page_title: Yan Xishan
section_title: Involvement in the Central Plains War
hierarchical_section_title: Yan Xishan / Career in the early Republic / Involvement in the Central Plains War
caption_attribution_description: English: Time magazine, May 19, 1930. The cover shows Yen Hsi-shan (Yan Xishan).
context_page_description: Yan Xishan IPA; 8 October 1883 – 22 July 1960, 閻錫山) 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 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. 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 the way for the radical changes that would occur after his rule.
context_section_description: 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, capturing the provincial capital of Jinan in June 1930. After these 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 Jingwei was to serve as his prime minister. This conference attempted to draft a national constitution and involved the participation of numerous high-ranking Chinese militarists and politicians from among Chiang's rivals. These deliberations were interrupted by Chiang who, after decisively defeating Feng's armies, invaded Shandong and virtually annihilated Yan's army. When the governor of Manchuria, Zhang Xueliang, publicly declared his allegiance to Chiang (whose support Zhang required in order to contest the Russians and Japanese), Yan fled to Dalian in the Japanese-held Kwantung Leased Territory, only returning to an unconquered Shanxi after making peace with Chiang in 1931.  During this "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 is considered the end of China's Warlord Era.
  The events between 1927-31 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 cause of Yan's defeat was the low population and lack of development in the areas that he had under his control, making him incapable of fielding 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 possessed 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 this period, and the support and assistance that he had secured from other high-profile Chinese statesmen, implies that there was a credible expectation that Yan would lead a central government if Chiang failed to defeat Yan's alliance.
caption: Yan Xishan--"China's Next President".
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