SURRENDER? WHAT SURRENDER? YANXISHAN'S RECONSOLIDA TION OF POWER IN TAIWAN JUL Y-A UGUST, 1945 BY JAMES ALEXANDER MITCHELL BFA, THEATRE, THE UNIVERSITY OF REGINA, 1986 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA AUGUST 1995 (c) James Alexander Mitchell, 1995 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of ft\ <^^f The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada DE-6 (2/88) 11 ABSTRACT In August 1945 North China found itself in a situation where 'defeated' Japanese troops were in possession of territory which was contested by several 'victors', including both rival Chinese and foreign military forces. Not only did this complicate the process of surrender, but it provided the opportunity and conditions for the resumption of civil war. The placement of Japanese troops in places throughout the country put them in a good position to counter CCP advances until such time that GMD troops could arrive to take the surrender. In Shanxi, warlord governor Yan Xishan - Jiang Jieshi's commander of the 2nd War Zone - had been living in quasi-exile in southwestern Shanxi. He took this formula one step further by negotiating a set of conditions, some of which had been in place before the surrender, under which the Japanese would 'surrender' only to his own troops, and in fact to join him to fight against the communists who surrounded the cities and rail lines. During the summer of 1945, in anticipation of surrender, Yan moved closer to Taiyuan, the capital, and began to negotiate his return there with the local Japanese commander, along with formal acceptance of the surrender. When the war ended, he was already moving his armies and himself toward the major cities, especially the Fen River basin around Taiyuan. The 8th Route Army in Shanxi held the majority of the province, for its own part, but their guerrilla strategy kept them away from the cities until after the surrender. Yan's familiarity with the Japanese allowed him a measure of flexibility throughout the war which facilitated collaboration. By 1945 a virtual ceasefire existed between them, and Yan moved his troops easily through their lines to attack the communists. In addition, both Yan and General Sumita in Taiyuan recognized that without each other they both faced certain defeat, and began preparing for the surrender in Shanxi. Power was to be transferred under this scheme to Yan alone. When the end of the war did come, then, Yan shuttled toward Taiyuan where, on August 30, he arrived by armoured car, protected by his own and Japanese troops. With Japanese soldiers still in positions along the rail lines and in many towns, He was not only able to protect himself as he returned to Taiyuan, but denied the communists the opportunity to expand from the countryside. There presently exists very little in English on this topic. Recent source material in Chinese, however, has made it possible to look in detail into the circumstances of these events, and confirms that the surrender in August 1945 represented neither the end of war nor the end of Japanese intervention in China. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS page ABSTRACT ii TABLEOF CONTENTS Ui LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS V NOTEON SOURCES.. '. VI 1) INTRODUCTION: THE END OF THE WAR IN CONTEXT / 2) SETTING THE STAGE: YAN, THE JAPANESE AND THECCPIN SHANXI a) Yan Xishan's Provincial Legacy. 8 b) The Anti-Japanese War in Shanxi 12 3) PREPARATIONS FOR SURRENDER, JULY 1945 18 4) NEW UNIFORMS, OLD SOLDIERS: CHANGING OF THE GUARD a) Surrender? What Surrender?. 23 b) Toward Taiyuan. 30 5) CONCLUDING REMARKS. 39 SOURCES CITED. 43 IV LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES PAGE # FIGURE 1 DISTRIBUTION OF POWER IN NORTH CHINA, 1945. 2 FIGURE2 YANXlSHAN, a LATE 1930'S. 9 FIGURE 3 SHANXI PROVINCE 13 FIGURE 4 YAN'S RETURN ROUTE 31 FIGURE 5 YAN, IN FULL UNIFORM: TAIYUAN, 1945. .'. 34 FIGURE 6 CARTOON, JIEFANG RIBAO, OCT. 7,1945. 40 TABLE 1 YAN'S PRINCIPAL COMMANDERS AND OFFICIALS. 20 TABLE 2 8M ROUTE ARMY COMMANDERS IN SHANXI. 22 TABLE 3 JAPANESE PERSONNEL IN SHANXI. 24 TABLE 4 YAN'S PROVINCIAL DEFENSE ARMY: A UGUST30,1945. 36 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS During the course of this research, I have had to make a difficult transition from being a generalist to acquiring a sense of being a 'specialist'. One of the steps in this process, inevitably, has been learning to tap into the knowledge and experience of the specialists working around me. I have had the extremely good fortune, both in Canada and in Taiwan, to discuss my work and its various aspects with many people, whose knowledge and insight has both clarified my own understanding and allowed me to enjoy the research and writing. I am extremely grateful to Dr. Lary, my supervisor, for giving me both a sense of discipline and the freedom to conduct research on my own terms. Her encouragement to look further into the issues of regionalism and imperialism has helped tremendously in my understanding of revolutionary China. My own emphasis on Chinese sources, as well, comes in part from her belief I have come to share, that one cannot do justice to research on cultures other than our own without adequate knowledge of the operative language in that culture. In addition, I am indebted to Drs. Glen Peterson and Diane Newell, from the Department of History at UBC, as well as Dr. Rene Goldman from the Asian Studies Department, for their comments and criticism at various stages. I would also like to thank Drs. Chen Yongfa and Zhang Yufa, both of the Academica Sinica in Taibei, for their early comments and especially for steering me away from my original thesis topic. The staff at the UBC Asian Library - S. Y. Tse, Tsai Yuh-jen and Hsiao Mei- chih - have been indispensable in guiding me through both research methodology and language difficulties. I am especially grateful to Mr. Gonnami, who taught me how to source Japanese names properly, and without whom I would still be trying. Several colleagues and friends have also been more than generous with their time and attention in working out the problems which have come up along the way. Many thanks to: Ian Petrie, Dan Schnick, Stewart Muir, and my father Ken for editing my mistakes; and Yu Li, Yin Wenji Direne Liu and Chihiro Otsuka for getting me through the sources. NOTE ON SOURCES In researching mainland source materials, one is conspicuously aware of the consistency of the Chinese sources - not only in reference to this period in Shanxi - to the point of near- repetition in certain episodesA; this certainly lends itself to the belief that they represent an 'orthodox' version of what occurred at the end of the anti-Japanese War. In fact, several of the sources on this subject are people who were at the time officials serving in Yan's or puppet adrninistration, and their testimony must be seen in this light. This 'version', however, is strengthened by two factors: first, the record in English is too general to be able to provide a counterpoint; secondly, those details which exist - particularly those regarding the nature of collaborative activity before 1945 - would appear to support the Chinese narratives. The only other major sources of historical narrative on the period are written in Japanese and, again, consist mainly of memoirs and such by former Japanese soldiers. Barring the possibility of reading such material, the identities of those in Shanxi have been corroborated through biographical reference material, such as the Japan Armed Forces Directory. In addition, the Shanxi wen shi zi liao includes, in one of its volumes, a Chinese translation of an excerpt from a book written by Jono Hiroshi, a significant figure in the "stay behind" movement after the surrender. He was captured by the communists at the end of the civil war, and spent fifteen years in Chinese prisons (at one point Puyi occupied the cell next to him) - before returning to Japan in 1964. Even his account, as such, does not conflict with PRC histories. The challenge, then, is for future research to provide a broader context. There is likely to be further evidence in Shanxi, as well as in private archives in Taiwan, which would do much to clarify what has been sketched out here using sources available in the public record. 'Good examples are the meeting in Xiaoyi in August and Yan's later arrival in Taiyuan by armoured train. 1 1. INTRODUCTION : THE END OF THE WAR IN CONTEXT "The actual question of whether or not Yen Hsi-shan is guilty of what would in western eyes be considered traitorous dealings with the enemy is probably riot of great importance. I am personally prepared - on his record and otherwise almost unexplainable fact of his continued existence - at least to accept the common Chinese description of him as a bamian linglong (an eight-faceted glittering gem) - two faces for the Central Government, two faces for the Japanese, two faces for the Communists, and two more for the people." John Service, Yanan 19441 When the Anti-Japanese War came to an official end in August 19452, Japanese positions in North China were in many places still secure; that is, at the time there was little chance of an immediate military defeat by Chinese or Allied forces.