Yang Hucheng | |
|---|---|
 Yang Hucheng | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1893-11-26)26 November 1893 |
| Died | 6 September 1949(1949-09-06) (aged 55) |
| Party | Kuomintang (1924 — 10 June 1949 |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  Republic of China |
| Branch/service |  Republic of China Army |
Yang Hucheng (traditional Chinese:楊虎城;simplified Chinese:杨虎城;pinyin:Yáng Hǔchéng;Wade–Giles:Yang Hu-ch'eng) (26 November 1893 – 6 September 1949) was a Chinese general during theWarlord Era ofRepublican China andKuomintang (KMT) general during theChinese Civil War. He was a main supporter ofZhang Xueliang during theXi'an Incident in late 1936, when the two generals plotted to forceChiang Kai-shek to cease hostilities against theChinese Red Army and agree to aSecond United Front against Japanese incursions into China with theChinese Communist Party. In retaliation of his involvement in the incident, Yang was forced into exile by Chiang and then imprisoned by the Nationalist spy agencyJuntong for 12 years, before being killed along with two of his children, his secretarySong Qiyun andSong's wife andyoungest son in September 1949.
Yang Hucheng joined theXinhai Revolution in his youth and had become a popular warlord ofShaanxi Province by 1926. Following the defeat ofFeng Yuxiang andYan Xishan in theCentral Plains War of 1930, Yang allied himself with theKuomintang'sRepublic of China government (theNanjing Nationalist government),[1] and became commander of the Kuomintang'sNorthwestern Army. Ordered to destroy the newly establishedChinese Communist Party (CCP)stronghold atYan'an withZhang Xueliang'sNortheastern Army in 1935, both Yang and Zhang were impressed with the Communists' determined defense and fighting capabilities. They were also convinced by the CCP proposal for a united Chinese defense against theJapanese invasion of China, in contrast to the Kuomintang strategy of "first internal pacification, then external resistance", a policy under which the encroaching Japanese forces were appeased in order to buy time to defeat the CCP.
In November 1936, Kuomintang chairmanChiang Kai-shek flew toXi'an in early December to speak to troops under the command of Yang and Zhang who no longer wanted to fight the CCP. On the night of December 12, 1936, bodyguards of Yang and Zhang stormed the cabin where Chiang was sleeping and attempted to arrest him. Although Chiang managed to initially evade capture, he was injured in the process and was arrested the following morning by Zhang's forces.[2]
Yang and Zhang forced Chiang into negotiations with CCP representativesZhou Enlai andLin Boqu, which resulted in peace between the Nationalists and Communists and theSecond United Front against the Japanese invasion, with Chiang taking command of the CCP forces. In the aftermath, Zhang Xueliang returned toNanjing with Chiang Kai-Shek, where he was arrested upon their arrival, and Yang was later secretly arrested. For a time, he was detained atXifeng concentration camp, which closed in 1946.[3]
Yang remained imprisoned inChongqing throughout the rest of the Second Sino-Japanese War. During his imprisonment, his youngest daughter Yang Zhenggui (杨拯贵) was born in 1941 in captivity, and his wife Xie Baozhen (谢葆真) died in early 1947 after protesting withhunger strike. In 1949, acting Chinese presidentLi Zongren, who favored negotiations with the CCP, ordered the release of Yang Hucheng, but the order was not implemented. On 10 June, the Central Supervisory Committee of the Kuomintang decided to permanently expel Yang from the party.[4]: 8938
Shortly after the Communist capture of the capital Nanking (Nanjing) near the end of theChinese Civil War, the KMT army prepared to abandon Chongqing, where Yang was imprisoned. On 6 September 1949, on the orders of Chiang Kai-Shek to exterminatepolitical prisoners, Yang Hucheng waskilled extrajudicially byJuntong spies, who stabbed him repeatedly to death alongside his youngest son Yang Zhengzhong (杨拯中) and 8-year-old daughter Zhenggui, his secretarySong Qiyun (宋绮云), Song's wifeXu Linxia (徐林侠) and their 8-year-old sonSong Zhenzhong (宋振中) at theSino-American Cooperative Organization headquarters inGeleshan, Chongqing.[4]: 9004 The six victims' bodies were thenanonymously disposed, reportedly bynitric aciddissolution.[5] Some of Yang's officers, including his deputy Yan Jiming (阎继明) and bodyguard Zhang Xingmin (张醒民), were also killed during the KMT's massacre of political prisoners in November that same year,[6] shortly before thePeople's Liberation Army's capture of Chongqing.
After the founding of thePeople's Republic of China, the salvaged remains of Yang and his family and associates were buried in what is now the Yang Hucheng Martyrs' Cemetery (杨虎城烈士陵园) inChang'an District, Xi'an, in a funeral officiated byPeng Dehuai.[7] Some of Yang's surviving family members joined the CCP and became high-ranking officials in theGovernment of the People's Republic of China.[8][9]
In June 1955,Yang Jinxing [zh], a KMT officer who had implemented the order to kill Yang Hucheng in Geleshan in 1949, was arrested by the Chongqing Public Security Department and charged with the murder of Yang Hucheng and others. Jixing had changed his name and hidden for many years before being arrested. After interrogation and public trial by the Chongqing Intermediate People's Court, he was sentenced to death and killed immediately.[10]
TheChinese Communist Party hold Yang Hucheng in very high esteem, calling him a "famous patriot general" whose "sacrifice in promoting theunited front and resistance against the Japanese cannot be erased".[11]Mao Zedong had personally praised Yang as "dying for an ideal, and thus great (以身殉志，不亦伟乎！)".
Yang's old family residence inPucheng and the prison camp where he died, are now heritage sites.
TheKuomintang remained scatheful towards Yang, calling him a "treasonous criminal". When Yang's grandson Yang Han (杨瀚) wrote toLien Chan andMa Ying-jeou in 2005 and 2006 seekingrehabilitation to Yang's name, the director of the Kuomingtang History Committee responded, "Zhang and Yang, beingROC generals, not only failed to proactivelyquell communists, but abducted the leader through abnormal methods. Such actions are almostcoup d'état, and would be punished even in today's China, thus will not be tolerated, let along the so-called question of 'rehabilitation'."[12] The director of theKMT Central Committee's Mainland Affair Bureau and former deputy secretary-general, Chang Jung-kung (張榮恭), however stated that he was "deeply sympathetic" to what happened to Yang, but "the political environment back then would not allow such action towards Central Government, especially the military leader Mr. Chiang".[13]
Kuo Kuan-ying (郭冠英), aNew Party journalist who worked as abiographer of Zhang Xueliang and also a long-time critic of the Kuomintang, stated that "Xi'an Incident was an act ofpatriotism, and the KMT should actively heal that historical scar".[13]
Yang's collaboratorZhang Xueliang was spared from execution due to his close friendship with Chiang Kai-shek's wifeSoong Mei-ling, and was placed inhouse arrest for the next six decades until after the deaths of both Chiang and his sonChiang Ching-kuo. In early 1993, Zhang, who was released by Chiang Ching-kuo's successorLee Teng-hui in 1990 and had since immigrated toHawaii, told in an interview that he was the sole instigator of the Xi'an Incident and should bear full responsibility, with Yang merely being his accomplice.[14]: 63 In November 25, 1993, Zhang faxed a commemoration to the 100th birthday of Yang, expressing deep sorrow and regret over Yang's death,[14]: 62 [15] citing that Yang was a "good man who wanted to be a willing patriot".[16]
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