Editing Shanxi (section)

===Early Republic of China (1912–1937)===
[[File:Yan_Xishan.jpg|thumb|180px|[[Yan Xishan]], [[warlord]] of Shanxi during the Republic of China.]]
With the [[1911 Revolution|collapse of the Qing dynasty]], Shanxi became part of the newly established [[Republic of China (1912–1949)|Republic of China]]. From 1911 to 1949, during the period of the Republic of China's period of rule over [[Mainland China]], Shanxi was mostly dominated by the warlord [[Yan Xishan]] until the [[Chinese Communist Party]] took full control in 1949;<ref>Gillin ''The Journal of Asian Studies''</ref> Communists had already set up secret bases in 1936, but did not completely overturn Yan and the [[Nationalist government]] until 1949.<ref>Gillin ''Warlord'' 220-221</ref> Early in Yan's rule he decided that, unless he was able to modernize and revive the economy of his small, poor, remote province, he would be unable to protect Shanxi from rival warlords. Yan devoted himself to modernizing Shanxi and developing its resources during his reign over the province. He has been viewed by Western biographers as a transitional figure who advocated using Western technology to protect Chinese traditions, while at the same time reforming older political, social and economic conditions in a way that paved the way for the radical changes that would occur after his rule.<ref name="Portrait1">Gillin, Donald G. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2943488 "Portrait of a Warlord: Yen Hsi-shan in Shansi Province, 1911–1930."] ''The Journal of Asian Studies''. Vol. 19, No. 3, May, 1960. Retrieved February 23, 2011. p.289</ref>

In 1918 there was an outbreak of [[bubonic plague]] in northern Shanxi that lasted for two months and killed 2,664 people. Yan's interactions with the Western medical personnel he met with to discuss how to suppress the epidemic inspired him to modernize and improve Shanxi's medical infrastructure which he began by funding the Research Society for the Advancement of Chinese Medicine, based in Taiyuan, in 1921.  Highly unusual in China at the time, the school had a four-year curriculum and included courses in both Chinese and Western Medicine. The main skills that Yan hoped physicians trained at the school would learn were: a standardized system of diagnosis; sanitary science, including [[bacteriology]]; surgical skills, including [[obstetrics]]; and, the use of diagnostic instruments. Yan hoped that his support of the school would eventually lead to increased revenues in the domestic and international trade of Chinese drugs, improved [[public health]], and improved [[Public Education|public education]]. Yan's promotion of a modern curriculum and infrastructure of Chinese medicine achieved limited success, but much of the teaching and publication that this school of medicine produced was limited to the area around Taiyuan: by 1949 three of the seven government-run hospitals were in the city. In 1934 the province produced a ten-year-plan that envisaged employing a hygiene worker in every village, but the [[Second Sino-Japanese War|Japanese invasion in 1937]] and the subsequent [[Chinese Civil War|civil war]] made it impossible to carry these plans out. Yan's generous support for the Research Association for the Improvement of Chinese Medicine generated a body of teaching and publication in modern Chinese medicine that became one of the foundations of the national institution of modern traditional Chinese medicine that was adopted in the 1950s.<ref>Harrison, Henrietta. "The Experience of Illness in Early Twentieth-Century Shanxi.". East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine. No.42. pp.39–72. 2015. pp.61–63.</ref>

Yan invested in Shanxi's industrial infrastructure, and by 1949 the area around Taiyuan was a major national producer of coal, iron, chemicals, and munitions.<ref>Goodman, David S. G. [https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/bitstream/10453/6052/3/2004003081.pdf "Structuring Local Identity: Nation, Province and County in Shanxi During the 1990s"]. ''The China Quarterly''. Vol.172, December 2002. pp.837–862. Retrieved April 17, 2019. p.840</ref> Yan was able to protect the province from his rivals for the period of his rule partially due to his building of an arsenal in Taiyuan that, for the entire period of his administration, remained the only center in China capable of producing field artillery. Yan's army was successful in eradicating banditry in Shanxi, allowing him to maintain a relatively high level of public order and security.<ref name="Portrait2">Gillin, Donald G. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2943488 "Portrait of a Warlord: Yen Hsi-shan in Shansi Province, 1911–1930."] ''The Journal of Asian Studies''. Vol. 19, No. 3, May, 1960. Retrieved February 23, 2011. p.295</ref>

Yan went to great lengths to eradicate social traditions which he considered antiquated. He insisted that all men in Shanxi abandon their Qing-era queues, giving police instructions to clip off the queues of anyone still wearing them. In one instance, Yan lured people into theatres in order to have his police systematically cut the hair of the audience.<ref name="Portrait2"/> He attempted to combat widespread female illiteracy by creating in each district at least one vocational school in which peasant girls could be given a primary-school education and taught domestic skills. After [[National Revolutionary Army]] military victories in the 1925 generated great interest in Shanxi for the [[Kuomintang]]'s ideology, including [[Women's rights in China|women's rights]], Yan allowed girls to enroll in middle school and college, where they promptly formed a women's association.<ref>Gillin, Donald G. ''Warlord: Yen Hsi-shan in Shansi Province 1911–1949''. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 1967. p.24"</ref>

Yan attempted to eradicate the custom of [[foot binding]], threatening to sentence men who married women with bound feet, and mothers who bound their daughters' feet, to hard labor in state-run factories. He discouraged the use of the traditional [[lunar calendar]] and encouraged the development of local [[Scouting Movement|boy scout organizations]]. Like the Communists who later succeeded Yan, he punished habitual lawbreakers to "redemption through labour" in state-run factories.<ref name="Portrait2"/>

After the failed attempt by the [[Chinese Red Army]] to establish bases in southern Shanxi in early 1936 Yan became convinced that the Communists were lesser threats to his rule than either the Nationalists or the Japanese. He then negotiated a secret anti-Japanese "[[Second United Front|United Front]]" with the Communists in October 1936 and invited them to establish operations in Shanxi. Yan, under the slogan "resistance against the enemy and defense of the soil", attempted to recruit young, patriotic intellectuals to his government in order to organize a local resistance to the threat of Japanese invasion. By the end of 1936 Taiyuan had become a gathering point for anti-Japanese intellectuals from all over China.<ref>Feng Chongyi and Goodman, David S. G., eds. [https://books.google.com/books?id=ib-sEZzxkb4C&pg=PA158&dq ''North China at War: The Social Ecology of Revolution, 1937–1945'']. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield. 2000. {{ISBN|0-8476-9938-2}}. Retrieved June 3, 2012. p.157-158.</ref>