157-440: [REDACTED] Nationalist government The Shangdang Campaign ( simplified Chinese : 上党战役 ; traditional Chinese : 上黨戰役 ) was a series of battles fought between Eighth Route Army troops led by Liu Bocheng and Kuomintang troops led by Yan Xishan (aka Jin clique) in what is now Shanxi Province , China. The campaign lasted from 10 September 1945, through 12 October 1945. Like all other Chinese Communist victories in
314-436: A "five-year plan" to modernize Chinese industry was perhaps inspired by the successes of the "Ten-Year Plan" that Yan had announced several years earlier. In Shanxi, Yan implemented numerous successful reforms in an effort to centralize his control over the province. Although embracing the traditional values of the landed gentry, he denounced their "oppression" of the peasantry and took steps to initiate land reform and weaken
471-556: A Heart-Washing Society, whose members gathered each Sunday to meditate and listen to sermons based on the themes of the Confucian classics. Everyone at the meetings was supposed to rise and confess aloud his misdeeds of the past week, inviting criticism from the other members. Yan attributed much of the West's vitality to Christianity and believed that China could resist and overtake the West only by generating an ideological tradition that
628-512: A capacity for innate goodness, but to fulfill that capacity people had to subordinate their emotions and desires to the control of their conscience. He admired the Ming dynasty philosophers Lu Jiuyuan and Wang Yangming , who disparaged knowledge and urged men to act on the basis of their intuition. Because Yan believed that human beings could achieve their potentials only through intense self-criticism and self-cultivation, he established in every town
785-695: A coalition government. The two parties agreed to open multiparty talks on post-World War II political reforms via a Political Consultative Conference . This was included in the Double Tenth Agreement . This agreement was implemented by the Nationalist Government, who organized the first Political Consultative Assembly from 10 to 31 January 1946. Representatives of the Kuomintang, CCP, Chinese Youth Party , and China Democratic League , as well as independent delegates, attended
942-425: A complex of heavy industries around Taiyuan but neglected to publicize the extent of his success outside of Shanxi, probably to deceive Chiang. Despite his measured successes in modernizing the industry of Shanxi, Yan repeatedly petitioned the central government for financial assistance to extend the local railroad, and for other reasons, but his requests were usually denied. When Yan refused to send taxes collected from
1099-562: A dual-party state apparatus under the ideology of Dang Guo , effectively making it a one-party state ; however, existing parties continued to operate and new ones formed. After the end of the Second World War, and particularly after the passage of the constitution in 1946, the National Government was reconstituted to include multiple parties, in preparation for a full democratic government to come. In February 1928,
1256-590: A friendly insurgent group in neighboring Shaanxi province. By avoiding a decisive military confrontation with Yuan, Yan preserved his own base of power. Though he was friends with Sun Yat-sen, Yan withheld support for him in the 1913 " Second Revolution " and instead ingratiated himself with Yuan, who allowed him to return as military governor of Shanxi, commanding a military that was then staffed by Yuan's own henchmen. In 1917, shortly after Yuan Shikai's death, Yan solidified his control over Shanxi , ruling there uncontested. After Yuan's death in 1916, China descended into
1413-568: A large and well-equipped army similar to the ones commanded by Chiang at the time. Yan was also 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. Before Chiang's armies defeated Feng and Yan, Yan Xishan appeared on the cover of TIME Magazine , with the subtitle "China's Next President." The attention given to him by foreign observers in that period and
1570-570: A local village school. After his father was ruined by a late 19th-century depression, which 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 the school, he was first introduced to mathematics, physics, and various other subjects imported directly from the West. In 1904, he was sent to Japan to study at
1727-804: A major factor in the government's failure. The communist land redistribution movement was an important factor in the Nationalists' defeat, particularly because it linked the interests of peasants in the north and northeast to the Communists' success. In 1949, the People's Liberation captured Beijing and later Nanjing as well. The People's Republic of China was proclaimed in Beijing on 1 October 1949. The Republic of China central government relocated to Taipei on 7 December 1949, to Taiwan where Japan had laid an educational groundwork . Almost all of
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#17327656287801884-503: A massive decline in Chinese agricultural prices (which were cheaper) and thus the income of rural farmers. In 1932, agricultural prices were 41 percent of 1921 levels. Rural incomes had fallen to 57 percent of 1931 levels by 1934 in some areas. Under this peculiar context for rural China, the Chinese Rural Reconstruction Movement was implemented by some social activists who graduated as professors of
2041-409: A month. The war was estimated to have killed between 20 and 25 million Chinese and destroyed all that Chiang had built up in the preceding decade. Development of industries was severely hampered after the war by devastating conflict as well as the inflow of cheap American goods. By 1946, Chinese industries operated at 20 percent capacity and had 25 percent of the output of pre-war China. One effect of
2198-462: A network of semi-religious organizations, known as "Heart-Washing Societies." Yan was emotionally attached to Confucianism by virtue of his upbringing, and he identified its values as a historically effective solution to the chaos and disorder of his time. He justified his rule via Confucian political theories and attempted to revive Confucian virtues as being universally accepted. In his speeches and writing, Yan developed an extravagant admiration for
2355-414: A network of village newspapers and traveling dramatic troupes. He co-ordinated dramatic public meetings in which participants confessed their own misdeeds and/or denounced those of others. He devised a system of public education , producing a population of trained workers and farmers literate enough to be indoctrinated without difficulty. The early date by which Yan devised and implemented the reforms, during
2512-509: A period of warlordism. The determination of Shanxi to resist Manchu rule was a factor leading Yuan to believe that only the abolition of the Qing dynasty could bring peace to China and end the civil war. Yan's inability to resist Yuan's military domination of northern China was a factor contributing to Sun Yat-sen's decision not to personally pursue the presidency of the Republic of China , which
2669-489: A pretext to expel the Kuomintang from the province on the grounds of public safety. After that event, the Kuomintang ceased to exist in Shanxi except as a dummy organization whose members were more loyal to Yan than to Chiang. Future difficulties in securing the loyalty of other Chinese warlords across China, the ongoing civil war with the Communists, and the ongoing threat of Japanese invasion motivated Chiang to let Yan retain
2826-480: A provisional constitution that established the one-party rule of the KMT and promised eventual democratization. In practice, this meant that Chiang Kai-Shek was able to continue authoritarian rule. Even had it been the KMT's intention, historians such as Edmund Fung argue that they may not have been able to establish a democracy under the circumstances of the time.( Fung 2000 , p. 30) Despite nominal reunification,
2983-484: A rival warlord convinced Yan that Shanxi was not sufficiently developed to compete for hegemony with other warlords, and he avoided the violent national politics of the time by enforcing a neutrality policy on Shanxi to free his province from the civil wars . Instead of participating in the ongoing civil wars, Yan devoted himself almost exclusively to modernizing Shanxi and developing its resources. The success of his reforms were sufficient for him to be dubbed by outsiders as
3140-409: A standardized system of diagnosis; sanitary science, including bacteriology; surgical skills, including obstetrics; and the use of diagnostic instruments. 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. Yan's interest in having such a school active in Shanxi
3297-503: A strategy of shifting alliances between various warring cliques and inevitably joining only winning sides. Although he was weaker than many of the warlords who surrounded him, he often held the balance of power between neighboring rivals, and even those whom he betrayed hesitated to retaliate against him in case they needed his support in the future. To resist the domination of the Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin , Yan allied himself with
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#17327656287803454-439: A way of life. He then decreased the size of the army until 1923 to save money until a rumor circulated that rival warlords were planning on invading Shanxi. Yan then introduced military reforms designed to train a rural militia of 100,000 men, along the lines of Japanese and American reserves. Yan attempted via conscription to create a civilian reserve, which would become the foundation of society in Shanxi. His troops were perhaps
3611-511: A wide range of social and political reforms. 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. Yan was elected military governor by his comrades but was unable to prevent a subsequent invasion by the troops of Yuan Shikai, who occupied most parts of Shanxi in 1913. During Yuan's invasion, Yan survived only by withdrawing northward and aligning himself with
3768-511: Is 70% political and only 30% military, while the job of preventing its growth altogether is 90% political." To prevent a Communist threat to Shanxi, Yan sent troops to fight the Communists in Jiangxi and (later) Shaanxi , organized the gentry and village authorities into anti-corruption and anti-communist political organizations, and attempted (mostly unsuccessfully) to undertake a large-scale program of land reform. Those reforms did not prevent
3925-456: Is considered the end of China's Warlord Era . The events between 1927 and 1931 are best explained as the strategies of warlords accustomed to the constantly-shifting chaotic alliances that had characterized Chinese politics since the breakdown of the central government a decade earlier. The main causes of Yan's defeat were the low population and the lack of development in the areas that he had under his control, which made him incapable of fielding
4082-719: Is disputed and is another aspect of the disputed political status of Taiwan . After World War II, the civil war between the ruling Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) resumed, despite attempts at mediation by the United States. The Nationalist Government began drafting the Constitution of the Republic of China under a National Assembly, but was boycotted by the CCP. With the promulgation of
4239-534: Is now known as the February 28 Incident . Mainstream estimates of casualties range from 18,000 to 30,000, mainly Taiwanese elites. The 28 February Incident has had far-reaching effects on subsequent Taiwanese history . From 1945 to 1947, under United States mediation, especially through the Marshall Mission , the Nationalists and Communists agreed to start a series of peace talks aiming at establishing
4396-627: Is unclear whether his officer corps either understood or sympathized with his objectives or entered his service solely in the interests of achieving prestige and a higher standard of living. Yan built an arsenal in Taiyuan that for the entire period of his administration remained the only center in China that could produce field artillery. The presence of the arsenal was one of the main reasons for Yan maintaining Shanxi's relative independence. While not particularly effective fighting rival warlords, Yan's army
4553-737: The Academia Sinica and the Central Bank of China . In 1932, China for the first time sent teams to the Olympic Games . The Nationalists faced a new challenge with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, with hostilities continuing through the Second Sino-Japanese War , part of World War II , from 1937 to 1945. The government of the Republic of China retreated from Nanjing to Chongqing . In 1945, after
4710-754: The Chinese Civil War (1927–49), with central authority strongest during the Nanjing Decade (1927–37), when most of China came under the control of the Kuomintang (KMT) under an authoritarian one-party state . At the end of World War II in 1945, the Empire of Japan surrendered control of Taiwan and its island groups to the Allies , and Taiwan was placed under the Republic of China's administrative control. The legitimacy of this transfer
4867-639: The Chinese Civil War between the Nationalist Party and the CCP. Chiang Kai-shek pushed the CCP into the interior as he sought to destroy them, and moved the Nationalist Government to Nanjing in 1927. Leftists within the KMT still allied to the CCP, led by Wang Jingwei , had established a rival Nationalist Government in Wuhan two months earlier, but soon joined Chiang in Nanjing in August 1927. By
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5024-483: The National Revolutionary Army . Chiang Kai-shek was appointed as the first Chairman of the National Government , a position he would retain until 1931. The Organic Law also stipulated that the Kuomintang, through its National Congress and Central Executive Committee, would exercise sovereign power during the period of political tutelage, and the KMT's Political Council would guide and superintend
5181-473: The Northern Expedition governed the country as a one-party state under the Kuomintang, and was subsequently given international recognition as the legitimate representative of China. The Nationalist government would then experience many challenges such as the Second Sino-Japanese War , and the Chinese Civil War . The government was in place until it was replaced by the current Government of
5338-651: The Political Tutelage of the Kuomintang. However, periodic famines continued: in Northern China from 1928 to 1930, in Sichuan from 1936 to 1937, and in Henan from 1942 to 1943. In total, these famines cost at least 11.7 million lives. GDP growth averaged 3.9 per cent a year from 1929 to 1941 and per capita GDP about 1.8 per cent. Among other institutions, the Nationalist Government founded
5495-600: The Republic of China was established in Guangzhou . The following year, as Generalissimo of the National Revolutionary Army, Chiang Kai-shek became the de facto leader of the Kuomintang (KMT), or Chinese Nationalist Party. He especially headed the right-wing of the Nationalist Party, while the Communists formed part of the Party's left-wing. Chiang led the Northern Expedition through China with
5652-602: The Second Sino-Japanese War against the Imperial Japanese Army , and in the Chinese Civil War against the People's Liberation Army . During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the armed forces of the CCP were nominally incorporated into the National Revolutionary Army (while retaining separate commands), but broke away to form the People's Liberation Army shortly after the end of the war. With
5809-677: The Tokyo Shimbu Gakko , a military preparatory academy, and he later entered the Imperial Japanese Army Academy from which he graduated in 1909. Over the five years that Yan studied in Japan, he became impressed by the country's successful efforts at modernization. He observed the progress made by the Japanese, whom the Chinese had previously considered unsophisticated and backward, and began to worry about
5966-457: The " retrocession " of Taiwan to the Republic of China and established a provincial government on the island. The military administration of the ROC extended over Taiwan, which led to widespread unrest and increasing tensions between local Taiwanese and mainlanders. The shooting of a civilian on 28 February 1947 triggered an island-wide unrest, which was brutally suppressed with military force in what
6123-504: The "Dare-to-Die Corps." When Yan returned to China in 1909, he was assigned as a division commander of the New Army in Shanxi but secretly worked to overthrow the Qing. During the 1911 Xinhai Revolution , Yan led local revolutionary forces in driving Manchu troops from the province and proclaimed it independent of the Qing government. He justified his actions by attacking the Qing's failure to repel foreign aggression , and he promised
6280-402: The "Model Governor," with Shanxi the "Model Province." In 1918, there was an outbreak of bubonic plague in northern Shanxi that lasted for two months and killed 2,664 people. Yan dealt with the epidemic by issuing instructions on modern germ theory and plague management to his officials. Yan instructed people that the plague was caused by tiny germs that were breathed into the lungs, the disease
6437-457: The 1930s, he attempted to set up in every village a "Good People's Movement" to promote the values of Chiang's New Life Movement . The values included honesty, friendliness, dignity, diligence, modesty, thrift, personal neatness, and obedience. In 1931 Yan returned from his exile in Dalian impressed with the apparent successes of Soviet Union 's first five-year plan and attempted to reorganize
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6594-536: The 1930s. Yan's efforts to stimulate Shanxi's economy mostly consisted of state-led investment in a broad variety of industries, and he generally failed to encourage private investment and trade. Though gains were made to improve the economy of Shanxi, his efforts were limited by the fact that he himself had little formal training in economic or industrial theory. He also suffered from a lack of experienced, trained advisers capable of directing even moderately complicated tasks related to economic development. Because most of
6751-529: The 83rd Army, and other divisions totalling more than 20,000 men. Learning these troop movements on 28 September 1945, the communists planned an ambush in the area between Tunliu and Xianghuan, leaving the Southern Hebei column and local militia to maintain the siege of Changzhi, while redeploying Taihang and Taiyue columns to the north. On 2 October 1945, the Nationalist reinforcements clashed with
6908-505: The Chiang's Nationalist Government relied heavily on the support of warlords such as Ma Hushan , Yan Xishan , and Chang Hsueh-liang to exert control on the provinces. The loyalty of these figures was often highly suspect, and they frequently engaged in acts of open defiance, as in the Xi'an Incident of 1936, or even rebellion . In alliance with local landlords and other power-brokers, they blocked moderate land reforms that might have benefits
7065-488: The Chinese public. [REDACTED] Communist Party / [REDACTED] Soviet Republic ( [REDACTED] Red Army ) → Liberated Area ( [REDACTED] 8th Route Army , New Fourth Army , etc. → [REDACTED] People's Liberation Army ) → [REDACTED] People's Republic of China Nationalist government The Nationalist government , officially the National Government of
7222-447: The Communists and form the united front to resist the impending Japanese invasion of China. In his correspondence with Zhang Xueliang in 1936, Yan indicated that the growing rift between him and Chiang was because of Yan's anxieties over the potential for a Japanese invasion and a concern for the subsequent fate of China and because Yan was not convinced of the correctness of focusing China's resources on anti-Communist campaigns. During
7379-524: The Confucian classics but described Shangdi in terms very similar to the Christian interpretation of God. Like Christianity, Yan Xishan Thought was permeated with the belief that accepting his ideology could make people become regenerated or reborn. In 1911, Yan came to power in Shanxi as a disciple of Chinese nationalism but subsequently came to view nationalism as merely another set of ideas that could be used to achieve his own objectives. He stated that
7536-907: The Fourth Plenary Session of the 2nd Kuomintang National Congress held in Nanjing passed the Reorganization of the National Government Act. This act stipulated the national government was to be directed and regulated under the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang, with the Committee of the National Government being elected by KMT Central Committee. Under the national government was seven ministries – Interior, Foreign Affairs, Finance, Transport, Justice, Agriculture and Mines, and Commerce. There were also additional institutions such as
7693-532: The Japanese by accepting a position as "advisor" of the Suiyuan Mongolian Political Council, an organization created by the central government to organize opposition to the Japanese. The Japanese began promoting "autonomy" for northern China in the summer of 1935. Some high-ranking Japanese military officials believed that Yan and other warlords in the north were fundamentally pro-Japanese and would readily subordinate themselves to
7850-478: The Japanese in exchange for protection from Chiang. Yan was a particular target because of his education in Japan and his much-publicized admiration of the country's modernization. However, Yan published an open letter in September in which he accused the Japanese of desiring to conquer all of China over the next two decades. According to Japanese sources, Yan entered into negotiations with the Japanese in 1935 but
8007-409: The Japanese until the early 1930s. While he was in exile in Dalian in 1930, Yan became aware of Japanese plans to invade Manchuria and feigned collaboration with the Japanese to pressure Chiang Kai-shek into allowing him to return to Shanxi before warning Chiang of Japan's intent. Japan's subsequent success in taking Manchuria in 1931 terrified Yan, who stated that a major objective of his Ten-Year Plan
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#17327656287808164-602: The Japanese would attempt to take control of Inner Mongolia by subverting Chinese authority in Chahar and Suiyuan . To prevent that, he took control of Suiyuan first, developed its large iron deposits (24% of all iron in China), and settled the province with thousands of soldier-farmers. When the Manchukuo Imperial Army , armed and led by the Japanese, finally invaded Chahar in 1935, Yan virtually declared war on
8321-519: The KMT itself was disunified, with the pro-Chiang factions of the CC Clique , Political Study Clique, and fascist-inspired Blue Shirts Society opposed by a left-wing faction under Wang Jingwei and a right-wing faction influenced by Hu Hanmin . To control the opposing KMT factions, Chiang relied increasingly on the National Revolutionary Army . Economic growth and social improvements were mixed. The Kuomintang supported women's rights and education,
8478-401: The KMT. Chiang decided to strike first and purged the Communists , killing thousands of them. At the same time, other violent conflicts took place in the south of China where peasant associations supported by the CCP were attacking landlords and local gentry, who formed a base of political support for the KMT right-wing and recruitment for Nationalist soldiers. These events eventually led to
8635-417: The Kuomintang in Shanxi. On 18 December 1931, a group of students, supported and perhaps orchestrated by officials loyal to Yan, gathered in Taiyuan to protest the Nanjing government's policy of not fighting the Japanese. The demonstration became so violent that Kuomintang police fired into the crowd. The public outrage that the "Massacre of December Eighteenth" generated was strong enough to give Yan's officials
8792-472: The Kuomintang reunified the country in 1928, China entered a period of relative prosperity despite civil war and Japanese aggression. In 1937, the Japanese invaded and laid China to waste in eight years of war. The era also saw additional boycott of Japanese products . Chinese industries continued to develop in the 1930s with the advent of the Nanjing decade in the 1930s when Chiang Kai-shek unified most of
8949-400: The Nanjing government while he maintained de facto control over Shanxi by alternatively co-operating with and fighting against Communist agents active in his province. Although he was not an active participant, Yan supported the 1936 Xi'an Incident in which Chiang was arrested by Nationalist officers, led by Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng and released only when he agreed to make peace with
9106-451: The National Government in the execution of important national affairs and that the council has the power to interpret or amend the organic law. Authority within the Nationalist government ultimately lay with Chiang Kai-shek. All major policy changes on military, diplomatic, or economic issues required his approval. According to historian Odd Arne Westad , "no other leader within the GMD had
9263-404: 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. He 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
9420-453: The Nationalist commander Shi Zebo anticipated the communists' ambush, and did not send out any reinforcements from Changzhi. Realizing that their original plan would not be successful, Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping promptly changed their strategy from decimating the nationalist force to retaking lost territory, taking Xiangyuan, Changzi, Tunli, Lucheng, Huguang and other counties by 19 September 1945, annihilating over 7,000 Nationalist troops in
9577-441: The Nationalist ideology, including women's rights , Yan allowed girls to enroll in middle school and college, where they promptly formed a women's association. Yan attempted to eradicate the custom of foot binding by threatening to sentence men who married women with bound feet and mothers who bound their daughters' feet to hard labor in state-run factories. He discouraged the use of the traditional lunar calendar and encouraged
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#17327656287809734-455: The People that replaced the principles of nationalism and democracy with the principles of virtue and knowledge. During the 1919 May Fourth Movement , when students in Taiyuan staged anti-foreign demonstrations, Yan warned that patriotism, like rainfall, was beneficial only in moderation. After the Kuomintang succeeded in forming a nominal central government in 1930, Yan encouraged Nationalist principles that he viewed as socially beneficial. In
9891-555: The Qing dynasty. He also attempted to popularize Sun's ideology by organizing an affiliated "Blood and Iron Society" within the ranks of Chinese students at the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. The goal of the student group was to organize a revolution that would lead to the creation of a strong and united China, similar to how Otto von Bismarck had created a strong and united Germany. Yan also joined an even more militant organization of Chinese revolutionaries,
10048-789: The Republic of China in the newly promulgated Constitution of the Republic of China of 1948. The oldest surviving republic in East Asia , the Republic of China was formally established on 1 January 1912 in mainland China following the Xinhai Revolution , which itself began with the Wuchang Uprising on 10 October 1911, replacing the Qing dynasty and ending nearly three thousand years of imperial rule in China. Central authority waxed and waned in response to warlordism (1915–28), Japanese invasion (1937–45), and
10205-475: The Republic of China , refers to the government of the Republic of China from 1 July 1925 to 20 May 1948, led by the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) party. Following the outbreak of the Xinhai Revolution , revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen was elected to be China's provisional president and founded the Provisional Government of the Republic of China . To preserve national unity, Sun ceded
10362-789: The Supreme Court, Control Yuan, and the General Academy. With the promulgation of the Organic Law of the National Government in October 1928, the government was reorganized into five different branches or Yuan, namely the Executive Yuan , Legislative Yuan , Judicial Yuan , Examination Yuan as well as the Control Yuan . The Chairman of the National Government was to be the head-of-state and commander-in-chief of
10519-524: The Taihang (太行), Taiyue (太岳), and Southern Hebei (冀南) military districts to prepare for the upcoming battles. The communist commander Liu Bocheng was assisted by his political commissar Deng Xiaoping, who was excellent at motivating the soldiers. Many Chinese communist troops worried about the safety of Mao Zedong, who was in Chongqing negotiating a peace treaty with Chiang Kai-shek. Deng Xiaoping told
10676-579: The Taiyue column to move to Mabi (马壁) from Siting to intercept the fleeing enemy. On 12 October 1945, the communist force caught up with the fleeing Nationalist force at the Jiangjunling (将军岭) and Peach River (桃川) regions, decimating the demoralized enemy and capturing the Nationalist commander Shi Zebo alive. The Shangdang Campaign cost the Kuomintang 13 divisions totalling more than 35,000 troops, with more than 31,000 of those 35,000 captured as POWs by
10833-403: The United States with tangible but limited progress in modernizing the tax, infrastructural, economical, cultural, and educational equipment and mechanisms of rural regions. The social activists actively coordinated with the local governments in towns and villages since the early 1930s. However, this policy was subsequently neglected and canceled by the Nationalist government due to rampant wars and
10990-400: The Warlord Era, contradicts later claims that these reforms were modeled on Communist programs and not vice versa. When Yan returned from Japan in 1909, he was a firm proponent of militarism and proposed a system of national conscription along German and Japanese lines. Germany's defeat during World War I and Yan's defeat in Henan in 1919 caused him to reassess the value of militarism as
11147-411: The Xi'an Incident itself, Yan actively involved himself in the negotiations by sending representatives to prevent Chiang's execution and the civil war that Yan believed would follow and to push for a united front to resist the Japanese invasion of China that Yan believed was imminent. The financial relationship between Shanxi and the central government remained complicated. Yan was successful in creating
11304-449: The abolition of polygamy, and foot binding. The government of the Republic of China under Chiang's leadership also enacted a women's quota in the parliament with reserved seats for women. During the Nanjing Decade , the spread of education increased the literacy rate across China and promoted the ideals of Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People of democracy, republicanism, science, constitutionalism, and Chinese Nationalism based on
11461-423: The administration itself. As Chiang Kai-Shek told the state council: "Our organization becomes worse and worse ... many staff members just sit at their desks and gaze into space, others read newspapers and still others sleep." Corruption was endemic at all levels of government. The tension between Chiang's centralizing tendencies and the warlords who supported him led to friction and inconsistent direction. Even
11618-495: The ambushing communist forces at a region northwest of Tunliu known as "Wangjiaqu" (王家渠). After the initial battle, the Nationalist reinforcements were engaged at regions along Laoyeling (老爷岭), Mopannao (磨盘脑), and Yulin (榆林) line. The Nationalists maintained a tight formation, making communication more efficient due to the shorter distance between units. The Nationalists benefitted from superior equipment, and effectively concentrated their superior firepower to inflict heavy casualties on
11775-403: The attacking communist force. The Communists were forced to redeploy the Southern Hebei column for reinforcement, leaving only the local militia to besiege Changzhi. The Communists changed tactics, attacking from 3 sides while leaving the north side open so that the enemy would escape to the north and be ambushed on the way. This tactic proved successful when, on 5 October 1945, Peng Yubin scaped to
11932-618: The authority to force through even the simplest decisions. The practical power of high-ranking officials like ministers or the head of the Executive Yuan was more closely tied to their relationship with Chiang than with the formal authority of their position. Chiang created multiple layers of power in his administration which he sometimes played off each other to prevent individuals or cliques from gathering power that could oppose his authority. The Nationalist government exercised relatively little control in China's border regions, where
12089-462: The availability of narcotics into the 1930s and after 1932 executed over 600 people caught smuggling drugs into Shanxi. The traffic persisted, but Yan's interests in opposing it were perhaps limited by a fear of provoking the Japanese, who manufactured most of the morphine and heroin available in China in their concession area in Tianjin and came to control much of the drug trade in northern China in
12246-596: The clashes immediately after Imperial Japan 's surrender in World War II , the outcome of this campaign altered the course of the peace negotiation held in Chongqing from 28 August 1945, through 11 October 1945, resulting in a more favourable outcome for Mao Zedong and the party. After the end of World War II , the conflict between the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang resumed
12403-464: The communists because it was the first campaign in which a communist force engaged an enemy using conventional tactics and succeeded, marking a transition from the guerrilla warfare commonly practiced by the Communists. On the political front, the campaign was a great boost for the communists in their negotiations at the peace talks in Chongqing. The Kuomintang suffered from the loss of territory, troops, and materiel. The Kuomintang also lost face before
12560-403: The communists failed to take the city (attributed largely to the superior arms of the Nationalist defenders). A stalemate was reached following the successful defense of Changzhi. After Yan Xishan learned of the emergency facing Shi Zebo at Changzhi, he sent out reinforcements led by the deputy commander-in-chief of the 2nd Army Group, Peng Yubin (彭毓斌). Peng's units consisted of the 23rd Army,
12717-545: The communists. Of the two Nationalist commanders, Peng Yubin was killed and Shi Zebo was captured alive. The communists suffered over 4,000 casualties, with none captured by the Nationalists. In addition to decimating the Nationalist force with relatively light casualties, the communist force also obtained an important supply of weapons that its force desperately needed, capturing 24 mountain guns , more than 2,000 machine guns , and more than 16,000 rifles , submachine guns , and handguns . The campaign had additional importance for
12874-425: The conditions responsible for them. Like Karl Marx , Yan wanted to eliminate what he saw as unearned profit by restructuring Shanxi's economy to reward only those who worked. Unlike Marx, Yan reinterpreted Communism to correct what he believed was Marxism 's chief flaw: the inevitability of class warfare . Yan praised Marx for his analysis of the material aspects of human society but professed to believe that there
13031-483: The conference in Chongqing. However, shortly afterward, the two parties failed to reach an agreement and the civil war resumed. In the context of political and military animosity, the National Assembly was summoned by the Nationalists without the participation of the CCP and promulgated the Constitution of the Republic of China . The constitution was criticized by the CCP, and led to the final break between
13188-420: The consequences if China were to fall behind the rest of the world. That formative experience was later cited as a period of great inspiration for his later efforts to modernize Shanxi. Yan eventually concluded that the Japanese had successfully modernized largely because of the government's abilities to mobilize its populace in support of its policies and to the close respectful relationship that existed between
13345-523: The constitution, the Nationalist Government abolished itself and was replaced by the Government of the Republic of China . Following their loss of the Civil War, the Nationalist Government retreated and moved their capital to Taipei while claiming that they were the legitimate government of the mainland. After Sun's death on 12 March 1925, four months later on 1 July 1925, the National Government of
13502-532: The country and brought political stability. China's industries developed and grew from 1927 to 1931. Though badly hit by the Great Depression from 1931 to 1935 and Japan's occupation of Manchuria in 1931, industrial output recovered by 1936. By 1936, industrial output had recovered and surpassed its previous peak in 1931 prior to the Great Depression's effects on China. This is best shown by
13659-453: The defense of Christians during the anti-foreigner and anti-Christian demonstrations that polarized Taiyuan. Yan deliberately organized many features of his Heart-Washing Society on the Christian church, including ending each service with hymns praising Confucius. He urged his subjects to place their faith in a supreme being that he called " Shangdi " and justified his belief in Shangdi via
13816-795: The development of local Boy Scout organizations. Like the Communists, who later succeeded Yan, he punished habitual lawbreakers to "redemption through labour" in state-run factories. In 1916, at least 10% of Shanxi's 11 million people were addicted to opium , and Yan attempted to eradicate opium use in Shanxi after he came to power. At first, he dealt with opium dealers and addicts severely by throwing addicts in prison and exposing them and their families to public humiliation. After 1922, partly because of public opposition to harsh punishment, Yan abandoned punishing addicts in favor of attempting to rehabilitate them, pressuring individuals through their families, and constructing sanitariums designed to slowly cure addicts of their addictions. Yan's attempts to suppress
13973-540: The economy of Shanxi by using Soviet methods, according to a local "Ten-Year Plan" that Yan himself developed. Throughout the 1930s, Yan bluntly equated economic development with state control of industry and finance, and he had become successful in bringing most major industry and commerce under state control by the late 1930s. Yan's speeches after 1931 reflect an interpretation of Marxist economics , mostly drawn from Das Kapital , that he had gained in exile in Dalian. Following that interpretation, Yan attempted to change
14130-488: The economy of Shanxi to become more like that of the Soviets and inspired a scheme of economic "distribution according to labour". When the threat of Communists became a significant threat to Yan's rule, he defended them as courageous and self-sacrificing fanatics who were different from common bandits, contrary to Kuomintang propaganda and thought that their challenge must be met by social and economic reforms, which alleviated
14287-416: The educated staff to whom he had access to were solidly entrenched within the landed gentry of Shanxi, it is possible that many of his officials may have deliberately sabotaged his efforts for reform by preferring that the peasants working their fields continue their traditional cheap labour. Throughout his life, Yan attempted to identify, formulate, and disseminate a comprehensive ideology that would improve
14444-579: The failure of his ideology to become popular on the faults of his officials by charging that they abused their power and failed to explain his ideas to the common people. In general, the officials of Shanxi misappropriated funds intended to be used for propaganda, attempted to explain Yan's ideas in language too sophisticated for the common people, and often behaved in a dictatorial manner that discredited Yan's ideology and failed to generate popular enthusiasm for his regime. Yan did not come into serious conflict with
14601-526: The following year, Chiang's army had captured Beijing after overthrowing the Beiyang government and unified the entire nation , at least nominally, marking the beginning the Nanjing decade . According to Sun Yat-sen's "Three Stages of Revolution" theory, the KMT was to rebuild China in three phases: the first stage was military unification, which was carried out with the Northern Expedition;
14758-542: The forces of Chiang Kai-shek in 1927, during the Nationalists' Northern Expedition . While aiding Chiang, Yan's occupation of Beijing in June 1928 brought the Northern Expedition to a successful conclusion. Yan's assistance to Chiang was rewarded shortly afterwards by his being named minister of the interior 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
14915-706: The former sites of the nationalist government are headquartered in the city of Nanjing, the capital at the time, with only one exception. When the city of Nanjing was not captured by the Nationalist Government, they chose the following buildings as their headquarters. [REDACTED] Communist Party / [REDACTED] Soviet Republic ( [REDACTED] Red Army ) → Liberated Area ( [REDACTED] 8th Route Army , New Fourth Army , etc. → [REDACTED] People's Liberation Army ) → [REDACTED] People's Republic of China Yan Xishan Yan Xishan ( IPA: [jɛ̌n ɕíʂán] ; 8 October 1883 – 22 July 1960; also romanized as Yen Hsi-shan )
15072-701: The governor of Manchuria, Zhang Xueliang , publicly declared his allegiance to Chiang, whose support Zhang required to contest the Russians and Japanese, Yan fled to Dalian in the Japanese-held Kwantung Leased Territory and returned to an unconquered Shanxi only after he had made peace with Chiang in 1931. During the Central Plains War , the Kuomintang encouraged Muslims and Mongols to overthrow both Feng Yuxiang and Yan. Chiang's defeat of Yan and Feng in 1930
15229-581: The governor of Shanxi and to allow him to expand his influence into Hebei . Yan's alliance with Chiang was interrupted in 1929 when Yan joined Chiang's enemies to establish an alternative national government in northern China. His allies included the northern warlord Feng Yuxiang , the Guangxi Clique led by Li Zongren , and the left-leaning Kuomintang faction led by Wang Jingwei . While Feng and Chiang's armies were annihilating each other, Yan marched virtually unopposed through Shandong and captured
15386-617: The intensity that it had had before the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War ( Second United Front ). Under the direction of Chiang Kai-shek , the commander-in-chief of the second war zone, Yan Xishan , ordered the commander of the 19th Army, Shi Zebo (史泽波), to lead the 19th Army, part of the 61st Army, and other units, totaling more than 17,000 to invade the Communist base in the Shangdang (上党) region of southeastern Shanxi in mid-August 1945. Three Nationalist divisions were stationed in
15543-579: The intention of defeating the warlords and unifying the country. The National Revolutionary Army received significant aid from the Soviet Union ; Chiang himself was surrounded by Soviet military advisors. Much of the Nationalist Party, however, became convinced, not without reason, that the Communists, under recent orders from the Comintern, wanted to break from the United Front and get rid of
15700-571: The lack of resources following the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Second Chinese Civil War . In 1937, Japan invaded China and the resulting warfare laid waste to China. Most of the prosperous east China coast was occupied by the Japanese, who carried out various atrocities such as the Rape of Nanjing in 1937 and random massacres of whole villages. In one anti-guerrilla sweep in 1942, the Japanese killed up to 200,000 civilians in
15857-408: The largest city of the region, Changzhi , while the rest were stationed in the following cities/towns: Xiangyuan (襄垣), Changzi (长子), Tunliu (屯留), Lucheng , Huguang (壶关), and other counties; and, from these newly established bases, the Nationalists planned to take the entire southeastern Shanxi region from the Communists. The Communists anticipated the Nationalist attack and mobilized 31,000 troops from
16014-645: The local population, and in some areas, the local people resisted the measures. Yan's determination to modernize Shanxi was partly inspired by his interactions with the foreign doctors and personnel who arrived in Shanxi in 1918 to help him suppress the epidemic. He was impressed with the zeal, talents, and modern outlook of the personnel and subsequently compared foreigners favorably to his own conservative and generally apathetic officials. Conversations with other famous reformers, including John Dewey , Hu Shih , and Yan's close friend H.H. Kung , reinforced his determination to westernize Shanxi. Yan attempted to modernize
16171-432: The military and civilian populations. He attributed the surprising Japanese victory in the 1905 Russo-Japanese War to the enthusiastic mobilization of the Japanese public in supporting the military. After returning to China in 1910, he wrote a pamphlet warning China that it was in danger of being overtaken by Japan unless it developed a local form of bushido . Even before studying in Japan, Yan had become disgusted with
16328-515: The moral rehabilitation of the Chinese people. Believing that no single ideology existed to unify the Chinese people when he came to power, Yan attempted to generate an ideal ideology himself, and once boasted that he had succeeded in creating a comprehensive system of belief that embodied the best features of "militarism, nationalism, anarchism, democracy, capitalism, communism, individualism, imperialism, universalism, paternalism and utopianism." Much of Yan's attempts to spread his ideology were through
16485-435: The morale and loyalty of his officials and of the people of Shanxi. During his time of study in Japan, Yan became attracted to militarism and Social Darwinism , but he renounced them after World War I. Throughout the rest of his life, he identified with the position of most Chinese conservatives at the time: social and economic reform would progress from ethical reform, and the problems confronting China could be solved only by
16642-458: The most influential and powerful gentry in Shanxi were often the worst offenders, officials drawn from the privileged class of Shanxi seldom enforced Yan's decrees outlawing the use of narcotics and often evaded punishment themselves. Eventually, Yan was forced to abandon his efforts to suppress opium trafficking and attempted instead to establish a government monopoly on the production and the sale of opium in Shanxi. Yan continued to complain about
16799-421: The north exactly as the Communists had hoped. His force was soon defeated, and Peng Yubin himself was killed at Siting (虒亭) by the waiting Communist Taiyue column. Learning that his reinforcements were annihilated, the Nationalist commander Shi Zebo at Changzhi planned a breakout from the west on 8 October 1945, under the cover of darkness, hoping to reach Linfen . Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping immediately ordered
16956-522: The only army in the Warlord era drawn exclusively from the province in which it was stationed, and because he insisted for his soldiers to perform work to improve Shanxi's infrastructure, including road-maintenance and assisting farmers, and because his discipline ensured that his soldiers actually paid for anything that they took from civilians, the army in Shanxi enjoyed much more popular support than most of his rivals' armies in China. Yan's officer corps
17113-437: The open and widespread corruption of officials in Shanxi and had become convinced that China's relative helplessness in the 19th century was the result of the Qing dynasty 's generally hostile attitude towards modernization and industrial development and its grossly inept foreign policy. While he was in Japan, he met Sun Yat-sen and joined his Tongmenghui (Revolutionary Alliance), a semi-secret society dedicated to overthrowing
17270-485: The opium trade in Shanxi were largely successful, and the number of opium addicts in the province had been reduced by 80% by 1922. In the absence of efforts by other warlords to combat opium production and trade, Yan's efforts to combat opium use only increased the price of opium so much that narcotics of all kinds were drawn into Shanxi from other provinces. Users often switched from opium to pills mixed from morphine and heroin , which were easier to smuggle and use. Because
17427-480: The political fragmentation along ethnic lines that began after the fall of the Qing dynasty continued. The National Revolutionary Army ( NRA ) ( traditional Chinese : 國民革命軍 ; simplified Chinese : 国民革命军 ; pinyin : Guómín Gémìng Jūn ; Wade–Giles : Kuo-min Ke-ming Chün ), pre-1928 sometimes shortened to 革命軍 or Revolutionary Army and between 1928 and 1947 as 國軍 or National Army
17584-427: The power of landowners over the populace in the countryside. The reforms also weakened potential rivals in his province and benefited Shanxi farmers. Yan attempted to develop his army as a locally recruited force, which cultivated a public image of being servants, rather than masters, of the people. He developed an all-encompassing idiosyncratic ideology (literally "Yan Xishan Thought") and disseminated it by sponsoring
17741-407: The presidency to military strongman Yuan Shikai , who established the Beiyang government . After a failed attempt to install himself as Emperor of China , Yuan died in 1916, leaving a power vacuum which resulted in China being divided into several warlord fiefs and rival governments. They were nominally reunified in 1928 under the Nanjing -based government led by Chiang Kai-shek , which after
17898-538: The primary goal of the Heart-Washing Society was to encourage Chinese patriotism by reviving the Confucian church, which led foreigners to accuse him of attempting to create a Chinese version of Shinto . Yan attempted to moderate some aspects of Sun Yat-sen 's ideology that he viewed as potentially threatening to his rule. Yan altered some of Sun's doctrines before he disseminated them in Shanxi by formulating his own version of Sun's Three Principles of
18055-439: The process. The next day, communist forces attacked garrisons outside of Changzhi from the south, east and west. The communists planned to let the Nationalists escape to the north and ambush them while they were fleeing. Again, the communist plan failed to materialize when Nationalist commander Shi Zebo, still at Changzhi, again anticipated the ambush and decided to hold out. When the attack on Changzhi began on 24 September 1945, but
18212-425: The promulgation of the Constitution of the Republic of China in 1947 and the formal end of the KMT party-state, the National Revolutionary Army was renamed the Republic of China Armed Forces , with the bulk of its forces forming the Republic of China Army , which retreated to Taiwan in 1949 . Forced conscription campaigns were conducted by the military; they are described by Rudolph Rummel as such: Then there
18369-600: The provincial capital of Jinan in June 1930. After those victories, Yan attempted to forge a new national government, with himself as president, by calling an "Enlarged Party Conference." Under his plan, Yan was to be president, and Wang was to serve as his prime minister. The conference attempted to draft a national constitution and involved the participation of numerous high-ranking Chinese militarists and politicians from among Chiang's rivals. The deliberations were interrupted by Chiang, who decisively defeated Feng's armies, invaded Shandong, and virtually annihilated Yan's army. When
18526-441: The queues of anyone still wearing them. In one instance, Yan lured people into theatres to have his police systematically cut the hair of the audience. He attempted to combat widespread female illiteracy by creating in each district at least one vocational school in which peasant girls could be given a primary-school education and taught domestic skills. After Kuomintang military victories in 1925 generated great interest in Shanxi for
18683-436: The ratification that not only would it not recognize the ROC constitution, but all bills passed by the Nationalist administration would be disregarded as well. Zhou Enlai challenged the legitimacy of the National Assembly in 1947 by accusing the KMT of hand-picking the members of the National Assembly 10 years earlier; claiming they thus could not legitimately represent the Chinese people. The National Government governed under
18840-418: The regular troops who were on the front lines. The campaign officially started on 10 September 1945, when the first shot of the first battle was fired. The Chinese communists Taihang column first attacked Tunliu, while Taiyue (太岳) and Southern Hebei columns prepared for an ambush. One day later, the Taihang column entered a skirmish with the 6,000 Nationalist troops from Changzhi, but the Nationalist commander
18997-547: The rural economy was hit hard by the Great Depression of the 1930s, in which an overproduction of agricultural goods lead to massive falling prices for China as well as an increase in foreign imports (as agricultural goods produced in western countries were "dumped" in China). In 1931, imports of rice in China amounted to 21 million bushels compared with 12 million in 1928. Other goods saw even more staggering increases. In 1932, 15 million bushels of grain were imported compared with 900,000 in 1928. This increased competition leads to
19154-491: The rural poor. Instead, the poor peasants remained a consistent source of recruits for the Communist Party. While weakened by frequent massacres and purges—historian Rudolph Rummel estimated that 1,654,000 people were killed by the KMT in anti-Communist purges during this period—the Communists were able to survive and posed a major latent threat to the regime. However, perhaps the biggest challenges came from within
19311-426: The second was " political tutelage [ zh ] " which was a provisional government led by the KMT to educate people about their political and civil rights, and the third stage would be constitutional government.( Fung 2000 , p. 30) By 1928, the Nationalists claimed that they had succeeded in reunifying China and were beginning the second stage, the period of so-called "tutelage". In 1931, they promulgated
19468-399: The soldiers that the greater the victory for the upcoming battle, the safer Mao Zedong would be, and the stronger the position the communists would have at the negotiations. This did indeed raised the morale of the Communist troops in Shanxi. The communists also mobilized an additional 50,000 militia to ease logistical concerns associated with the campaign, and to fill vacancies left behind by
19625-463: The spread of Communist guerrilla operations into Shanxi. Led by Liu Zhidan and Xu Haidong , 34,000 Communist troops crossed into southwestern Shanxi in February 1936. As Yan had predicted, the Communists enjoyed massive popularity; although they were outnumbered and ill-armed, they succeeded in occupying the southern third of Shanxi in less than a month. The Communists' strategy of guerrilla warfare
19782-601: The spread of communism. "The New Deal is an effective way of stopping communism," Yan said, "by having the government step in and ride roughshod over the interests of the rich." Yan then undertook a series of public works projects inspired by the New Deal to reduce unemployment in his own province. In spite of his efforts, Yan did not succeed in making his school of thought widely popular in Shanxi, and most of his subjects refused to believe that his true objectives differed substantially from those of past regimes. Yan himself blamed
19939-585: The state of medicine in China by funding the Research Society for the Advancement of Chinese Medicine, based in Taiyuan, in 1921. Highly unusual in China at the time, 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. The main skills that Yan hoped physicians trained at the school would learn were
20096-400: The support and assistance that he had secured from other high-profile Chinese statesmen implied that there was a credible expectation that Yan would lead a central government if Chiang failed to defeat Yan's alliance. Yan returned to Shanxi only through a complex effort of intrigue and politicking. Much of Chiang's failure to immediately and permanently eject Yan or his subordinates from Shanxi
20253-578: The support and protection of Zhang. That move was not protested by Chiang because of his involvement in suppressing the forces of Li Zongren , who had marched up to northern Hunan from his base in Guangxi in support of Yan. Yan remained in the background of Shanxi politics until the Nanjing government's failure to resist the Japanese takeover of Manchuria after the Mukden Incident gave Yan and his followers an opportunity to informally overthrow
20410-438: The title of Pacification Commissioner in 1932, and he appointed Yan to the central government's Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission . In 1934, Chiang finally flew to Taiyuan, where he praised Yan's administration in return for Yan's public support for Nanjing. By publicly praising Yan's government, Chiang in effect admitted that Yan remained the undisputed ruler of Shanxi. After 1931, Yan continued to give nominal support to
20567-415: The trade of salt, produced in Shanxi's public factories, to the central government, Chiang retaliated by flooding the market of northern China with so much salt, produced around coastal China, that the price of salt in China's northern provinces dropped extremely low. Those artificially low salt prices made neighboring provinces virtually stop purchasing Shanxi salt altogether. In 1935, Chiang's announcement of
20724-599: The trends in Chinese GDP . In 1932, China's GDP peaked at US$ 28.8 billion, before falling to $ 21.3 billion by 1934 and recovering to $ 23.7 billion by 1935. By 1930, foreign investment in China totaled $ 3.5 billion, with Japan leading ($ 1.4 billion) and the United Kingdom at 1 billion. By 1948, however, the capital stock had halted with investment dropping to only $ 3 billion, with the US and Britain leading. However,
20881-470: The two sides. The full-scale civil war resumed from early 1947. After the National Assembly election , the drafted Constitution was adopted by the National Assembly on 25 December 1946, promulgated by the National Government on 1 January 1947, and went into effect on 25 December 1947. The Constitution was seen as the third and final stage of Kuomintang reconstruction of China. Chiang Kai-shek
21038-533: The virtues of moderation and harmony associated with the Confucian Doctrine of the Mean . Many of the reforms that Yan attempted were undertaken with the intention of demonstrating that he was a junzi , the epitome of Confucian virtue. Yan's interpretations of Confucianism were mostly borrowed from the form of Neo-Confucianism , which had been popular during the Qing dynasty. He taught that everyone had
21195-464: The war of eight years, Japan surrendered and the Republic of China, under the name "China", became one of the founding members of the United Nations . The government returned to Nanjing in 1946. Following the defeat of Japan at the end of World War II , Taiwan was surrendered to the Allies , with ROC troops accepting the surrender of the Japanese garrison. The government of the ROC proclaimed
21352-405: The war was a massive increase in government control of industries. In 1936, government-owned industries were only 15% of GDP. However, the ROC government took control of many industries in order to fight the war. In 1938, the ROC established a commission for industries and mines to control and supervise firms, as well as instilling price controls. By 1942, 70 percent of the capital of Chinese industry
21509-477: The way for the radical changes that would occur after his rule. Yan Xishan was born during the late Qing dynasty in Wutai County , Xinzhou , Shanxi , to a family who 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 he pursued a traditional Confucian education at
21666-813: The way, sometimes less than 50 percent reaching camp alive. Then recruit camp was no better, with hospitals resembling Nazi concentration camps like Buchenwald. Probably 3,081,000 died during the Sino-Japanese War; likely another 1,131,000 during the Civil War – 4,212,000 dead in total. Just during conscription. Because of the Nationalist government's increasing inability to fund the military, especially after Japan's success in Operation Ichigo , Nationalist authorities overlooked military corruption and smuggling. The Nationalist army increasingly turned to raiding villages to press-gang peasants into service and force marching them to assigned units. After
21823-575: Was a Chinese warlord who served in the government of the Republic of China . He 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, 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
21980-559: Was a moral and spiritual unity of mankind that implied that a state of harmony was closer to the human ideal than conflict. By rejecting economic determinism in favor of morality and free will, Yan hoped to create a society that would be more productive and less violent than he perceived communism to be and to avoid the exploitation and the human misery that he believed was the inevitable result of capitalism. Yan interpreted Franklin Roosevelt 's New Deal as promoting socialism to combat
22137-484: Was also elected as the 1st President of the Republic of China under the constitution by the National Assembly in 1948, with Li Zongren being elected as vice-president. The Nationalist Government was abolished on 20 May 1948, after the Government of the Republic of China was established with the presidential inauguration of Chiang. The CCP, though invited to the convention that drafted it, boycotted and declared after
22294-474: Was drawn from Shanxi's gentry and given two years of education at government expense. Despite efforts to subject his officers to a rigorous Japanese-style training regimen and to indoctrinate them in Yan Xishan Thought, his armies never proved to be especially well-trained or disciplined in battle. In general, Yan's military record is not considered positive (he had more defeats than victories) and it
22451-567: Was equally inspiring. He appreciated the efforts of missionaries, mostly Americans who maintained a complex of schools in Taigu , to educate and modernize Shanxi. He regularly addressed the graduating classes of the schools but was generally unsuccessful in recruiting the students to serve his regime. Yan supported the indigenous Christian church in Taiyuan and at one time seriously considered using Christian chaplains in his army. His public support of Christianity waned after 1925, when he failed to come to
22608-530: Was established after the end of the Qing dynasty . The demonstrated futility of opposing Yuan's military domination must have made it seem more important to Sun to bring Yuan into the process of ruling the republic and to come to terms with his (potential) enemy. By 1911, Shanxi was one of the poorest provinces in China. Yan believed that unless he modernized and revived Shanxi's economy and infrastructure, he would be unable to prevent Shanxi from being overrun by rival warlords. A military defeat in 1919 inflicted by
22765-439: Was extremely careful; and, once contact with the communist force was made, the Nationalist unit immediately withdrew back to Changzhi. Although the communists' ambush failed, they did take the town of Tunliu on 12 September 1945. On 13 September 1945, the Chinese communists used the same tactics again, with the Taihang column attacking Changzi (长子), while the Taiyue (太岳) and Southern Hebei columns prepared for another ambush. However,
22922-571: Was extremely effective against and demoralizing for Yan's forces, who repeatedly fell victim to surprise attacks. The Communists in Shanxi made good use of co-operation supplied by local peasants to evade and easily locate Yan's forces. When the reinforcements sent by the central government forced the Communists to withdraw from Shanxi, the Red Army escaped by splitting into small groups, which were actively supplied and hidden by local supporters. Yan himself admitted that his troops had fought poorly during
23079-408: Was incurable, and the only way to keep the disease from spreading was physical isolation of the infected. He ordered his officials to keep infected family members, neighbors, or even entire infected communities from each other by threat of police force if necessary. Yan's promotion of germ theory and his enforcement of physical isolation to reduce the effect of epidemics were not completely accepted by
23236-470: Was invaded. Although Yan admired their philosophy and economic methods, he feared the threat posed by Communists almost as much as that of the Japanese. In the early 1930s, he observed that if it invaded Shanxi, the Red Army would enjoy the support of 70% of his subjects and readily be able to recruit one million men from among its most desperate citizens. He remarked that "the job of suppressing communism
23393-506: Was largely from the influence of Zhang Xueliang and the Japanese, who were anxious to prevent the extension of Chiang's authority into Manchuria. In Yan's absence, the civil government of Shanxi ground to a halt, and the various military leaders of Shanxi struggled with one another to fill the vacuum, which forced Chiang's government to appoint Shanxi's leaders from among Yan's subordinates. Although he did not immediately declare his return to provincial politics, Yan returned to Shanxi in 1931 with
23550-444: Was limited to the area around Taiyuan. By 1949, three of the seven government-run hospitals were in the city. In 1934, the province produced a ten-year-plan that envisaged employing a hygiene worker in every village, but the advent of World War II and the subsequent civil war made it impossible to carry those plans out. To maintain Shanxi's neutrality and to free it from serious military confrontations with rival warlords, Yan developed
23707-458: Was never very enthusiastic about "autonomy" and rejected their overtures when he realized that they intended to make him their puppet. Yan likely used the negotiations to frighten Chiang into using his armies to defend Shanxi since he was afraid that Chiang was preparing to sacrifice northern China to avoid fighting the Japanese. If those were Yan's intentions, they were successful since Chiang assured Yan that he would defend Shanxi with his army if it
23864-425: Was owned by the government. Following the war with Japan, Chiang acquired Taiwan from Japan and renewed his struggle with the Communists. However, the corruption of the KMT, as well as hyperinflation as a result of trying to fight the civil war, resulted in mass unrest throughout the Republic and sympathy for the communists. Nearly all studies of the collapse of the Nationalist government identify hyperinflation as
24021-410: Was sparked after staying in a western hospital in Japan for three months in which he was impressed by seeing modern medical equipment, including X-rays and microscopes, for the first time. Yan continued to promote a tradition of Chinese medicine that was informed by Western medical science throughout his period of governance, but much of the teaching and publication that the school of medicine produced
24178-513: Was successful in eradicating banditry in Shanxi, which allowed him to maintain a relatively-high level of public order and security. Yan's successes in eradicating banditry in Shanxi included his co-operation with Yuan Shikai to defeat Bai Lang's remnant rebels after the failed 1913-1914 Bai Lang Rebellion . Yan went to great lengths to eradicate social traditions that he considered antiquated. He insisted for all men in Shanxi to abandon their Qing-era queues and gave to police instructions to clip off
24335-555: Was the Military Arm of the Kuomintang (KMT) from 1925 until 1947, as well as the national army of the Republic of China during the KMT's period of party rule beginning in 1928. Originally organized with Soviet aid as a means for the KMT to unify China against warlordism , the National Revolutionary Army fought major engagements in the Northern Expedition against the Chinese Beiyang Army warlords , in
24492-482: Was the process of conscription. This was a deadly affair in which men were kidnapped for the army, rounded up indiscriminately by press-gangs or army units among those on the roads or in the towns and villages, or otherwise gathered together. Many men, some the very young and old, were killed resisting or trying to escape. Once collected, they would be roped or chained together and marched, with little food or water, long distances to camp. They often died or were killed along
24649-467: Was to strengthen Shanxi's defense against the Japanese. In the early 1930s, he supported anti-Japanese riots, denounced the Japanese occupation of Manchuria as "barbarous" and "evil," publicly appealed to Chiang to send troops to Manchuria, and arranged for his arsenal to arm partisans fighting the Japanese occupation in Manchuria. In December 1931, Yan was warned that after taking control of Manchuria,
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