Yan Xishan: China's Reformist Warlord | Unveiling a Controversial Legacy | Time Travels

In the heady years of the 20th century, few countries underwent as much political turmoil and upset as China

For years, it was divided between warring factions. The communists, who fought to build the workers' paradise and overcome the stagnant legacy of traditional Chinese leadership

And then the nationalists, who wanted to build a modern republic in the place of the old empire

But squabbling amongst these governments were the warlords. men who had gained personal armies of considerable size

and were able to rule provinces as largely independent countries, each with their own quirks and beliefs

Some of these rulers were little more than bandits seeking just to enrich themselves

Others were opportunists who fought for whatever side seemed more likely to win in that moment

One was named Yan Zishan. He is one of the few that can be truly said to have fought for a vision

As ruler of Shangzi, he sought to modernise the province and turn it into a beacon for the rest of China to follow

while maintaining what he felt was China's essential cultural bedrock. Now, how did he try to modernize China

And how did it all come crashing down? Well, hello time travelers, I'm your friend Mike Brady

and this is the story of Yan Zishan, the forward-looking warlord of Shang-Zhi

Yan Zishan was born in 1883 into a family of minor bankers and merchants and began his

education in a local village school. When his father's bank went broke, however, he was left with few options

Not wanting to be restricted to his village, he instead enrolled in the tuition-free Taiwan

Military Academy. The Manchu government had hoped that this academy would train a new generation of modern

officers capable of reversing China's decline. At the academy, he studied Western subjects not usually taught in China

It obviously had an impact on the young man and it broadened his mind to the wider world

In 1904, he travelled to Japan to study and graduated from the Japanese Imperial Military Academy

While in Japan, though, he quickly realised that without major reform, China was doomed

to fall further and further behind the Western world. Japan's development in particular was upsetting to him

It was only a few decades before China had been the more powerful of the two

But now Japan was an industrial powerhouse capable of competing with the West

This experience in Japan impressed on Zishan the importance of modernization. Abandoning the old ways of superstition and lumbering old government

Zishan was committed. He would never abandon his attempts to lead China into the modern world

He also saw what Japan had done to the Korean people underneath their rule, and feared that

the same might happen to China if nothing changed. He took his life's newfound purpose very seriously

Zishan joined the revolutionary societies that opposed the Qing imperial government, and when the revolution came in 1911, he organised an army revolt in Shang-Chi that would remove

all imperial power from the province. For this, the new government awarded him the position of military governor of Shang-Chi

making the official ruler of the province. It was a meteoric rise to power for the 28-year-old former student

and he had big plans. Following the revolution, there was a brief period

when China stood unified under the rule of Yuan Shikai who went so far as to declare himself emperor of a new dynasty

However, when he died in 1916, all unity collapsed. The regional governors owed no loyalty to the central government

and began fighting amongst themselves. Yan Zishan kept Shang-Zi largely neutral in the conflict, occasionally committing token forces to whatever side was willing to make a deal

but mostly just focusing on modernizing his own small corner of China

While this was happening the rest of the country collapsed All the military governors kept their own regions under their control and China was reduced to a constantly shifting web of alliances with colonial empires nipping at the peripheries

Japan had been in a very similar position once upon a time, with shogun and samurai warring for power

but that had been over 40 years earlier. China was divided, and their potential future enemy

was only gaining in resolve, unity, and organisation. Zishan's worst fears were coming true

By 1911, Shang-Zhi had a population of about 11 million people, all of which lived under the rule of Yan Zishan

For almost the next 30 years, Shang-Zhi would be an island of relative stability in war-torn China

and Yan Zishan would attempt to reform it into the perfect Chinese society that would save the country from its decline

In many ways, Yan saw himself as a sort of modernising emperor

He ruled Shang-Zi as though it was his own kingdom. But in the province, he saw the potential to save the whole of China

He was to be the bridge between the modern and traditional worlds. His innovations were designed to preserve the existing order and adapt it to the New Age

rather than overturn it completely like many political movements at the time

One of the first reforms he attempted was to turn Confucianism from a philosophy into a religion

comparable to Christianity. He saw that in the West, a common cultural rallying point

that encouraged clean living and diligence provided a good foundation to build society on

In an attempt to give China something similar to rally around, Confucian services were held in villages

in which people were encouraged to confess their sins and the services would end in a hymn to Confucius

These so-called heart-washing societies provided a public forum for people to confess their faults

and provided social pressure to correct them. Yan also saw the importance of education in reforming China away from its feudal past

and bringing it into the future. While in power, Yan made massive investments in schools

far outpacing anything his contemporaries were building. In 1911, a staggering 99% of Shangzi was illiterate

To deal with this massive problem over the next decades, Yan built more than 26,000 schools in villages across the province

So by 1923, there were 800,000 children enrolled in school where they could learn to read and write

In one of his speeches, Yan declared that the three great duties of the people are to serve in the army, to pay taxes and to receive an education

See, education wasn't just important for bringing economic prosperity to the province

but was also essential for building up the sort of nationalism that Yan saw was necessary to save China from foreign domination

If you could get the people educated and solidified behind the country, then they could present a united front to the enemy

Students in these schools were continually reminded of the concessions that had been forced upon China by foreign powers

and they were taught that they must work to undo them. They weren't just educational institutions

but machines to help mould students into citizens capable of serving the country

Zishan also attempted to establish new universities, but these were severely hampered by unqualified professors

The mathematics faculty in one of these universities was so allegedly incompetent that they spent an entire semester

trying to work out the dimensions of a small lake on the ground. In the name of a useful and strong population

he also objected to the poor treatment of women. Yan was deeply hostile to the practice of foot binding

an ancient and traditional Chinese practice because it mutilated women for no reason

rendering huge sections of the population useless and encouraging a social divide

He banned foot binding almost immediately after taking power. Yan also wanted women to be able to sustain themselves, so he established women's schools

in every province where peasant girls were taught to read and learn a trade For the first time in Shangzi Yan also codified a system of laws that were taught to the peasants Previously the power of officials to interpret the law and the inability of peasants

to dispute it led to huge issues with corruption. And Yan hoped that by teaching the peasants their

rights and responsibilities, he would bring about a new era of prosperity by eliminating corrupt

officials. Villagers were also allowed to pass their own minor laws and elect their own local

officials. In the time of warlords, though, social reform was not enough. Every province required a

strong army to keep themselves from being invaded by an ambitious warlord and taken over. Yan took a

different approach than the majority of his fellow warlords. The Shangzi army was made up of a civilian

militia who came together for periodic training rather than a professional force loyal only to

the warlord. They were not the best trained or well-equipped army in China, but due to this policy

Yan was capable of calling up over 100,000 troops to defend the province

He also used the militia to build and repair roads and to assist with harvests when they weren't training or fighting

In the early years of his rule, Zishan's army was one of the few in China to have genuine popular support

Yan himself was well known for visiting villages and respected among peasants for not coming from aristocracy

He was known in and outside Shangzi as the model governor for his reforms

Zishan built his own weapons factory rather than relying on imported weapons from foreign nations

and his province did not engage in wars often with the other warlords, preferring instead to turn the Shangzi into a mountain fortress in the midst of the conflict

Banditry in the provinces had also been a major issue when he took power

The lack of opportunities for soldiers often meant that after their services

they would take to the wilderness and steal. Not only did Yan Zishan eliminate banditry through deploying the army and watching the roads

he also ensured that the soldiers were taught a trade while in the military to ensure that they would be able to find a job after their time in the army

By the end of his rule, banditry in Shangzi had been virtually eliminated

The mountainous terrain of Shangzi, the large militia and the arms factories in the province

managed to keep the region safe from invading powers. And with all this in mind, it might sound like Yan Zishan was basically the perfect governor

But unfortunately, he was still a warlord in the middle of war-torn China

And what he implemented wasn't all good. In addition to damaging cultural practices, he outlawed, quote

idleness, sloppiness, brawling, excessive merrymaking and the use of the old calendar

He formed early rising societies to make sure that people were out of bed by 6am

and reported the people who were not as idlers. In some cases, these people were made to perform labour for the state

I would have been in trouble. Yan also instinctively feared democracy. He was more than willing to use it as a propaganda tool, of course

but he refused to give the people an actual role in government. He set up village councils

but wouldn't give them authority to actually do anything except give advice. He had his portrait hung in every village in Shangzi

and ruled through martial law. People were taught that loyalty to Yan Zishan was the highest virtue

In this way, along with his natural conservatism, he saw himself as a new Chinese ruler

He wasn't attempting to radically reform China. He was just more trying to do enough to make China powerful

while retaining the hierarchical social structure. Now, due to Yan's reforms and attempts at modernization

things in Shang-Chi remained stable for the majority of the interwar years

But then his worst fears came true, and everything changed. Japan invaded China in earnest in 1937, and Shang-Zhi found itself on the firing line

Japanese troops flooded into the province, and despite the huge militia, the mountainous

terrain and the new policies the structural weaknesses of the warlord state made themselves apparent Corruption within the Zishan army had secretly grown to be too much

Commanders refused to work with one another and troops were so badly led and supplied

that important positions in Shangzi were simply abandoned without a fight. Shangzi troops themselves

were forced to rob for supplies and were by that point so badly disciplined

that many of the peasants of Shangzi were more hostile to their own men than the Japanese

Now, the Japanese paid labourers better than Yarn did, and many peasants willingly built fortifications for the Imperial Army

Indeed, the reports of peasant behaviour indicates that most didn't fully understand the context of the war in the first place

and saw Japanese troops simply as the soldiers of another warlord's province

The wealthy class in particular was hostile to Yarn due to his high taxation of the rich

and they largely became collaborators with the Japanese, helping to organise labour and the payments of taxes

In order to defend the province, the communist army came to fight alongside the Shangzi troops

and quickly became the far more popular of the two. The communist troops were well disciplined and fought effectively

They implemented rent reductions and badly needed land reform, and they opposed the rich that had hoarded much of the wealth of the province

The communists swept control of Shangzi out from under Yan through popular support

Seeing that he was losing control of his people, Yan went so far as to attempt an alliance with the Japanese independently of the rest of China's

forces. A ceasefire was signed in 1944. There's even a suggestion that Japan saw Yan as a successor

to Chinese Republican leader Chiang Kai-shek should Japan win the war. When the war ended in 1945

Yan even made a deal with the Japanese to have all occupied territory handed over to his men

Then, instead of repatriating the Japanese troops, he incorporated them into his own army to fight the communists

As late as 1947, the streets of Taiwan still were crowded with Japanese soldiers

dressed in Yan's uniforms but fighting under their own commanders. This only undermined his popularity further

By 1949, the communist forces were too strong to resist any longer

Shang-Zhi fell. for the first time since 1911, some 37 years prior

Shangzi wasn't under the rule of Yan Zishan. Yan fled to Nanjing, where he was briefly made Premier of the Republic of China

It was an inglorious end to what had been a bold and daring plan. Once the Chinese communists gained control of China, Zishan fled again to Taiwan

Now here, he was deserted by most of his followers and lived out a humble life, writing books on philosophy and history

He'd been a divisive figure. On the one hand, his reformist policies had been implemented for the greater good

with a view to bring the whole of China into the modern era. But poor decision-making and reason had resulted in the same old issues emerging

Corruption, megalomania overshadowed what could have been a legendary legacy and a different direction for China

He'd been a warlord turned statesman, but in the end, he was just a fugitive

Zishan lived out the rest of his life in Taiwan and died in 1960

But some die-hard followers still bestowed a final, lasting honour in Zishan

For decades, a small group of former aides tended to his grave and maintained it

until 2011, when the last of those men turned 81 and was too old to keep up the tradition

Today, the city of Taipei government maintains the site instead, the final resting place of the warlord who tried to modernise China

Hello time travellers, thank you so much for watching this video. If you enjoyed it leave a comment below and don't forget to subscribe to the channel

Until next time remember, history doesn't repeat but it certainly echoes