Yan Xishan

Early Life and the 1911 Revolution

Yan Xishan, courtesy name Baichuan, was born in 1883 in Wutai, Shanxi. He attended the Taiyuan Military Academy and then studied in Japan, first at the Shinbu Gakkō in Tokyo; while in Japan he joined the Tongmenghui, and in 1909 he graduated from the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. On his return he taught at the Shanxi Army Primary School and became drill instructor and then commander of the 2nd Regiment of the Shanxi New Army. When the 1911 Revolution broke out and the Shanxi New Army rose in support, he became military governor of Shanxi.

"King of Shanxi"

In the early Republic Yan served successively as civil governor, military superintendent and military governor of Shanxi, adding the post of civil governor in 1917, and ruled the province for decades. In 1917–1927 and again in 1932–1937, proclaiming a "Shanxi Monroe Doctrine", he promoted social reform and the development of industry and mining, kept Shanxi relatively independent amid the warlord divisions of the Beiyang era, and was known as the "King of Shanxi". During the Northern Expedition in 1927 he declared his support for the National Revolutionary Army. In 1930 he joined Feng Yuxiang and others against Chiang Kai-shek in the Central Plains War; after its defeat he resumed control of Shanxi's military and political affairs from 1932, and later became vice chairman of the Nationalist government's Military Affairs Commission.

The War Against Japan and the Civil War

After full-scale war with Japan began in 1937, Yan became commander of the Second War Zone, and that October he held overall command of the Battle of Xinkou, in which Chinese forces sought to halt the Japanese advance. In the postwar civil war he held Taiyuan. The People's Liberation Army launched its Taiyuan campaign in October 1948; Yan left Taiyuan for Nanjing in the spring of 1949, and the city fell on 24 April. The campaign lasted more than six months; by the Communist count, more than 135,000 of Yan's troops and local security forces were destroyed, and the Communist side describes it as ending Yan's 38 years of rule over Shanxi.

Premier and the Move to Taiwan

After He Yingqin resigned as premier in May 1949, Acting President Li Zongren nominated Yan to form a cabinet. The mainland historian Chen Xiaoping argues that Yan, who "had not a single soldier" of his own, was also made defense minister in order to keep military command out of the hands of Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi. In June 1949 Yan became Premier and Minister of National Defense in Guangzhou, and went on to oversee the government's moves from Guangzhou to Chongqing, Chengdu and finally Taiwan. On 7 December he chaired the Executive Yuan's last meeting before the move, in Chengdu, which resolved that "the government will move to Taipei"; on the 8th he flew to Taipei with Vice Premier Zhu Jiahua and the main cabinet members and announced that the Executive Yuan would begin work in Taiwan from the 9th. After Chiang Kai-shek "resumed his duties" as president in March 1950, Yan stepped down as premier and was succeeded by Chen Cheng.

Final Years

Yan then served as a senior adviser to the President. In 1951 he and his subordinates built a residence on Yangmingshan in Taipei, styled after the cave dwellings of Shanxi and named Zhongneng Cave, where he spent his last years. He died in Taipei in 1960. Looked after for more than six decades by his former aide Chang Jih-ming and later donated to the Taipei city government by his family and the Taipei City Yan Bochuan Foundation, the residence was designated a historic monument in 2004 and reopened after restoration in 2022; at the reopening, Deputy Mayor Tsai Ping-kun said Yan had witnessed many of the events that shaped modern Chinese history, from the 1911 Revolution to the government's retreat to Taiwan, and was not only a warlord but also a key member of the Nationalist government and a historical figure in his own right.