In the winter of 1936, Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng launched a military campaign against Chiang Kai-shek in Xi'an, nominally to "persuade" Chiang Kai-shek to unite many forces to resist Japan, but in fact the core was still an enduring theme at that time, "anti-Chiang". Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng had planned to send troops against Chiang Kai-shek as early as the "Two Guangzhou Incidents," and even Yan Xishan, who had always had a good relationship with Chiang Kai-shek, expressed support, because in Chiang Kai-shek's strategy, it was imperative to annex the northwest as a rear area of the anti-Japanese resistance. Under the strong pressure of Chiang Kai-shek, the warlords of the northwest region began to unite, and Yang Hucheng and Zhang Xueliang became the nominal "leading big brothers" of the northwest.
After the incident, Zhang Xueliang met with the Nanjing emissary Duan Na on the matter of the Xi'an Incident, and Zhang Xueliang, a guest army bent on retaking the northeast, was actually far less resolute than Yang Hucheng, and what Zhang Xueliang wanted was to force Chiang Kai-shek to agree to a joint anti-Japanese campaign, while Yang Hucheng believed that it was necessary to "blackmail the Son of Heaven to order the princes." Before launching the Xi'an Incident, Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng had deliberately tested their attitude toward Chiang Kai-shek to local warlords everywhere, and the result made the two very happy, and almost all local warlords deeply hated Chiang Kai-shek. Therefore, Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng agreed that after the Xi'an Incident, they would inevitably be able to gather people, and it would no longer matter whether Chiang Kai-shek agreed to the joint anti-Japanese resistance advocated by the two.
Chiang Kai-shek and Song Meiling strictly speaking, although Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng had optimistic elements in their estimation of the situation of the Xi'an Incident, the general direction was still correct, but it was a pity that a good hand of cards was destroyed by themselves. After the Xi'an Incident broke out, Chiang Kai-shek and his entourage were either captured or killed on the spot, and Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng issued a national notice on the same day. However, in order to strengthen the intensity of this circular, they not only signed their own names at the end, but also filled in the names of Chiang Kai-shek's entourage officials who were captured or even killed.
After Chiang Kai-shek's many warlords saw the announcement of the Xi'an Incident, the eight anti-Japanese propositions in the front were still nothing, but when they saw the many signatures in the back, they frowned. The many warlords who originally wanted to respond were really a little unsure which side Zhang Yang, who had the "support" of so many important members of the central government, was on. The so-called "anti-Chiang Kai-shek" is not as simple as just bringing down a Chiang Kai-shek, zhang and Yang's hands can be described as self-defeating, and as a result, on the first day of the incident, the whole country fell into a strange "silence", and there was not even a statement on Xi'an's electrification.
Chiang Kai-shek and He Yingqin waited until the second day of the Xi'an Incident, when Song Zheyuan, who occupied Hebei and Pingjin, was the first to respond by telegram to Xi'an, but Song Zheyuan's attitude was not anti-Chiang but pro-Chiang, demanding that Zhang Xueliang ensure Chiang Kai-shek's personal safety. According to the recollection of Qin Dechun, Song Zheyuan, a think tank of Song Zheyuan, had a discussion with him on the day of the Xi'an Incident, and Song Zheyuan was always uneasy about the notice issued by Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng. After thinking about it again and again, Song Zheyuan and Qin Dechun agreed that it was not okay not to express their position at this time, but it was too unsafe to openly support Zhang Yang and the two of them, and instead of not knowing how to support Nanjing, in case the Japanese made a slight change, they could still let Nanjing support it.
After Chiang Kai-shek and Song Zheyuan, the giant of Northern China, Song Zheyuan, expressed their positions, warlords in various places could begin to gradually "return to Their senses," but their attitude was somewhat one-sided, and they all persuaded Zhang Xueliang to exercise restraint and ensure Chiang Kai-shek's safety. However, what really made Zhang Yang and the two feel desperate was that on the third day of the incident, Yan Xishan's statement, in Zhang Xueliang's view, Yan Xishan and himself were definitely in the same boat, and when Chiang Kai-shek was on his fiftieth birthday, the two of them spoke out together, and Yan Xishan still wept bitterly in front of him. As a result, Yan Xishan's statement was even more direct than Song Zheyuan's, and Zhang Xueliang's practice of directly becoming Zhang Xueliang was "to use the enthusiasm to save the country and become an action to endanger the country", and denounced the Xi'an Incident.
After Song Zheyuan and Yan Xishan, the two giants in the north, who supported Chiang Kai-shek after the Xi'an Incident, made their position clear, the great warlords Li Zongren, Han Fuyu, Long Yun, and others who were still on the sidelines expressed their full support for the Nanjing government, and only one of the largest warlords in the country, Liu Xiang, was quite ambiguous. At this point, Zhang Yang and Zhang Yang were already full of losses, and Zhang Xueliang was also disheartened by this encounter, so some people believe that he later risked returning to Nanjing with Chiang Kai-shek precisely because he was anxious to ease relations with Chiang Kai-shek