Zhou Jie, the artillery commander of Yan Xishan, once said: "Those of us who have followed Yan Xishan for a long time have all felt his temper. He was born as a 'money devil', and he played the most skillfully in his abacus, and he always put the strength of the enemy and us on the sword, and he would only clearly express his attitude when his own strength greatly exceeded that of the enemy; otherwise, as a rule, he would be exquisite in all aspects and would never hastily offend people. ”
No matter how shrewd Yan Xishan was, no matter how well he played his abacus, he was still defeated in the face of the general trend of the times. On December 9, 1949, Yan Xishan, who knew that he was not skilled in returning to heaven, went to Taiwan and began the last 10 years of life in Taiwan. As the saying goes, people had to bow their heads under the eaves, and Yan Xishan, who came to Taiwan, no longer had the prestige he had before, and soon bid farewell to the political arena completely.
After bidding farewell to the officialdom, Yan Xishan moved to Jingshan, near Yangmingshan, a suburb of Taipei, with several personal bodyguards. At that time, Jingshan was very backward, and it was originally a farm that did not persist in the Japanese occupation era, with no electricity or running water, and it was half an hour's walk from the nearest road.
The guards really couldn't see it, and they all suggested that Yan Xishan choose a convenient place to live, but Yan Xishan insisted on his own opinion. When there were no houses, they built themselves, first thatched houses, then changed to brick and stone houses; dug wells without running water; and opened their own vegetable gardens without vegetables
Yan Xishan described the initial living environment in his diary, "Its land is a tea garden for waste farming, weeds and breasts, bumpy roads, no electric lights and telephones, drinking mountain springs, thirty minutes walk from the shanzai back road, building huts, engaged in writing, and people call it 'Jingshan Grass Reed'. "Away from the downtown area, coupled with leaving the political arena, there are very few visitors.
Yan Xishan put all his energy into writing books, leaving nearly a million words for this purpose. In his later years, Yan Xishan adhered to the cosmology of "the unity of the world", and he believed that "when a person is dealing with the world, he needs to be benevolent and return to the middle." The heart is benevolent, but the benevolent heart must be in harmony with the middle path, and must not be biased. Have love in your heart, don't have any bias and don't get out of it. It is very meaningful that the benevolent and benevolent heart should be transformed into a fair and equitable pattern that the world accepts and serves the public. ”
Perhaps he has already looked down on everything, Yan Xishan's requirements for life are also very low, three meals a day are mainly steamed green vegetables, and occasionally add an egg to supplement nutrition. In fact, when Yan Xishan went to Taiwan, he brought enough gold to live a relatively luxurious life, but he did not squander it.
Perhaps missing his hometown too much, he later built the house in the shape of a Shanxi cave dwelling and named it "Seed Energy Cave". On May 23, 1960, Yan Xishan died of illness in Taipei at the age of 78. Long before his death, Yan Xishan had already left a last word, with a total of seven sentences:
First, it is not advisable to be extravagant in funeral matters; second, the invitation sent by the guests can be received, but it must not be collected; third, the flowers and trees before the spirit are offered; fourth, the funeral does not stop for a long time after death; fifth, do not cry too much sorrow; sixth, the diary paragraphs 100 and 128 are engraved on the tombstone; and read his "Replenishing the Soul" every morning and evening within seven or seven days.
After Yan Xishan's death, he was buried on a hillside not far from his former residence. It is worth mentioning that after Yan Xishan's death, his bodyguards all went down the mountain to make a living for themselves, but Zhang Riming voluntarily stayed behind to guard the tomb. Now the elderly Zhang Riming is already a nearly 90-year-old man, he said that as long as the physical state can be, every week will come to the cemetery to see, that is, he died, but also let the children continue to guard the tomb.
Reference: Yan Xishan's Last Decade in Taiwan
Yan Xishan had five sons, the eldest son and the third son died early, the second son Yan Zhikuan also died unexpectedly at the age of twenty, leaving a wife Zhao Xiujin; the fourth son, Yan Zhimin, an IBM engineer, had been living in the United States and died there; Yan Zhihui was Yan Xishan's fifth son.
Soon after Yan Zhihui fled to Taiwan with Yan Xishan, he went to Japan to do business, because his second sister-in-law, Zhao Jinxiu, lived in Japan. Yan Zhihui has been taken care of by her second sister-in-law Zhao Xiujin since she was a child, so she is very close, and as a result, who knows that within a few years, Yan Zhihui fell in love with Zhao Xiujin and married her.
Later, Yan Zhihui and his wife immigrated to the United States, where they drove taxis, sold insurance, and had a very hard time, and when Yan Xishan died in 1960, Yan Zhihui regretted that he could not rush to Taiwan to send his father on his last journey because he had no money to buy a plane ticket.
In the 1990s, Yan Zhihui returned to Shanxi alone once, and he lived in the mansion when he was a child, which has been changed to Yan Xishan's former residence. Yan Zhihui stood at the door of the old house, silently paid for a ticket, went in and turned around, and also counted a heart matter.
On March 25, 2011, Yan Zhihui died of illness in California, USA, at the age of 83.