Yen Hsi-shan
| Yan Xishan | |
|---|---|
| 閻錫山 | |
Gen. Yan Xishan
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| Premier of the Republic of China | |
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In office 3 June 1949 – 7 March 1950 |
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| President | Li Zongren |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
August 8, 1883 Xinzhou, Shanxi |
| Died | July 22, 1960 (aged 76) Taipei, Taiwan |
| Political party |
Kuomintang Progressive Party |
| Awards | Order of Blue Sky and White Sun |
| Military service | |
| Nickname(s) | "Model Governor" |
| Allegiance | Republic of China |
| Service/branch | National Revolutionary Army |
| Years of service | 1911–1949 |
| Rank | General |
| Commands |
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| Battles/wars | |
| Yan Xishan | |||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 閻錫山 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | 阎锡山 | ||||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Yán Xíshān |
| Wade–Giles | Yen Hsi-shan |
Yan Xishan (or Yen Hsi-shan, IPA: [i̯ɛ́n ɕíʂan]; 8 October 1883 – 22 July 1960) was a Chinese warlord who served in the government of the Republic of China. Yan effectively controlled the province of Shanxi from the 1911 Xinhai Revolution to the 1949 Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War. As the leader of a relatively small, poor, remote province, Yan Xishan survived the machinations of 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. Yan has been viewed by Western biographers as a transitional figure who advocated using Western technology to protect Chinese traditions, while at the same time reforming older political, social, and economic conditions in a way that paved the way for the radical changes that would occur after his rule.
Yan Xishan was born in the late Qing dynasty in northwestern Shanxi to a family which had been bankers and merchants for generations (Shanxi was known for its many successful banks until the late 19th century). As a young man he worked for several years at his father's bank while pursuing a traditional Confucian education at a local village school. After his father was ruined by a late 19th-century depression that ravaged the Chinese economy, Yan enrolled in a free military school that was run and financed by the Manchu government in Taiyuan. While studying at this school, Yan was first introduced to mathematics, physics, and various other subjects imported directly from the West. In 1904 Yan was sent to Japan to study at the Tokyo Shimbu Gakko, a military preparatory academy, after which he was entered into the Imperial Japanese Army Academy, from which he graduated in 1909.
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