Yang Hucheng

Who was Yang Hucheng?

Yang Hucheng was a Chinese general during the Warlord Era of Republican China and Kuomintang general during the Chinese Civil War.

A bandit of unknown origins, Yang Hucheng had become a popular warlord of Shaanxi Province by 1926. Following the defeat of Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan in the Central Plains War of 1930, Yang allied himself with the Kuomintang's Republic of China government becoming commander of the Kuomintang's Northwest Army. Ordered to destroy the newly established Communist Party of China stronghold at Yan'an with Zhang Xueliang's Northeast Army in 1935, both Yang and Zhang Xueliang were impressed with the Communists' determined defense and fighting capabilities. They were convinced by the Communist proposal for a united Chinese defense against the Japanese invasion of China.

As both sides ceased hostilities, Kuomintang chairman Chiang Kai-shek flew to Xi'an in early December to investigate the inaction. In the following Xi'an Incident, once Chiang refused the Communist proposal to join forces against the Japanese, Yang and Zhang Xueliang had Chiang Kai-shek arrested and held him captive until he agreed to an alliance between the Kuomintang and Communists. Flying back to the Kuomintang capital at Nanjing with Chiang Kai-shek, Zhang Xueliang was arrested upon their arrival. Yang was also secretly arrested later and he would remain in prison for over thirteen years until Chiang Kai-shek ordered him executed in September 1949, along with his wife and children and some of his officers, shortly before the Communist capture of Nanjing near the end of the Chinese Civil War. The Martyrs Cemetery of General Yang Hucheng is in Chang'an District, Xi'an. Some his other family members joined CCP.