Portrait of a Warlord: Yen Hsi-shan in Shansi Province, 1911–1930

In the years that followed the overthrow of the Ch'ing dynasty in 1911, China was ruled by military men who set up virtually independent governments in the various provinces. This inquiry into the policies of Yen Hsi-shan, governor of die north-western province of Shansi between 1911 and 1930, has been undertaken in the hope that a study of one of these warlords will result in a broader understanding of war-lordism as a political phenomenon and in this way illuminate further the whole subject of regional government in China during the early decades of the twentieth century.