Family of Centuries -- Zhang Xueliang

Author: Li Cuilian
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-01-01
Features: Zhang Xueliang (1901—2001), a Kuomintang general and organizer of the Xi'an Incident, was a renowned patriotic general. His childhood name was Shuangxi, later changed to Xiao Liuzi, styled Hanqing. He was from Haicheng, Liaoning in Northeast China. The eldest son of Zhang Zuolin, a warlord of the Fengtian clique. In 1928, after Zhang Zuolin was assassinated by Japanese forces in the Huanggutun Incident, Zhang Xueliang succeeded as the Chief Commander of the Three Northeast Provinces. That same year, he changed the provincial flags of the Northeast to align with the Nanjing Nationalist Government, becoming the Commander-in-Chief of the Northeast Border Defense and Vice Commander of the Land, Sea, and Air Forces. In 1931, the "September 18th Incident" broke out. In 1933, after Japanese forces occupied Jehol, Zhang Xueliang was forced to resign and traveled to Europe. In 1934, he returned to China, was assigned to, and was stationed in Xi'an. In 1935, during a battle in Northwest China against the Red Army, he accepted the Communist Party of China's proposal to "stop the civil war and unite against Japan." On December 12, 1936, he, along with General Yang Huicheng, launched the Xi'an Incident, forcing Chiang Kai-shek to cooperate with the CCP in resisting Japan. After the incident, he was placed under house arrest by Chiang. In 1947, the Kuomintang exiled Zhang to Taiwan, where he remained under house arrest. After Jiang Jingguo's death in 1988, he gradually gained personal freedom and repeatedly expressed his hope for early national unification and his longing to return to his hometown in Northeast China. He passed away in 2001.