediately.

How to Setup Flying Treasure Mahjong

Determining The Dealer

Each of the four players rolls two dice at the start of the session. The highest roll becomes the dealer and sits at East. The second-highest sits on the dealer's right at South, the third-highest sits across at West, and the lowest sits on the dealer's left at North. At the end of every hand, the dealer keeps the seat if the dealer won. If anyone else won, or if the hand ended in a draw, the dealership passes counter-clockwise to the player on the former dealer's right. The winning non-dealer does not become the next dealer.

Setting Up The Wall

Shuffle all 136 tiles face down in the middle of the table. Each player pulls tiles toward themselves and builds a wall segment 17 stacks long and two tiles high, for 34 tiles per segment. Push the four segments together into a closed square so the four walls meet at the corners.

The Dead Wall

The dead wall in Flying Treasure Mahjong is marked by the Spirit Tile. The tile flipped face up during Setting the Spirit Tile (see below) sits at the inner boundary of the dead wall, and every tile from the flipped tile out to the far end of the wall is part of the dead wall. Because the flipped tile's position is chosen by a two-dice roll, the dead wall is a different size in every hand, running anywhere from 4 tiles (on a roll of 2) to 24 tiles (on a roll of 12). Dead-wall tiles are not drawn during normal turn-order play. Quad replacement draws come from the dead wall, one tile at a time. The hand ends the moment a normal draw would reach the Spirit Tile.

Breaking The Wall

Once the wall is built, the dealer rolls two dice. The sum tells the dealer how many stacks to count from their own wall segment, working counter-clockwise around the wall. When the counted stack is reached, that stack marks the break point: a small gap in the wall that identifies where dealing begins. Push the two halves of the wall apart by a tile's width so the break point is visually obvious. Dealing starts from the stack on the counter-clockwise side of the break.

Dealing The Hand

Dealing happens in three rounds of four, followed by a short finishing sequence. In each of the three rounds, every player draws four tiles in counter-clockwise order, starting with the dealer. After three rounds, every player holds twelve tiles. The dealer then takes one tile, skips a stack without drawing, and takes one more tile, finishing on fourteen. Each non-dealer takes one more tile to reach thirteen. The dealer discards one tile face up to open play, returning the dealer's hand to thirteen. From this point on, every player's concealed hand sits at thirteen tiles whenever it is someone else's turn, and briefly climbs to fourteen during their own draw before the discard.

Setting the Spirit Tile (精牌)

With dealing finished, the dealer rolls the dice one more time. Starting from the far end of the wall (opposite the break), count stacks equal to the dice total and flip the tile at that position face up. This works almost exactly like flipping the dora indicator in Riichi mahjong: a single flipped tile on the wall announces which ranks are "live" for bonus scoring this hand. The flipped tile's rank becomes the Major Spirit (正精, zhengjing), and the next rank in sequence becomes the Minor Spirit (副精, fujing). The flipped tile also marks the inner boundary of the dead wall (see The Dead Wall above), which is why the size of the dead wall depends on this roll.

Sequence wraps at the end of each suit. If the flip tile is 1 Character, then every 1 Character in the wall is a Major Spirit and every 2 Character is a Minor Spirit. If the flip tile is 9 Character, then every 9 Character is a Major Spirit and every 1 Character is a Minor Spirit (wrapping back). For Winds, the sequence runs East → South → West → North → East. For Dragons, it runs Red → Green → White → Red. Because the rank is what matters, all four copies of the Major Spirit rank count as Major, and all four copies of the Minor Spirit rank count as Minor. That puts eight Spirit Tiles in play every hand: four Major and four Minor.

The Spirit Tile (精牌)

Spirit Tiles are the scoring engine of Flying Treasure Mahjong, and the entire variant is built around them. Every hand has eight Spirit Tiles in play: four Major Spirits (正精) and four Minor Spirits (副精) and every one of them affects scoring in three ways at once:

• Wildcard substitution. A Spirit Tile in your concealed hand can stand in for any tile you need to complete a winning shape. You do not declare substitution in advance; at the moment of the win, you show the hand and the Spirit Tile slots in wherever it helps.
• Bonus fan on the winning hand. Every Spirit Tile present in your winning 14-tile hand scores bonus fan on top of the base hand: 2 fan per Major Spirit and 1 fan per Minor Spirit. These bonus fan totals feed directly into the Indomitable Spirit Bonus and the Oversoul Bonus (see Points and Payout).
• Penalty on the discarder. The instant a Spirit Tile leaves your hand and lands in your discard row, it becomes a Flying Treasure (飞宝, feibao). If any other player wins the hand afterward, your payment to that winner is multiplied by 2x for every Flying Treasure you personally threw.

Because of this three-way load-out, the central decision in Flying Treasure Mahjong is whether to hold a Spirit Tile (safe, pays on a win) or discard it (risky, pays the opponent on a loss). Major Spirits are twice as valuable as Minor Spirits in both directions and they score more when held and hurt more when thrown.

Getting a Tile

Drawing a Tile

At the start of your turn, take the top tile from the next unused stack of the live wall, working counter-clockwise from the break. Add the drawn tile to your concealed hand. If the drawn tile completes a winning hand, you may declare Hu immediately and the hand ends (see Winning in Flying Treasure Mahjong). Otherwise proceed to your discard. The dead wall is off-limits to normal draws and the only way a tile leaves the dead wall is as a replacement draw after a Quad declaration.

Calling Tiles

Sequence (chi 吃) means claiming a discard to complete a three-tile run in the same suit, such as 4-5-6 of Dots. Only the player seated immediately to the discarder's right can call Sequence, because that player's turn comes next anyway. Say "Chi," lay the three tiles face up in front of you, and discard.

Triplet (historically Pong, peng 碰) means claiming a discard to form three identical tiles. Any player at the table can call Triplet on any discard regardless of seat. Say "Pong," expose the three tiles face up in front of you, and discard. A Triplet claim outranks a Sequence claim when two players want the same tile.

Quad (historically Kong, gang 杠) means holding four identical tiles as one group. Flying Treasure Mahjong recognizes two kinds. An Exposed Quad (明杠) is built when another player discards the fourth copy of a concealed triplet you already hold, or when you later draw the fourth copy of a triplet you had previously claimed as a Triplet. Declare the Quad and lay all four face up. A Concealed Quad (暗杠) is built when you draw all four copies yourself. Declare it on your turn and place all four face down to signal the Quad without revealing the rank; flip them face up at the end of the hand so the other players can verify. Any Quad claim outranks a Sequence claim. Whenever you declare a Quad of any kind, immediately draw one replacement tile from the dead wall, then discard. If another player could win on the exact tile you are adding to a previously exposed Triplet to upgrade it into a Quad, they may call Rob the Quad (qianggang 抢杠) and win on that tile before the Quad resolves.

Win (hu 胡, also written 糊) means declaring victory. You can win by drawing the tile yourself (a Self-Draw, zimo 自摸) or by claiming any player's discard. Announce "Hu" the moment the tile hits the table, reveal your 14 tiles, and the hand ends.

Arranging Your Tiles

Keep your 13 concealed tiles face down in front of you, sorted however helps you plan (most players group by suit and rank). Tiles you have claimed for Triplets, Exposed Quads, or Sequences sit face up in a row next to your concealed hand and are locked in place for the rest of the hand. A Concealed Quad is placed face down so opponents know a Quad exists without seeing its rank, and flipped face up only at scoring.

Discarding a Tile

After drawing, or after claiming and resolving a call, discard one tile face up into the discard area directly in front of you. Each player keeps their own discard row and there is no shared central pile. Organize your discards in neat rows of six tiles each, left to right, starting a new row below once the current row fills. This tidy layout is not cosmetic. Because the Flying Treasure penalty is calculated per-discarder, every player at the table must be able to count at a glance exactly how many Spirit Tiles each opponent has already thrown. Messy piles make the reckoning slow and dispute-prone; rows of six let the whole table read each player's Flying Treasure count instantly.

The single most dangerous discard in Flying Treasure Mahjong, by a wide margin, is any Spirit Tile. Throwing one triggers the Flying Treasure penalty against you if any other player wins the hand (see Points and Payout).

Winning in Flying Treasure Mahjong

A winning hand is 14 tiles (the 13 you hold plus the winning tile) arranged into one of the following shapes. Before the shapes themselves, two words that the shapes keep reusing: a pair is two identical tiles, and a set is a group of three or four tiles that is either a Triplet, a Quad, or a Sequence. The lone pair in a Basic Win is called the head. A Spirit Tile anywhere in the hand can substitute for any other tile required by the shape.

• Basic Win (平和, pinghu): one pair as the head plus four sets, where each set is a Sequence, a Triplet, or a Quad.
• Seven Pairs (七对, qidui): seven distinct pairs, with no sets and no single head pair.
• Nine-One (九幺, jiuyao): every tile in the hand is a 1, a 9, a Wind, or a Dragon, with no numbered 2 through 8 tiles at all. The shape is otherwise unrestricted.
• Thirteen Orphans (十三浪, shisanlang): a 14-tile hand where no two numbered tiles of the same suit are within two ranks of each other, and no honor tile is repeated.
• Full Flush (清一色, qingyise): every tile in the hand comes from one numbered suit only (all Characters, all Dots, or all Bamboo), with no honors and no tiles from the other numbered suits. Full Flush is a multiplier on top of an existing base shape rather than a standalone shape.

You can win by Self-Draw or by claiming a discard. If an opponent declares a Quad and you can win on the exact tile they are adding, you may Rob the Quad and win instead.

End of Hand

A hand ends the moment one of two things happens. The first is a declared win: a player announces Hu, reveals their 14 tiles, all Concealed Quads at the table are flipped face up for verification, and the reckoning in Points and Payout runs. The second is an exhaustive draw (荒牌, huangpai), where the wall reaches the Spirit Tile. On an exhaustive draw, no points change hands, and the dealership rotates counter-clockwise to the player on the former dealer's right.

End of Game

One complete counter-clockwise rotation of the dealership is called a round (圈, quan), and four rounds make one set (局, ju). A standard Flying Treasure Mahjong game is one set, but the table can agree to play multiple sets or an open-ended session before starting. When the agreed-upon number of sets has been completed, the session ends, and each player's accumulated total is their final score.

Points and Payout in Flying Treasure Mahjong

Winner Total Formula

Every won hand produces a single Winner Total. Because the Flying Treasure penalty depends on what each individual loser discarded, the final amount each loser pays is calculated one loser at a time:

Winner Total (per loser) = ((Base Hand Fan + Spirit Tile Bonus Fan + Quad Bonus Fan) × Full Flush Multiplier × All Honors Multiplier) × 2^(Flying Treasures thrown by that loser)

The formula runs left to right. First add up the base hand fan, the Spirit Tile bonus fan (with the Indomitable Spirit Bonus and the Oversoul Bonus applied if they triggered), and the Quad bonus fan. Apply the Full Flush multiplier if the winning hand is Full Flush, and apply the All Honors multiplier if the winning hand is a Nine-One or Thirteen Orphans that contains all four Winds and all three Dragons. Finally, for each of the three losers separately, multiply the running total by 2x for every Spirit Tile that loser personally threw during the hand. There is no non-winner formula; losers do not score their partial hands.

Scoring Opportunities

Every scoring element belongs to one of four buckets: the base hand, the Spirit Tile bonus, the Quad bonus, and the situational multipliers (Full Flush, All Honors, Indomitable Spirit Bonus, Oversoul Bonus, and Flying Treasure). All four buckets apply only to the winner. The base hand is whichever shape you completed with. The Spirit Tile bonus is the sum of the Major and Minor Spirit Tiles actually present in your winning hand. The Quad bonus is paid once for every Quad you declared during the hand. The multipliers stack on top.

Two bonus triggers fire only when specific conditions are met and are easy to miss at the table:

• Indomitable Spirit Bonus (霸王精, bawang jing): checked only at the instant a player declares Hu. At that moment, every player reveals their concealed tiles as part of scoring. If the winner is the only player at the table holding any Spirit Tiles, the winner's Spirit Tile bonus fan is multiplied by 2x before the Oversoul Bonus is checked.
• Oversoul Bonus (冲冠, chongguan): once the winner's total Spirit Tile bonus fan (after the Indomitable Spirit Bonus, if any) reaches 5 or more, the raw bonus total is replaced by the Oversoul value from the schedule in the Oversoul table below.

Winning Hand Scoring Table

This table lists every item a winner can score. Base items are fan values that add together before multipliers apply. Multipliers apply after all base items have been summed.

Spirit Tile Bonus and the Oversoul Bonus

Count the Spirit Tiles present in your winning 14-tile hand and assign each one its value. Each Major Spirit is 2 fan; each Minor Spirit is 1 fan. If the Indomitable Spirit Bonus applies, multiply the running total by 2x. If the total then reaches 5 or more, replace it with the Oversoul value below.

Add the final Spirit Bonus fan to the base hand fan and the Quad bonus fan before the Full Flush or All Honors multipliers are applied.

Flying Treasure Penalty (飞宝)

Every Spirit Tile discarded face up during the hand is a Flying Treasure, and the penalty lands on the discarder, not on the winner. The effect compounds: for each Spirit Tile a losing player personally threw, that loser's payment to the winner is multiplied by 2x one more time. One Flying Treasure means the loser pays 2x their base share. Two Flying Treasures mean 4x. Three mean 8x. Four mean 16x. Each loser's count is independent. For Flying Treasures, one person's throw does not affect what any other loser owes. If the player who threw the Flying Treasure ends up winning the hand themselves, the penalty does not apply; you cannot penalize yourself for your own discards. This is why the tidy-discards rule in Discarding a Tile matters: at any moment, any player can glance at each opponent's discard row and count exactly how many Spirit Tiles that opponent has already thrown.

Who Pays Whom

Only the winner collects. Each of the three losers pays the winner their share of the Winner Total, with each loser's share adjusted by any Flying Treasures that loser threw. The three losers do not settle anything among themselves.

Worked example 1: dealer wins. East (the dealer) wins a Basic Win with one Spirit Tile in hand, so the base is 3 fan. East declares no Quads during the hand and the winning hand is not Full Flush. The Spirit Tile bonus is 2 fan (one Major Spirit in hand). Other players still held Spirit Tiles at the moment of the win, so the Indomitable Spirit Bonus does not apply, and 2 is below the Oversoul threshold. The pre-Flying-Treasure Winner Total is 3 + 2 = 5 fan per loser.

During the hand, South threw one Spirit Tile into their discard row. West threw none. North threw two. Apply the Flying Treasure penalty one loser at a time:

• South threw one Spirit Tile (Flying Treasure multiplier 2x): 5 × 2 = 10 fan paid to East
• West threw no Spirit Tiles (Flying Treasure multiplier 1x): 5 × 1 = 5 fan paid to East
• North threw two Spirit Tiles (Flying Treasure multiplier 4x): 5 × 4 = 20 fan paid to East
• East's collection: 10 + 5 + 20 = 35 fan

Because the dealer won, East keeps the dealer seat for the next hand.

Worked example 2: non-dealer wins. North wins a Spirit-bound Seven Pairs: seven distinct pairs where the head-pair (the pair completed by the winning tile) is built on a Major Spirit. The base is 8 fan. No Quads, no Full Flush. North holds two Major Spirits in hand for 4 raw Spirit bonus fan. At the moment of the win, North is the only player holding any Spirit Tiles, so the Indomitable Spirit Bonus triggers and multiplies the raw Spirit bonus by 2x, from 4 to 8. Eight fan then triggers the Oversoul schedule at 8 → 40. The pre-Flying-Treasure Winner Total is 8 + 40 = 48 fan per loser.

During the hand, East (the dealer) threw one Spirit Tile. South threw none. West threw none. Apply the Flying Treasure penalty one loser at a time:

• East threw one Spirit Tile (Flying Treasure multiplier 2x): 48 × 2 = 96 fan paid to North
• South threw no Spirit Tiles (Flying Treasure multiplier 1x): 48 × 1 = 48 fan paid to North
• West threw no Spirit Tiles (Flying Treasure multiplier 1x): 48 × 1 = 48 fan paid to North
• North's collection: 96 + 48 + 48 = 192 fan

Because a non-dealer won, the dealership rotates counter-clockwise: the player on East's right (South) becomes the new dealer for the next hand.