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Yan Xishan

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In this Chinese name, the family name is Yan.
Yan Xishan
閻錫山
President of the Republic of China
Acting
20 November 1949 – 1 March 1950
PremierHimself
Vice PresidentNone[a]
Preceded byLi Zongren
Succeeded byChiang Kai-shek
4th Premier of the Republic of China
In office
3 June 1949 – 7 March 1950
PresidentLi Zongren (acting)
Himself (acting)
Chiang Kai-shek
Vice PremierChia Ching-teh
Zhu Jiahua
Preceded byHe Yingqin
Succeeded byZhou Enlai[b]
Chen Cheng
Personal details
Born(1883-10-08)8 October 1883
Wutai County, Xinzhou, Shanxi, Qing Empire
Died23 May 1960(1960-05-23) (aged 76)
Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China
Resting placeLane 245, Yonggong Road, Yangmingshan National Park
PartyKuomintang
Progressive Party
Children5
EducationImperial Japanese Army Academy
AwardsOrder of Blue Sky and White Sun
Order of the Sacred Tripod
Order of the Cloud and Banner
Order of Rank and Merit
Order of the Precious Brilliant Golden Grain
Order of Wen-Hu
Nickname"Model Governor"
Military service
AllegianceQing Empire
Republic of China
Branch/serviceNew Army
National Revolutionary Army
Years of service1909–1949
RankColonel general
Commands
Battles/wars
Yan Xishan
Traditional Chinese閻錫山
Simplified Chinese阎锡山
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinYán Xīshān
Bopomofoㄧㄢˊ ㄒㄧㄕㄢ
Wade–GilesYen2 Hsi1-shan1
Courtesy name
Chinese阎百川
Traditional Chinese閻百川
Transcriptions

Yan Xishan (Chinese: 閻錫山; pinyin: Yán Xīshān; Wade–Giles: Yen2 Hsi1-shan1; 8 October 1883 – 23 May 1960; also romanized as Yen Hsi-shan) was a Chinese warlord who served in the government of the Republic of China from June 1949 to March 1950 as its last premier in mainland China and first premier in Taiwan. He effectively controlled the province of Shanxi from the 1911 Xinhai Revolution to the 1949 Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War. He maintained an ambivalent attitude towards the Communists until 1939, and participated in the Second United Front against the Japanese from 1937. He subsequently negotiated with the Japanese from 1940 to 1943, and allied himself with the Japanese against the Communists from 1944 until fleeing Shanxi in 1949. The resistance of his well-armed forces in Taiyuan posed a major obstacle to Communist victory in the Civil War.

As the leader of a relatively small, poor, remote province, he survived Yuan Shikai, the Warlord Era, the Nationalist Era, the Japanese invasion of China and the subsequent civil war, being forced from office only when the Nationalist armies with which he was aligned had completely lost control of the Chinese mainland, isolating Shanxi from any source of economic or military supply.

Early life

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Childhood

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Experience in Japan

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Yan also joined an even more militant organization of Chinese revolutionaries, the "Dare-to-Die Corps."[1]

Return to China

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When Yan returned to China in 1909, he was assigned as a division commander of the New Army in Shanxi[2] but secretly worked to overthrow the Qing.[1]

Career in early republic

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Yan Xishan in the early 1920s, shortly after taking power in Shanxi

Conflict with Yuan Shikai

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In 1911 Yan hoped to join forces with another prominent Shanxi revolutionary, Wu Luzhen, to undermine Yuan Shikai's control of north China, but the plans were aborted after Wu was assassinated.[1] In 1917, shortly after Yuan Shikai's death, Yan solidified his control over Shanxi, ruling there uncontested.[3] After Yuan's death in 1916, China descended into a period of warlordism.

Efforts to reform Shanxi

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Residence of Yan in Dingxiang, Shanxi.

Yan attempted to modernize the state of medicine in China by funding the Research Society for the Advancement of Chinese Medicine, based in Taiyuan, in 1921. One of less than twenty schools in China at the time[4], the school had a four-year curriculum and included courses in both Chinese and western medicine. Its courses were taught in English, German, and Japanese. Yan hoped that his support of the school would eventually lead to increased revenues in the domestic and international trade of Chinese drugs, improved public health, and improved public education.[5]

Yan sent students from Shanxi to complete science and engineering degrees at Japanese, American and English universities.[6] In 1936, he provided a scholarship for the future nuclear physicist He Zehui, the daughter of He Cheng, another early member of the Tongmenghui, to embark on a PhD in experimental ballistics at the Technische Universität Berlin.[7]

Involvement in Northern Expedition

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Main article: Northern Expedition
Yan Xishan's soldiers in Liaozhou (now Zuoquan County) in 1925 during the war with the Henan warlord Fan Zhongxiu

Yan's assistance to Chiang was rewarded shortly afterwards by his being named minister of the interior[8] and deputy commander-in chief of all Kuomintang armies.

Yan's support for Chiang's military campaigns and his suppression of Communists influenced Chiang to recognize Yan as the governor of Shanxi and to allow him to expand his influence into Hebei.[1]

Involvement in Central Plains War

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Main article: Central Plains War
Yan Xishan as "China's Next President" on the cover of the Time magazine, 19 May 1930

During the Central Plains War, the Kuomintang encouraged Muslims and Mongols to overthrow both Feng Yuxiang and Yan.[9] Chiang's defeat of Yan and Feng in 1930 is considered the end of China's Warlord Era.

Yan was unable to match the quality of leadership in Chiang's officer corps and the prestige that Chiang and the Nationalist Army had at the time.[10] Before Chiang's armies defeated Feng and Yan, Yan Xishan was billed on the cover of the Time magazine as "China's Next President."[11]

Return to Shanxi

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Subsequent relationship with Nationalist government

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Yan sent representatives to negotiate for unity against the Japanese invasion and prevent Chiang's execution.[12]

Public policies

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Military policies

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Attempts at social reform

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He engaged in a sustained campaign against foot binding, with foot inspectors and fines for those who continued the practice.[13]

Attempts to eradicate opium use

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Limitations of economic reforms

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Ideology

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Influence of Confucianism

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Influence of Christianity

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Influence of Chinese Nationalism

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Influence of socialism and communism

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Extent of success

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Threats to rule

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Early conflict with Japan

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Early conflict with Communists

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Invasion by Mengjiang

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Second Sino-Japanese War

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Alliance with Communists

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[14] He allowed Communist agents working under Zhou Enlai to establish a secret headquarters in Taiyuan[15] and released Communists that he had been holding in prison, including at least one general, Wang Ruofei.[16]

Early campaigns

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Fall of Taiyuan

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Chinese troops march to defend the mountain pass at Xinkou.

Re-establishment of Yan's authority

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Negotiations with Japanese

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In 1940 Yan's friend, Ryūkichi Tanaka, became chief of staff of the Japanese First Army, which was stationed in Shanxi. After Yan's animosity with the Communists became apparent, Tanaka began negotiations with Yan in an effort to enter an anti-Communist alliance with Japan.[17]

Relationship with Japanese after 1945

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Chinese Civil War

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Yan Xishan in 1947

Shangdang Campaign

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Taiyuan Campaign

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Main article: Taiyuan Campaign
During the Siege of Taiyuan, Yan told foreign journalists that he and his followers would swallow cyanide pills before they let the Communists take Shanxi. Many of his followers committed suicide when Taiyuan fell.
Yan, photographed around the period when he served as Premier of the Republic of China.

Later life

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Premier of Republic of China

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Retirement in Taiwan

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Yan retired from public life in 1950. He spent much of his retirement writing, analyzing contemporary political issues, and promoting Yan Xishan Thought.
Yan Xishan's tomb in Shilin District, Taipei

His late philosophical perspective has been described as "anti-communist and anti-capitalist Confucian utopianism." Several months before the Korean War Yan published a book, Peace or World War, in which he predicted that North Korea would invade South Korea, South Korea would be quickly overcome, the United States would intervene on the side of South Korea, and Communist China would intervene on the side of North Korea. All of those events later occurred over the course of the Korean War.[18]

Yan died in Taiwan on 24 May 1960.[19] He was buried in the Qixingjun region of Yangmingshan. For decades, Yan's residence and grave were cared for by a small number of former aides, who had accompanied him from Shanxi. In 2011, when the last of his aides turned 81 and was unable to care for the residence, the responsibility of maintaining the site was taken over by the Taipei City Government.[20]

Legacy

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See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ Vice President Li Zongren was in exile during the acting presidency. Per the Order of Succession of Presidents of the Republic of China, Premier Yen thus assumed the acting presidency before Chiang Kai-shek returned office as president.
  2. ^ As the Premier of the People's Republic of China on Mainland China from 1 October 1949.

References

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[21][22][23][24][19][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][10][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86][69][87]

Citations

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  1. ^ a b c d Wang 399
  2. ^ Gillin 1960, p. 292.
  3. ^ Spence 406
  4. ^ "100 Years of Philanthropy for Health: 1914–2014". China Medical Board. 27 February 2014. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 January 2025.
  5. ^ Harrison 2015, p. 61.
  6. ^ Gillin 1967, p. 168.
  7. ^ Wang, Huibin (2020), "Born to do science? A case study of family factors in the academic lives of the Chinese scientific elite", Cultures of Science, 3 (3): 192, doi:10.1177/2096608320960243
  8. ^ Time, 24 December 1928, p. 293.
  9. ^ Lin 22
  10. ^ a b Gillin 1960, p. 294.
  11. ^ Time, 19 May 1930.
  12. ^ Gillin 1967, pp. 239–241.
  13. ^ Ko, Dorothy (2007). Cinderella's sisters: a revisionist history of footbinding. A Philip E. Lilienthal book in Asian studies. Berkeley, Calif London: University of California Press. pp. 50–63. ISBN 978-0-520-94140-3.
  14. ^ Feng & Goodman 2000, pp. 156–157.
  15. ^ Gillin 1967, p. 263.
  16. ^ Wortzel 33
  17. ^ Gillin 1967, pp. 279–280.
  18. ^ "A Chinese Warlord's Predictions for the Korean War – Frog in a Well Korea". 27 July 2013. Archived from the original on 27 July 2013. Retrieved 24 January 2023.
  19. ^ a b Gillin 1967, pp. 291–292.
  20. ^ Zhou
  21. ^ Gillin 1967, pp. 288–289.
  22. ^ Gillin 1967, pp. 289–290.
  23. ^ Gillin 1967, pp. 290–291.
  24. ^ Gillin 1967, p. 291.
  25. ^ Gillin and Etter 500
  26. ^ Gillin and Etter 506-508
  27. ^ Gillin 1967, pp. 271–272.
  28. ^ Gillin 1967, pp. 272–273.
  29. ^ Gillin 1967, pp. 273–274, 279.
  30. ^ Gillin 1967, pp. 273–275.
  31. ^ Gillin 1967, pp. 275–276.
  32. ^ Gillin 1967, p. 277.
  33. ^ Gillin 1967, pp. 278–279.
  34. ^ Gillin 1967, p. 280.
  35. ^ Gillin 1967, pp. 280–281.
  36. ^ Gillin 1967, pp. 281–282.
  37. ^ Gillin 1967, p. 138.
  38. ^ Gillin 1967, pp. 38–40.
  39. ^ Gillin 1967, p. 193.
  40. ^ Gillin 1967, p. 211.
  41. ^ Gillin 1967, pp. 212–214.
  42. ^ Gillin 1967, p. 218-220.
  43. ^ Gillin 1967, pp. 220–221.
  44. ^ Gillin 1967, pp. 216–218.
  45. ^ Gillin 1967, p. 230.
  46. ^ Gillin 1967, pp. 230–234.
  47. ^ Gillin 1967, pp. 234–236.
  48. ^ Gillin 1967, pp. 293–295.
  49. ^ Spence 488
  50. ^ Gillin 1967, p. 286.
  51. ^ Gillin 1960, p. 304.
  52. ^ Gillin 1967, p. 59.
  53. ^ Gillin 1967, p. 63.
  54. ^ Gillin 1967, p. 60.
  55. ^ Gillin 1967, p. 61-62.
  56. ^ Gillin 1967, p. 63-64.
  57. ^ Gillin 1967, p. 129.
  58. ^ Gillin 1967, p. 134.
  59. ^ Gillin 1967, p. 163-164.
  60. ^ Gillin 1967, p. 164.
  61. ^ Gillin 1967, pp. 166–167.
  62. ^ Gillin 1967, pp. 65–66.
  63. ^ Gillin 1960, p. 289.
  64. ^ Gillin 1960, p. 290.
  65. ^ Gillin 1960, p. 291.
  66. ^ Gillin 1967, p. 18.
  67. ^ Gillin 1960, p. 302.
  68. ^ Gillin 1967, p. 22.
  69. ^ a b Gillin 1960, p. 293.
  70. ^ Gillin 1967, p. 111.
  71. ^ Harrison 2015, p. 62.
  72. ^ Gillin 1960, p. 295.
  73. ^ Andrews 171-172
  74. ^ Gillin 1967, pp. 118–122.
  75. ^ Gillin 1967, pp. 122–123.
  76. ^ Gillin 1967, pp. 123–124.
  77. ^ Feng & Goodman 2000, pp. 157–158.
  78. ^ Bonavia 138-139
  79. ^ Goodman 840
  80. ^ Gillin 1967, p. 288.
  81. ^ Gillin 1967, p. 282.
  82. ^ Lew 22-23
  83. ^ Lew 23
  84. ^ Yang 454
  85. ^ Lew 24
  86. ^ Lew 50-52
  87. ^ Time, 29 September 1930.

Sources

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