Yen Hsi-shan 閻錫山 T. Pai-ch'uan 百川 Yen Hsi-shan (1883- 24 May 1960), Shansi warlord and one of the outstanding political strategists of the republican period. In 1930 he joined with Feng Yü-hsiang (q.v.) in an unsuccessful northern coalition against Chiang Kai-shek. During the Sino-Japanese war, he served as commander in chief of the Second War Area. After being forced out of Shansi early in 1949, he became president of the Executive Yuan and minister of national defense in the National Government. He held those posts until the National Government was reorganized in Taiwan in March 1950. The village of Hopien in Wut'ai hsien, Shansi, was the birthplace of Yen Hsi-shan. His father. Yen Tzu-ming, managed a small bank. As a boy. Yen Hsi-shan studied the Chinese classics at the village school and served as an apprentice in the bank. After his father lost everything in the depression that overtook Shansi banking at the beginning of the twentieth century. Yen arranged settlements with his father's creditors. In 1901 he left home and enrolled at the government-supported provincial military college in Taiyuan. Three years later, he received a government scholarship for advanced study in Japan. He spent the next two years studying Japanese, science, and military technology at the Shimbu Gakko [military preparatory academy]. During this period, he joined the T'ung-meng-hui and enlisted as a member of the Dare-to-Die Corps. After a trip to north China in 1907 with his fellow revolutionary and former teacher Chao Tai-wen, he went back to Japan in 1908 and enrolled at the Shikan Gakko [military academy]. Upon graduation in 1909, he returned to Shansi to become an instructor at the Shansi Military Primary School. He passed the chü-jen degree examinations later that year and then became a training officer in the 2nd Regiment of the New Shansi Army. In 1910 he received command of that regiment, with the rank of colonel. When news of the Wuchang revolt reached Shansi, Yen Hsi-shan and the 1st and 2nd regiments of the New Shansi Army seized Taiyuan on 28 October 1911 and declared Shansi's independence the following day. Late in November, a large Ch'ing force headed by Ts'ao K'un (q.v.) began to move toward Shansi. Yen advanced into Chihli (Hopei) to meet this force, but he soon was forced back into Shansi. Only the abdication of the emperor and the subsequent termination of hostilities saved his army from destruction. When Yuan Shih-k'ai succeeded Sun Yat-sen as provisional president of the republican government, he appointed Yen military governor of Shansi. However, he virtually excluded Yen from the civil government of Shansi. Yen remained aloof from both Yuan's monarchical plot and the opposition to it. In July 1917, a year after Yuan's death, Yen drove from power the civil governor and other officials appointed by Yuan. Thereafter, Yen Hsi-shan was the sole ruler of Shansi. With the aid of Chao Tai-wen, he undertook a social reform program that eventually won Shansi the designation of "model province." During the disorderly decade that followed Yuan Shih-k'ai's death. Yen Hsi-shan shifted from one armed coalition to another, invariably emerging on the winning side. Although weaker than other warlords, he frequently held the balance of power between factions. For this reason, even those whom he betrayed hesitated to attack him lest they need his help in the future. Despite his political adroitness and ability to inspire loyalty in military subordinates, however, Yen might well have fallen from power had he not been a friend and supporter of one of the most powerful of the northern militarists, Tuan Ch'i-jui (q.v.). In 1917 Yen helped Tuan thwart the restoration attempt of Chang Hsün (q.v.). Tuan returned the favor by allowing Yen to oust the Shansi civil officials appointed by Yuan Shih-k'ai and by securing Yen's appointment as civil governor of Shansi. When the Peiyang militarists split into factions, Yen allied himself with the Anfu Club (see Hsü Shu-cheng) of Tuan Ch'i-jui. In 1919, in connection with Tuan's program for the unification of China by military force, Yen sent an army into Honan to bring a defiant militarist to terms.

In April 1920 Ts'ao K'un and other militarists formed an alliance directed against Tuan Ch'i-jui and Hsü Shu-cheng. Yen Hsi-shan immediately sensed where the balance of power lay and refrained from participation in the military action launched by Tuan and Hsü in July. He sided with the Chihli faction led by Ts'ao and Wu P'ei-fu (q.v.), for he feared the army of Wu's powerful subordinate Feng Yü-hsiang (q.v.). For this reason, he supported the Chihli faction in its 1922 and 1924 wars with the Manchurian warlord Chang Tso-lin (q.v.). To his dismay, in October 1924 Feng effected a coup at Peking, ousted Ts'ao and Wu from power, and entered into an alliance with Chang Tso-lin and Tuan Ch'i-jui. To assure Feng of his support. Yen occupied the important rail junction of Shihchiachuang, thereby preventing Wu P'ei-fu from bringing up reinforcements from the south. Nevertheless, Feng brought parts of northern Shansi under his dominance, and Yen dared not object. When war broke out between Feng Yü-hsiang and the coalition of Chang Tso-lin and Wu P'ei-fu early in 1926, Yen Hsi-shan played a double role in the hostilities, forming an alliance with Chang and Wu but dealing also with the Kuominchün. After Feng resigned his posts and went to Moscow, the Kuominchün retreated to Suiyuan by way of northern Shansi. Yen sent forces led by Shang Chen (q.v.) into Suiyuan, providing a shield for the Kuominchün and occupying most of Suiyuan, which Chang Tso-lin coveted. Yen then appointed Shang military governor of the Suiyuan special district.

After the National Revolutionary Army launched the Northern Expedition in mid- 1926, Yen Hsi-shan attempted to avoid committing himself by offering to mediate between the Chang Tso-lin faction and the Nationalists. After much vacillation, on 5 June 1927 he announced his allegiance to the Nationalists and accepted an appointment as commander in chief of the revolutionary armies in the north. Once again. Yen found himself allied with Feng Yü-hsiang, who had returned from Moscow and had joined the Kuomintang in September 1926. Yen Hsi-shan's forces, reorganized as the Third Army Group, went into action in September 1927. Shang Chen captured the Fengtien general Yü Chen at Tatung and drove through Kalgan into Chihli (Hopei). Fu Tso-yi (q.v.) captured Chochow. These forces soon met with difficulties, however, because the Nationalist advance fell behind schedule. Shang was forced to withdraw, and Fu was forced to surrender at Chochow after withstanding a siege of three months' duration. After Chiang Kai-shek returned to power at the beginning of 1928, the final stage of the Northern Expedition was launched. Yen Hsi-shan's forces played a decisive role in this offensive, for they led the drive on Peking. On 4 June, the day of Chang Tso-lin's death, Chiang Kai-shek appointed Yen garrison commander of the Peking-Tientsin area. Yen formally occupied Peking on 8 June. He was richly rewarded for his role in the final drive on Peking with appointments as governor of Shansi, head of the Taiyuan branch of the Political Council, vice chairman of the Military Affairs Commission, and member of the Kuomintang Central Executive Committee and the Central Political Council.

The question of troop disbandment soon strained relations between Feng Yü-hsiang and Chiang Kai-shek to the breaking point. In May 1929 Feng in effect declared his independence of the National Government. Soon afterwards, thousands of Kuominchün troops led by Han Fu-chü, Ma Hung-k'uei (qq.v.), and Shih Yü-san defected to the National Government side, greatly weakening Feng's position in Honan. At this juncture, Chiang Kai-shek wired Feng, urging him to go abroad. Yen Hsi-shan then offered to go abroad with Feng, thereby serving notice that if the National Government tried to break up the Kuominchün, it would have to fight him as well. A settlement was reached by the contending parties. In October, however, Kuominchün officers denounced the policies of the National Government and called on Yen and Feng to rectify the situation. Fighting began in western Honan in mid-October, but Yen remained aloof from the conflict despite his alliance with Feng and despite his appointment by Chiang as deputy commander in chief of the national land, sea, and air forces. The conflict ended when the Kuominchün withdrew from Honan in late November.

In February 1930 Yen Hsi-shan announced his support of Feng Yü-hsiang, thereby forming what came to be known as the northern coalition or the Yen-Feng movement. On 10 February, Yen proposed that Chiang Kai-shek retire. The Kwangsi clique (see Li Tsung-jen), Chang Fa-k'uei (q.v.), and the Reorganizationist faction of Wang Ching-wei (q.v.) joined in the opposition to Chiang. At the beginning of April, Yen took office as commander in chief of the anti-Chiang forces, with Feng as his deputy. The National Government removed Yen from his posts and issued an order for his arrest. The fighting began in May in Honan and Shantung. While Chiang and the Kuominchün fought savagely in Honan, Yen's forces advanced almost without opposition into Shantung and took Tsinan. The Kwangsi forces were eliminated from the campaign in mid-June after a defeat near Hengyang (see Huang Shao-hung). In July, representatives of various dissident groups met in the so-called enlarged conference to organize an opposition government at Peiping. The deliberations of the conference were interrupted by news of a decisive military setback in August. Chiang Kai-shek suddenly mounted an offensive in Shantung and virtually destroyed the forces of Fu Tso-yi. It now became apparent that only the intervention of Chang Hsueh-liang (q.v.) could save the northern coalition. Thus, when Yen Hsi-shan assumed office as chairman of the state council at Peiping on 9 September, he appointed Chang to the council. Chang, however, refused to support the northerners, and on 18 September he called for peace and sent his forces into north China. Yen Hsi-shan withdrew from the new government at Peiping, severed relations with the Kuominchün, and ordered what remained of his army to return to Shansi. He then announced his decision to retire from public life and went to live in Dairen.

After the Japanese attacked Mukden on 18 September 1931, Yen Hsi-shan returned to Shansi. By this time, his former subordinates Hsü Yung-ch'ang (q.v.) and Fu Tso-yi were governing Shansi and Suiyuan, respectively. Through these men. Yen reasserted his authority over his native region. In 1932 the National Government appointed him pacification commissioner of Shansi and Suiyuan, a post he retained until 1937. In the hope of amassing sufficient strength to withstand both Japanese and the Chinese Communist threats to Shansi, in 1934 Yen initiated a ten-year plan of economic development. He constructed roads and a railway, developed light industry, increased Shansi's agricultural and mining production, and redistributed land holdings. To finance and control these projects, he endeavored to establish a government monopoly of commerce, industry, and agriculture. He curtailed the power of the village gentry, developed a public school system, increased women's rights, and curbed drug addiction. To strengthen Yen's ties to the National Government, Chiang Kai-shek invited him to the Fifth National Congress of the Kuomintang in 1935 and appointed him vice chairman of the Military Affairs Commission in 1936. When the Sino-Japanese war began in July 1937, Yen Hsi-shan was appointed commander in chief of the Second War Area. Before long, only a small part of Shansi was left unoccupied by either the Japanese or the Chinese Communists. This situation finally led to a clash between Yen's troops and Communist forces in 1939. Because of continuing Communist pressure, Yen apparently established cordial relations with the Japanese, prompting allegations of collaboration. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, he used Japanese troops to defend the provincial capital and otherwise resist the advancing Communists. During this period, he served as Taiyuan defense commissioner and commander in chief for "banditsuppression" in north China. He endeavored to combat the Communists' popular appeal by going ahead with his plans for social and economic reforms. The result was a peculiar combination of traditionalism and radicalism which apparently failed to satisfy the basic demands of the Shansi population. By April 1949, he had been forced out of the province. That June, he became president of the Executive Yuan and minister of national defense in the National Government. He stayed on the mainland until 8 December 1949, when he flew to Taipei. There he continued to serve as premier until March 1950, when Ch'en Ch'eng (q.v.) succeeded him in that post and Chiang Kai-shek resumed the presidency of the National Government in Taiwan. Thereafter Yen served as a presidential adviser and member of the Central Advisory Committee of the Kuomintang until his death on 24 May 1960.

Yen Hsi-shan's unusual feat of retaining control of all or part of his native province of Shansi from 1912 to 1949 gained him a reputation as one of the outstanding political strategists of north China during the Nationalist period. A comprehensive biography treating both political and military aspects of Yen's active career, Warlord: Yen Hsi-shan in Shansi Province, 1911-1949, by Donald G. Gillin, appeared in 1967.