The “Young Marshal” who detained Chiang Kai-shek at Xi’an and opened the way to the second united front
Son of the Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin, he inherited the Northeast when the Japanese killed his father in 1928 and pledged allegiance to Nanjing that year. Driven from Manchuria in 1931, he was sent against the Communists, but in December 1936 he and Yang Hucheng seized Chiang Kai-shek at Xi’an to demand an end to civil war and resistance to Japan. Zhou Enlai brokered the release; Zhang flew back with Chiang and spent more than fifty years under house arrest. Freed in the 1990s, he died in Hawaii at 100.
Career Timeline
- 1928–1931Commander of the Northeastern Army
- 1936.12Instigator of the Xi’an Incident