Zhang Xueliang
Zhang Xueliang or
Chang Hsüeh-liang (;
English occasionally:
Peter Hsueh Liang Chang) (
3 June 1901 â€"
15 October 2001), nicknamed the "Young Marshal" (少帥), became the effective ruler of
Manchuria and much of Northeast China after the
assassination of his father
Zhang Zuolin on
4 June 1928 by the
Japanese. As an instigator of the
Xi'an incident spent over half of his life under house arrest, but is regarded by the
People's Republic of China as a patriotic hero.
The Japanese militarists were offended that Zhang Zuolin had made peace with
Chiang Kai-shek and believed that Zhang Xueliang, who was an
opium addict, would be much more subject to Japanese influence. A group of Japanese army officers therefore killed Zhang Zuolin by exploding a bomb under his train on a railroad bridge. Surprisingly, the younger Zhang proved to be more independent than anyone had expected. He overcame his opium addiction and declared his support for Chiang Kai-shek. In order to rid his command of Japanese influence he had two prominent pro-Tokyo officials executed in front of the assembled guests at a dinner party in January 1929. Chang also tried to eliminate
Soviet influence from Manchuria, but relented in the face of a Soviet military build-up. At the same time, however, he developed closer relations with the
United States.
In 1930, when
warlords
Feng Yuxiang and
Yan Xishan attempted to overthrow Chiang Kai-shek's
Kuomintang government, Zhang Xueliang stepped in to support the
Nanjing government against the northern warlords in exchange for control of the key railroads in
Hebei Province and the customs revenues from the port city of
Tianjin. Following the
Mukden Incident and the Japanese invasion of Zhang's own domain of Manchuria in 1931, Zhang's armies withdrew from the front lines without significant engagements. There has been speculation that Chiang Kai-Shek wrote a letter to Zhang asking him to pull his forces back, but later Zhang stated that he himself issued the orders. Apparently Zhang was aware of how weak his forces were compared to the Japanese, and wished to preserve his position by retaining a sizeable army. Nonetheless this would still be in line with Chiang's overall strategic standings. Zhang later traveled in Europe before returning to China to take command of the Communist Suppression Campaigns first in
Hebei-
Henan-
Anhui and later in the Northwest.
On
6 April 1936, Zhang Xueliang met with
Zhou Enlai to plan the end of the
Chinese Civil War. In the
Xi'an incident (
12 December 1936), Zhang and another general
Yang Hucheng kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek and imprisoned the head of the Kuomintang government until he agreed to form a
united front with the communists against the Japanese invasion.
Chiang at the time took a non-aggressive position against Japan and considered the Communists to be a larger danger to China than the Japanese, and his overall strategy was to annihilate the Communists, before focusing his efforts on the Japanese. However, growing nationalist anger against Japan made this position very unpopular, leading to Zhang's action against Chiang.
The ensuing negotiations were delicate and were not recorded. The apparent outcome was that Chiang agreed to focus his efforts against the Japanese rather than the Communists and in return Zhang would become Chiang's prisoner and cease any political role.
Following Chiang Kai-shek's release, Zhang Xueliang was tried, convicted, and sentenced to ten years in prison. Chiang Kai-shek intervened and Zhang was placed under
house arrest. In 1949 with the evacuation of the
Republic of China, Zhang was transferred to
Taiwan where he remained under house arrest, spending his time studying
Ming dynasty poetry. Only in 1990, after the death of Chiang's son and successor,
Chiang Ching-kuo, did he gain his freedom. Zhang was the world's longest-serving
political prisoner.
After regaining his freedom, he emigrated to
Honolulu,
Hawaii in 1993. There were numerous pleas for him to visit
mainland China, but Zhang, claiming his political neutrality towards both the Communists and the Kuomintang, declined. He never set foot in mainland China again. He died of
pneumonia at the age of 100 and was buried in Hawaii.
