X-Nico

4 unusual facts about Yan Xishan


Yan Xishan

In the spring of 1938 the Japanese redistributed many of their forces away from Shanxi, and Yan succeeded in re-establishing his authority, setting up a headquarters in the remote, mountainous district of Qixian.

After Yan's time Shanxi became of site of Mao Zedong's "model brigade" of Dazhai: a utopian communist scheme in Xiyang County that was supposed to be the model for all other peasants in China to emulate.

Yan appreciated the efforts of missionaries (mostly Americans who maintained a complex of schools in Taigu) to educate and modernize Shanxi.

This refusal is variously explained as Yan's resentment over the arrogance of the Japanese, his conviction that the Japanese would lose the war in the Pacific after he heard about the Battle of Midway, and/or the result of a translation error that convinced Yan that the Japanese were using the negotiations as a ploy to ambush and attack him by surprise.



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