As the saying goes, "the times make heroes", after the demise of the Qing government, our country experienced a turbulent era, and Yan Xishan was nothing more than one of the most famous figures of that era.
Yan Xishan was born in 1883 and is a native of Shanxi. At the age of 28, he was elected governor of Shanxi Province for participating in the revolution, and for the next thirty-eight years, Yan Xishan tightly controlled Shanxi Province and never moved his position.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, although Yan Xishan also led his Jin Sui army to resist the Japanese invaders, in fact Yan Xishan was more from his own interests.
After the end of the Liberation War, Yan Xishan fled with Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan. At that time, Chiang Kai-shek was also idle, and had the energy to go back and liquidate Yan Xishan's past inaction, so Yan Xishan's life in his later years was not very smooth, and he was always in a state of being suppressed by Chiang Kai-shek.
Of these five sons, the eldest son, the second son, and the third son all died prematurely, leaving only the fourth son and the younger son to run to Taiwan with Yan Xishan after the end of the Liberation War.
Although yan Xishan's family in his later years has always been suppressed by Chiang Kai-shek, after all, he was also a warlord before, so he accumulated a lot of property, so in his later years, although Yan Xishan and his sons lived badly, they were not as depressed as ordinary people.
The fourth son, Yan Zhimin
Yan Zhimin has been brilliant since childhood, and has taught himself to install radios. Later, he went to the United States with his wife Fei Bin to study, obtained a master's degree in electrical mathematics, and worked at IBM.
After retirement, Yan Zhimin and his wife Fei Bin came to New York, and remained in New York until 2010, when Yan Zhimin died of a heart attack at the age of 85.
The youngest son, Yan Zhihui
It can be said that among the five sons of Yan Xishan, Yan Zhihui is the most handsome and dashing one born, but he is the most unsympathetic of the five sons.
After the end of the Liberation War, Yan Zhihui dropped out of school and came to Shanghai to try to break through here, but a year later, he had to follow Yan Xishan to Taiwan. Not long after coming to Taiwan, Yan Zhihui went to Japan to do business.
Later, because Yan Zhihui fell in love with his second sister-in-law Zhao Xiujin, although he was strongly opposed by Yan Xishan, Yan Zhihui still desperately took Zhao Xiujin to move to the United States and married Zhao Xiujin.
It can be said that Yan Zhihui's life in the United States was very poor, and when Yan Xishan died in 1960, Yan Zhihui could not even afford a plane ticket to return to Taiwan to bid farewell to Yan Xishan.
Later, Zhao Xiujin died, and in his later years, Yan Zhihui married his second wife, Zhou Jinyu, and soon after the two were married, Yan Zhihui, accompanied by Zhou Jinyu, once returned to Shanxi.
At that time, the two men visited Yan Xishan's former residence as ordinary tourists, without alarming anyone, and then returned to the United States.
In the second year after the death of his fourth brother Yan Zhimin, Yan Zhihui also died of illness.