Person1901 – 2001

Zhang Xueliang

Also called: Chang Hsüeh-liang, the Young Marshal

Son of the Fengtian warlord Zhang Zuolin who joined the Nationalist government after Japanese officers killed his father; in the 1936 Xi’an Incident he detained Chiang Kai-shek to demand resistance to Japan

Born in Liaoning as the eldest son of Zhang Zuolin, he was known as the “Young Marshal” and in his youth commanded the Fengtian army’s air corps and elite units. He took control of the Northeast on his father’s death in 1928 and, rejecting Japanese overtures, sided with the National Government. Withdrawing without a fight during the Manchurian Incident earned him the scorn of a “non-resistance general”, and he spent some time touring Europe. After the Xi’an Incident he was taken with the Nationalist government to Taiwan and kept under house arrest; freed in 1990, he died in Hawaii at the age of 100.

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3 related events

1
1926 – 1928Northern Expeditionrelated figure
In July 1926 the National Revolutionary Army under Chiang Kai-shek marched north from Guangzhou to destroy the warlords; in 1928 it took Beijing, and with Zhang Xueliang’s submission China was formally unified.
2
1931 – 1932Manchurian Incidentrelated figure
On 18 September 1931 Japan’s Kwantung Army blew up a section of the South Manchuria Railway at Liutiaohu near Shenyang, blamed Chinese troops, and launched an offensive that occupied most of Manchuria within six months.
3
1936Xi’an Incidentleader
On 12 December 1936 Chiang Kai-shek was detained in Xi’an by his own commanders, Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng, who pressed him to stop fighting the Communists and turn against Japan. Mediation by the Communist Zhou Enlai won Chiang’s release, paving the way for the Second United Front.

People who appear alongside

Chiang Kai-shek1887 – 1975
Leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party who unified China through the Northern Expedition and led the Nanjing government through the war with Japan; after losing the civil war he moved to Taiwan and ruled the Republic of China there
Inukai Tsuyoshi1855 – 1932
Party politician who led the movement to protect constitutional government and became prime minister (1931–1932) as Seiyūkai president; murdered in his residence by young naval officers in the May 15 Incident
Zhou Enlai1898 – 1976
First premier of the People’s Republic of China (1949–1976), long in charge of diplomacy, who arranged Nixon’s 1972 visit

Themes this person appears in

Republican China and Imperial Japan1912 – 1949
The age when the Republic of China, born of the 1911 Revolution, passed through warlord division, the May Fourth Movement, the United Front and the Northern Expedition, fought Japan’s invasion and split in civil war — as Japan moved from Taishō democracy through the Manchurian Incident and military coups to the war in China and the Co-Prosperity Sphere, and colonized Korea resisted through the March First Movement and armed struggle