Yen Hsi-shan

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Yen Hsi-shan

Yen Hsi-shan, (Traditional Chinese: 閻錫山; Simplified Chinese: 阎锡山; Hanyu Pinyin: Yán Xíshān; Wade-Giles: Yen Hsi-shan) (8 October 1883-22 July 1960) was a Chinese warlord who served in the government of the Republic of China.

Yen received his formal military training first in China and later at Imperial Japanese Army Academy. In Japan he became a member of Sun Yat-sen's Revolutionary Alliance (Tongmenghui) and following the 1911 Xinhai Revolution he seized power in the province of Shanxi. Though a member of the Beiyang Army and affiliated with Duan Qirui, he avoided the violent national politics of the time by enforcing a neutrality policy on Shanxi, which freed his province from the civil wars. Taiyuan, the site of the one arsenal in China that could manufacture field artillery, also helped to secure his neutrality and his hold on the province. This ended when he joined the Kuomintang (KMT) Northern Expedition as it became clear it would be victorious.

Although Yen was known as the "Model Governor" for his enlightened policies, he was nonetheless a military dictator. In 1926, he pledged his loyalty to Chiang Kai-shek's new government, but in 1929 he joined Feng Yuxiang and Wang Jingwei in their attempt to overthrow the Chiang administration. During the Central Plains War, Yen joined Feng Yuxiang to fight Chiang Kai-shek, but both were defeated when Zhang Xueliang decided to join Chiang. It was reported by Chiang's frontline troops that Yen's troops were addicted to opium, and during the decisive battle that determined the outcome of the Central Plains War in the rainy days, the drugs of Yen's troops were wet and since most of yen's troops took the drug via smoking, the soaked drugs made it impossible to do so, thus Yen's troops lost their stimulants and were soundly defeated. Yen was forced to flee Shanxi to Dalian after his defeat, but after a brief retirement in the early 1930s, Yen returned to power in Shanxi and undertook social and military reforms to counteract the spread of communism in the province. Ironically, Yan's success to check the spread of communism was largely due to his adoption of many policies advocated by the communists, which targeted the problems of the nationalist regime: under the agreement reached between Yan Xishan and the Shanxi communist leader Bo Yibo (who had the approval of Mao Zedong, Yan authorized communists in Shanxi to implement many reforms for his regime. As Yan implemented the reforms under his reign, the popular resentment against his regime decreased but this did not mean that Yan's relationship with Chiang Kai-shek had been improved as a result, and in fact, Yan supported Zhang Xueliang's seizure of Chiang Kai-shek in the 1936 Xi'an Incident.

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, most regions of Shanxi were overrun by the Japanese, but Yan refused to flee the province and after losing the provincial capital Taiyuan, he relocated his headquarter in the remote corner of the province, and then effectively resisted Japanese attempts to completely seize Shanxi. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese made no less than five attempts to negotiate peace terms with Yan and hoped that Yan would become a second Wang Jingwei, but Yan refused and stayed on the Chinese side.

After the Second World War, his troops (including tens of thousands of former Japanese troops) held out against the communists during the Chinese Civil War and attempted to rid Shanxi of communists by launching one of the first post World War II nationalist campaigns against the communists with Chiang Kai-shek's authorization. Much to the dismay of Kuomintang, Yan Xishan and his fellow commanders proved to be absolutely no match for his communist enemy Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping, losing 13 divisions of his best troops (with absolute numerical and technical superiority) totaled more than 35,000 in less than a month during the Shangdang Campaign. Yan's failure strengthened Mao's position in the peace negotiation in Chongqing and helped the communists to achieve better terms for themselves while winning the sympathy from the general populace. One of the main reasons for Yan's failure was the loss of popular support, because Yan Xishan viewed the many reforms communists helped him to implement during the Second Sino-Japanese War only as emergency measures to survive the Japanese pressure, and as Yan attempted to abolish these reforms that had won him great popular support, such as the tax and rent reduction for tenant peasants and small business owners, Yan's regime in the post war era lost the popular support it once enjoyed during the war and thus driven the general populace to the communist side.

Despite all those debacles, however, Yan Xishan refused Chiang Kai-shek's help after his defeat, fearing Chiang would take the opportunity to take over his turf. As a result, in the following campaigns against his communist enemy, Yan and his commanders once again proved to be absolutely no match for his fellow Shanxi colleague Xu Xiangqian, who was on the communist side. During the campaigns in the central Shanxi, Yan Xishan managed to have his best 100,000 elite troops with absolute numerical and technical superiority to be completely wiped out by Xu Xiangqian's mere 60,000 strong force in less than six weeks. Unwilling to concede defeat, Yan Xishan immediately sent another a quarter million crack troops of his against Xu Xiangqian's 60,000 strong force, hoping to defeat communists by not letting them to have the opportunity to regroup and recover from the previous battles, only to have another 200,000 out of the quarter million to be killed by Xu Xiangqian's communist force in less than 17 months that followed. Yen's loss of his best 300,000 troops within 18 months was a serious blow that Yan could never recover from, and it marked the beginning of the end of Yen's (as well as Kuomintang's) reign in Shanxi. Though it was Yen who refused Chiang's help out of fear of losing his turf, Yen nonetheless blamed Chiang for his failure after these defeats, and supported Chiang's rival Li Zongren.

Although Yen's force was nearly wiped out by the numerical and technologically inferior communist force led by his Shanxi colleague Xu Xiangqian, Yen did succeed in buying valuable time to strengthen the defense of the provincial capital Taiyuan because the communist force needed the time to recover, regroup and prepare for the final assault of the provincial capital. Yen was so confident in the defense of the city that he promised that he would die in the city. However, when the inevitable final assault on the provincial capital begun, Yen and his commanders again proved that they were absolutely no match for Xu Xiangqian: Yen's force of more than 130,000 with numerical and technical superiority not only failed to defend the city against the numerically and technically inferior 100,000 strong communist force led by Xu Xiangqian, but also was devastated by the communist forces in the desperate and hopeless battle. Just shortly before the fortress city of Taiyuan fell in April 1949, Yen betrayed his own promise of dying with the city and fled with the provincial treasury to Guangdong. After reaching Guangdong, he soon fled to Taiwan along with the rest of the Republic of China government on 8 December 1949. From 3 June 1949 to 7 March 1950, he served as Premier of the Republic of China first briefly in Guangdong and then in Taiwan. He died in Taipei, Taiwan.

After the communist took over, Yen, like most nationalist generals who did not switch their sides, were demonized in the communist propaganda. It was not until after 1979, when the reforms started in China, that Yen was viewed more positively (and thus, more realistically), and the contributions by Yen during his reign are beginning to be recognized by the current Chinese government. One of this achievements, namely Yen's success in containing one of the epidemics in Shanxi, was quoted recently by various Chinese governmental organizations as an example to follow to contain the bird flu and SARS epidemics in China, and as criticism of the incompetence of Chinese governmental officials in such epidemics.