title: Martin Chambers

text: Chambers' first tenure with the group lasted from mid-1978 until the mid-1980s. Coping with the death of bandmates Honeyman-Scott and Farndon proved difficult, and his consequent lack of enthusiasm resulted in his departure from the group during the "Get Close" sessions. According to Hynde, "I felt his playing had deteriorated. I think he was still very traumatized by [the loss of] Pete and Jimmy." (Uncut, 1999) Martin concurred, admitting "I wasn't really into it to be honest."


title: Martin Chambers

text: Chambers rejoined the group in 1994 during the sessions for "Last of the Independents", and has been with the group ever since (Uncut, 1999). When he rejoined, Seymour recalled "When Martin sat down, it began to feel like a real band." Martin summed up his reunion with the group, saying: "at the end of the day [Chrissie] asked me back because no one could make it work quite like we did." (Rhino Entertainment Company, 2006) Hynde concurred, saying: "I missed him terribly. ... Both he and I were floundering—and probably not playing well—and I needed someone to kick me in the ass and inspire me. We went through one song and it was the same buzz as when we first played together. No one has that swing and feel." (Hot Press, 1994).


title: Martin Chambers

text: In late 2008, The Pretenders released the album "Break Up the Concrete" with Chambers being replaced by Jim Keltner, although Chambers remained an official member and played with the band on live dates. In addition to playing with the Pretenders, Chambers also plays in the band Miss World fronted by songwriter Jonathan Perkins, who had worked with artists such as XTC and Original Mirrors.


title: Martin Chambers

text: In late September and early October 2009, Chambers sat in on drums for the seven Mott the Hoople reunion shows (2 in Monmouth and 5 at Hammersmith Odeon) alongside former Cheeks bandmate Verden Allen due to the illness of Dale Griffin who had loaned Chambers his kit for his first live show in 1967 at St. Mary's Church Hall, Ross on Wye, Herefordshire.


title: Phoenix Cluster

text: The Phoenix Cluster (SPT-CL J2344-4243) is a massive, Abell class type I galaxy cluster located at its namesake, southern constellation of Phoenix. It was initially detected in 2010 during a 2,500 square degree survey of the southern sky using the Sunyaev–Zel'dovich effect by the South Pole Telescope collaboration. It is one of the most massive galaxy clusters known, with the mass on the order of 2 , and is the most luminous X-ray cluster discovered, producing more X-rays than any other known massive cluster. It is located at a comoving distance of 8.57 billion light-years from Earth. About 42 member galaxies were identified and currently listed in the SIMBAD Astronomical Database, though the real number may be as high as 1,000


title: Phoenix Cluster

text: The Phoenix Cluster has first been reported by a paper by R. Williamson and colleagues during a survey by the South Pole Telescope in Antarctica, being one of the 26 galaxy clusters identified by the survey. The detection has been conducted at frequencies between 95, 150, and 220 GHz, with 14 of the galaxy clusters detected have been previously identified, while 12 – including Phoenix Cluster, being new discoveries. The would-be named Phoenix Cluster (still identified by its numerical catalogue entry SPT-CL J2344–4243) has been remarked to be having "the largest X-ray luminosity of any cluster" described by the survey. A bright, type-2 Seyfert galaxy has also been pronounced lying 19 arcseconds from the apparent center of the cluster that has been identified as "2MASX J23444387-4243124", which would later be named Phoenix A, the cluster's central galaxy.


title: Phoenix Cluster

text: Due to its extreme properties, the Phoenix Cluster has been extensively studied and is considered one of the most important class of objects of its type. A multiwavelength observational study by M. McDonald and colleagues show that it has an extremely strong cooling flow rate (roughly 3,280 per annum), described as a runaway cooling flow. This measurement is one of the highest ever seen in the middle of a galaxy cluster. The very strong cooling flow in contrast to other galaxy clusters has been suggested to be a result of the feedback mechanism to prevent runaway cooling flow may not yet be established yet in the Phoenix Cluster; the heating mechanism expected to be produced by the central black hole being inadequate to create a feedback (in contrast to the Perseus and Virgo clusters). This is further supported by the high starburst activity of the central galaxy Phoenix A, where stars are formed at 740 per annum (compared to the Milky Way's 1 per annum of star production); the central active galactic nucleus attested to not have been producing sufficient energy to ionize the galaxy's gas and prevent starburst activity.


title: Phoenix Cluster

text: The central elliptical cD galaxy of this cluster, Phoenix A, hosts an active galactic nucleus that has been described as sharing both the properties of being a quasar and a type 2 Seyfert galaxy, which is powered by a central supermassive black hole. The galaxy has yet an uncertain morphology.


title: Phoenix Cluster

text: Phoenix A also contains vast amounts of hot gas. More normal matter is present there than the total of all the other galaxies in the cluster. Data from observations indicate that hot gas is cooling in the central regions at a rate of 3,820 solar masses per year, the highest ever recorded.


title: Phoenix Cluster

text: It is also undergoing a massive starburst, the highest recorded in the middle of a galaxy cluster, although other galaxies at higher redshifts have a higher starburst rate. (see Baby Boom Galaxy)


title: Phoenix Cluster

text: Observations by a variety of telescopes including the GALEX and Herschel space telescopes shows that it has been converting the material to stars at an exceptionally high rate of 740 per year. This is considerably higher than that of NGC 1275 A, the central galaxy of the Perseus Cluster, where stars are formed at a rate around 20 times lower, or the one per year rate of star formation in the Milky Way.


title: Phoenix Cluster

text: The central black hole of the Phoenix Cluster is the engine that drives both the Seyfert nucleus of Phoenix A, as well as the relativistic jets that produce the inner cavities in the cluster center. M. Brockamp and colleagues had used a modelling of the innermost stellar density of the central galaxy and the adiabatic process that fuels the growth of its central black hole to create a calorimetric tool to measure the black hole's mass. The team deduced an energy conversion parameter and related it to the behavior of the hot intracluster gas, the AGN feedback parameter, and the dynamics and density profiles of the galaxy to create an evolutionary modelling of how the central black hole may have grown in the past. In the case of Phoenix A, it has been shown to have far more extreme characteristics, with adiabatic models near the theoretical limitations.


title: Phoenix Cluster

text: These models, as suggested by the paper, are indicative of a central black hole with estimated mass on the order of 100 billion , possibly even exceeding this mass, though the black hole's mass itself has not yet been measured through orbital mechanics. Such a high mass makes it one of the most massive black holes known in the universe. A black hole of this mass has:


title: Phoenix Cluster

text: Such a high mass may place it into a proposed category of stupendously large black holes (SLABs), black holes that may have been seeded by primordial black holes with masses that may reach or more, larger than the upper maximum limit for at least luminous accreting black holes hosted by disc galaxies of about The central black hole is devouring matter and growing at a rate of 60 every year.


title: Dewayne Dedmon

text: Dewayne Jamal Dedmon (born August 12, 1989) is an American professional basketball player for the Miami Heat of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Nicknamed "The Mechanic", he played college basketball for Antelope Valley College and USC.


title: Dewayne Dedmon

text: Dedmon attended Lancaster High School in Lancaster, California. Although tall and athletic, Dedmon did not play high school basketball until his senior year due to his mother's religious objections. His mother, a devout Jehovah's Witness, refused to allow him to play organized basketball, believing it might affect his religious devotion. After turning 18, Dedmon, who had already grown to , decided to exercise his age of majority rights and begin playing. After graduating from Lancaster in 2008, Dedmon attended Antelope Valley College as a part-time student and did not play basketball during the 2008–09 season.


title: Dewayne Dedmon

text: As a freshman at Antelope Valley in 2009–10, Dedmon, who had grown to tall, helped the Marauders to a 17–14 record while averaging 6.6 points and 7.8 rebounds per game. He also had 46 blocks and tied the school record with seven blocks against Chaffey College on January 22, 2010. Five days later against Victor Valley, he sustained a broken bone in his forehead and an injured nasal cavity when he was hit by an errant elbow. The injury forced Dedmon to miss the final seven regular season games, but he returned for the playoffs where he recorded 5 points and 13 rebounds in his first game back, a win against Miramar College on February 24.


title: Dewayne Dedmon

text: On April 14, 2010, Dedmon signed with the University of Southern California and subsequently redshirted the 2010–11 due to NCAA transfer regulations. He completed one final semester at Antelope Valley but did not play for Marauders in order to keep three full seasons of eligibility. He began practicing with USC in the second semester of 2010–11 when he transferred from Antelope Valley.


title: Dewayne Dedmon

text: As a redshirted sophomore for USC in 2011–12, Dedmon battled with numerous injuries which curtailed his development but still managed to average 7.6 points and 5.5 rebounds in 20 games (all starts). He led the team with a .551 shooting percentage and made 50 percent or more of his shots in 14 of his 20 starts. He had a season-high 18 points against Oregon on January 19, 2012 and followed that up with eight points and eight rebounds against Oregon State on January 21. Five days later against Colorado, he suffered a season-ending injury with a torn left MCL.


title: Dewayne Dedmon

text: As a junior for USC in 2012–13, Dedmon led the Trojans with 7.0 rebounds to go with 6.7 points in 31 games (29 starts). After struggling to score in the early part of the season, Dedmon had the best stretch of his career toward the beginning of USC's conference slate, averaging 10.8 points, 8.4 rebounds and three blocks per game in a five-game stretch. He tied his career-high of 18 points against Washington on March 6 but was suspended indefinitely on March 12 following a reported Saturday night incident in downtown Spokane between USC players and local bar patrons. USC lost 69–66 to Utah in the opening round of the Pac-12 tournament, two days after the suspensions were announced, with Dedmon and also-suspended senior center James Blasczyk not making the trip to the tournament. The Trojans finished the season with a 14–18 record. Dedmon also averaged 2.1 blocks per game in 2012–13, good for second in the Pac-12 and the sixth-best single season total in USC history, and finished the season ninth in program history with 85 career blocks.


title: Dewayne Dedmon

text: On April 24, 2013, Dedmon declared for the NBA draft, forgoing his final year of college eligibility.


title: Dewayne Dedmon

text: After going undrafted in the 2013 NBA draft, Dedmon joined the Miami Heat for the Orlando Summer League and the Dallas Mavericks for the Las Vegas Summer League. On September 23, 2013, he signed with the Golden State Warriors. However, he was later waived by Golden State on October 25 after appearing in five preseason games. On November 1, he was acquired by the Santa Cruz Warriors of the NBA Development League as an affiliate player of Golden State.


title: Dewayne Dedmon

text: On November 18, 2013, Dedmon re-signed with the Golden State Warriors, but was assigned back down to Santa Cruz the next day. He was recalled by Golden State on November 20, reassigned on November 24, and recalled again on November 25. On December 5, he was waived by Golden State after appearing in four games for the team. Five days later, he was reacquired by Santa Cruz.


title: Dewayne Dedmon

text: On January 14, 2014, Dedmon signed a 10-day contract with the Philadelphia 76ers. The next day, he made his debut for the 76ers. In 14 minutes of action, he recorded 7 rebounds and 2 blocks in a 95–92 win over the Charlotte Bobcats. On January 24, he signed a second 10-day contract with the 76ers. After his second 10-day contract expired on February 2, the 76ers parted ways with Dedmon on February 3 after they elected to not sign him for the rest of the season. That same day, he was named to the Futures All-Star roster for the 2014 NBA D-League All-Star Game. The following day, he was reacquired and deactivated by Santa Cruz.


title: Dewayne Dedmon

text: On February 25, 2014, Dedmon signed a 10-day contract with the Orlando Magic. He went on to sign a second 10-day contract with the Magic on March 7, and then a multi-year deal on March 17.


title: Dewayne Dedmon

text: In July 2014, Dedmon joined the Magic for the 2014 NBA Summer League. He spent his first full NBA season with the Magic in 2014–15. On March 8, 2015, he had a season-best game with 11 points and 16 rebounds in 103–98 win over the Boston Celtics.


title: Dewayne Dedmon

text: On November 7, 2015, Dedmon scored a then career-high 12 points in a 105–97 win over the Philadelphia 76ers. On March 5, 2016, he was assigned to the Erie BayHawks, the Magic's D-League affiliate. Two days later, he was recalled by the Magic. On March 26, 2016, he recorded a career-high 18 points and a season-high 13 rebounds in 22 minutes as a starter in a 111–89 win over the Chicago Bulls.


title: Dewayne Dedmon

text: On July 14, 2016, Dedmon signed with the San Antonio Spurs. He made his debut for the Spurs on October 25, 2016, recording two points, eight rebounds, one steal and two blocks in 16 minutes off the bench in a 129–100 win over the Golden State Warriors. On February 10, 2017, Dedmon had 17 points and 17 rebounds, setting season highs in both categories, to help the Spurs to a 103–92 victory over the Detroit Pistons. He set a career high in rebounds and finished one point shy of his career high in scoring.


title: Dewayne Dedmon

text: On July 21, 2017, Dedmon signed with the Atlanta Hawks. On November 15, 2017, he scored a career-high 20 points and had 14 rebounds in a 126–80 win over the Sacramento Kings. On November 29, 2017, he was ruled out for three-to-six weeks due to a left tibia stress reaction. He returned to action on January 8 against the Los Angeles Clippers on a minutes restriction after missing 19 games. On February 11, 2018, Dedmon matched his career high with 20 points and had 13 rebounds in a 118–115 win over the Detroit Pistons. On March 20, 2018, he had 15 points and 15 rebounds in a 99–94 win over the Utah Jazz.


title: Dewayne Dedmon

text: On December 16, 2018, Dedmon had 24 points and 12 rebounds in a 144–127 loss to the Brooklyn Nets. On December 26, he had 18 points and a season-best 15 rebounds in a 129–121 loss to the Indiana Pacers. On January 21, 2019, he scored 24 points and made five of seven 3-pointers in a 122–103 loss to the Orlando Magic. On March 31, he was ruled out for the rest of the season with a left ankle injury.


title: Dewayne Dedmon

text: Dedmon experienced diminished playing time as Richaun Holmes and Harry Giles moved ahead of him in the rotation. On January 2, 2020, the NBA fined Dedmon $50,000 for publicly requesting a trade.


title: Dewayne Dedmon

text: On February 6, 2020, Dedmon was traded back to Atlanta along with two second round picks, in exchange for Jabari Parker and Alex Len. He had a season-high 5 blocks in both his last game before the trade and the first game after, both wins for his team.


title: Dewayne Dedmon

text: On November 20, 2020, Dedmon was traded to the Detroit Pistons in exchange for Tony Snell and Khyri Thomas, but was waived four days later.


title: Dewayne Dedmon

text: On April 8, 2021, Dedmon signed with the Miami Heat. Dedmon re-signed with the Heat on August 6, 2021, on a one year veteran’s minimum contract.


title: Dewayne Dedmon

text: Dedmon is the son of Thomas Dedmon and Gail Lewis, and has two older sisters, Sabrina and Marina. His father died by suicide when he was just three-years-old, while his mother is a devout Jehovah's Witness.


title: Dewayne Dedmon

text: Dedmon married Kayla Dedmon on August 21, 2019. They welcomed a baby boy, Dewayne Jamal Dedmon II, on 11/14/2018.


title: Jenny Rainsford

text: Jennifer "Jenny" Rainsford is an English actress. A native of Watford, Rainsford graduated with a degree in English from University of Oxford, before studying acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, from which she graduated in 2011. As well as her role as ”Boo” in the television series "Fleabag", Rainsford has appeared in Ridley Scott's film "Prometheus" (2012) and "The Favourite" (2018). Other film credits include "About Time" (2013) and "The Death of a Farmer". Her television credits include "Finding Joy", "The Smoke", "Law and Order UK" and "Da Vinci's Demons". Rainsford has performed in productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Headlong, Royal Court Theatre, and Young Vic.


title: Paris Geller

text: Paris Eustace Geller is a fictional character on the television series "Gilmore Girls" and its spin-off "", played by Liza Weil.


title: Paris Geller

text: Paris is introduced as an ambitious high-school student from a wealthy family, who was raised almost entirely by her nanny. She has an extreme form of a Type A personality; she is driven and goes to any extreme to get what she wants, whether it be a high grade or a life goal, and is very disappointed in herself and others if she does not succeed. This is in stark contrast to her friend Rory Gilmore, who is much more relaxed and casual about most matters, and the only person close to Paris who can consistently pacify her. Paris's style of speaking is usually brash and matter-of-fact, and it is very rare that she lapses away from her usual tone.


title: Paris Geller

text: Paris was conceived as a short-term character who would serve as Rory's foil and arch-nemesis in high school. However, the role was gradually developed by series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband/writing partner Dan, and Paris would remain for the entirety of the series while growing closer to Rory. Weil's performance won critical acclaim, with Paris becoming one of the show's most popular and topical characters.


title: Paris Geller

text: Paris was originally created for a three-episode guest arc by series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and executive producer Gavin Polone at the beginning of the show's first season to introduce Rory Gilmore's character to the high pressures, competitiveness and stress of going from the small public high school in Stars Hollow, to the storied and respected halls of Hartford's Chilton Academy. This character was created in consolation for Weil (who had been signed to a talent holding deal with show distributor Warner Bros. Television the year before, guest-starring through her arrangement on "The West Wing" and "ER") after a strong audition for the role of Rory (Weil had previously been known to Polone through her work in the role of Debbie Kozac, a character who served a minor but pivotal role as a babysitter to Tom Witzky (Kevin Bacon)'s child in the 1999 film "Stir of Echoes", which he and his company produced), which eventually went to Alexis Bledel. Weil, however, had to change her hair color to play Paris from her natural brown hair coloring to blonde. This was done to further the contrast of Paris to Rory. The character proved to be the proper foil to Rory in time, and the role of Paris in the show was extended and expanded through the first season until Weil became a series regular in the second season.


title: Paris Geller

text: On her first day at Chilton Academy, the soft-spoken Rory Gilmore meets the high-strung Paris Geller, who immediately views Rory as an academic rival. Prior to this encounter, Paris reads Rory's Stars Hollow transcript, courtesy of a student worker in the administration office she paid to sneak her the information out the window. The first day with the younger Gilmore ends up challenging Paris, and a few hours after giving Rory a lecture that she wouldn't make things easy, Rory accidentally broke Paris' castle project after tumbling into her because of a stuck locker. Paris refuses Rory's offered help to put it back together, and in spite the new girl answers lecture questions usually tackled by Paris right away.


title: Paris Geller

text: Relations between the two remain frosty through their first semester as her crush Tristan gave more attention to Rory than to Paris, whom he considered a platonic friend. After Rory earns a D in a literature class as she tries to catch up with her classmates, Paris jokes bitterly the grade would be perfect to apply for work at McDonald's. Later, the comment would come back to haunt her as an annoyed Rory went off on her for calling her a "loser" during a test she failed to make due to oversleeping.


title: Paris Geller

text: Paris' backstory is built with each episode after this point. She is forced by her mother to attend Rory's 16th birthday party thrown by her grandparents, and makes it clear she doesn't enjoy it. Later, she bumps into Rory at a college fair, and away from the pressures of school and Tristan, she opens up a little to the girl, discussing Harvard and how she hopes to go there one day, as does Rory. Though they don't get along, they agree to disagree and be cordial to each other, noting that Harvard is a big campus and they probably would not see each other again after Chilton.


title: Paris Geller

text: Her hidden crush on Tristan is a major theme for the first season, and as she sells tickets to the school's Winter Formal, tries to bring up the courage to ask him out when he tries to buy his tickets. However she backs off after he makes a flirty comment about her already having a date. She takes out that bitterness on Rory for not wanting him and yells at the girl as she buys her tickets, not realizing that Rory already has a boyfriend in the local new boy, Dean.


title: Paris Geller

text: Because she needs a date for the Formal, she is forced after asking her mother to take her cousin Jacob as a date. Paris is able to keep it a secret for at least half the dance, until Jacob asks Rory if he could have her phone number and reveals his bloodline connection to Rory's rival. Though Rory doesn't say anything, Paris ends up jumping to conclusions and yells at Rory in front of all at the Formal in attendance, angered that Rory would divulge such secret information. However Rory had said nothing, and Paris unwittingly revealed her own secret.


title: Paris Geller

text: Paris's parents then went through a nasty, messy divorce that was the talk of Chilton with many tabloid-like rumors of affairs and plastic surgery flying through the gossip mill, and despite her exceptional success at school, Paris' self-esteem suffered as her home was torn apart with Mrs. Geller replacing all reminders of her husband, and pushing Paris to bring up her self-esteem, be less introverted, and use makeup and topical medications to hide blemishes.


title: Paris Geller

text: During this same period, she caught Max Medina, her literature teacher, passionately kissing Rory's mother Lorelai, and spread the gossip to assert herself over Rory and to take the heat off the negative attention she was receiving in the wake of the divorce. After Rory confronts Paris and asks her to explain why she's treating her the way she is when she was nothing but nice to Paris, she reveals some sorrow and guilt over spreading the news and speaks out about how the divorce has affected her. Knowing the girl was in a tough position, Rory tells Paris that if she needs help with anything, she can come to her and talk about anything she might need to.


title: Paris Geller

text: The girls are then put together for a project in a government class (along with Madeline and Louise), and the four decide to use Rory's home in Stars Hollow as a meeting place for the project, which just happens to be at the same time Lorelai is organizing the town's rummage sale, filling the house with assorted clothes and merchandise. Madeline and Louise seem to want to befriend Rory and are yelled at several times by Paris to keep working, but keep going back to talking about Rory's relationship with Dean, annoying Paris to no end. Later, Lorelai gets an idea upon seeing Rory, Madeline and Louise bond, and invites all four girls to a Bangles concert in Manhattan. Paris declines to go, but is talked into it by her friends, and surprisingly enjoys the music and the band, and then enjoys the unwanted attention Madeline and Louise end up with after sneaking off with some boys to a party nearby, watching as Lorelai becomes authoritarian and lets it known that she won't allow any trouble around Rory. After all of this, she tells Rory that the evening was the best night of her life.


title: Paris Geller

text: Slowly Paris and Rory become friendly toward each other, and Rory tries to help out the girl by asking Tristan to take her out on a date, then help her dress for it. The date seems to be a success, but Tristan remains focused on wanting Rory, and unwittingly reveals that Rory asked him to ask Paris out. She takes offense to this, and again they become distant, Tristan getting in the way of their friendship to the point where he spreads word at the end of the school year that he would take Rory to a PJ Harvey concert. Seemingly, this is the last straw for Paris, and she cuts Rory fully out of her peer circle, using her new power as editor of "The Franklin", the school's newspaper to prevent the younger Gilmore from any advancement in position, assigning her to do a menial report about a parking lot paving project to start her "Franklin" career.


title: Paris Geller

text: Eventually, Paris and Rory realize that they work better together than apart, and after a few more underhanded moves to annoy Rory away from her, Paris eventually accepts her as a friend and an unsaid co-editor on "The Franklin". Also helping is the departure of Tristan for military school in North Carolina after he gets into trouble and falls in with a bad clique in the school over the summer, which culminates in a failed robbery of a safe belonging to the father of one of his new friends. As his departure took place mere moments from a performance of the last act of "Romeo and Juliet" Paris was producing, in which Tristan was to play Romeo and Rory, Juliet, Paris had to step in at the last second to don a male wig and portray Romeo.


title: Paris Geller

text: After being encouraged to be more social, Rory then found herself about to get into one of Chilton's most prestigious sororities, The Puffs, which was led by one of Paris' rivals, Francine Jarvis. Paris had always wanted to get into this club too, as it ensured many guarantees for when she got into Harvard (which involved a show-created history where Sandra Day O'Connor was a member), and she asks Rory to put in a good word. Her plan works, and both girls find themselves about to be initiated into the Puffs (which involved a late-night burglary into Headmaster Charleston's office to ring a bell), when Charleston walked into his office with security mid-initiation, hastening the end of the Puffs.


title: Paris Geller

text: Paris continues to allow her to be a friend, through many grade panics and frets through the rest of the season. She also finds Rory teasing her by not revealing her PSAT grade, which annoyed her to no end. She also ends up visiting Stars Hollow several times throughout the year, first as a guest at a holiday dinner at the Independence Inn which she enjoyed despite what she thought were anachronisms, trying to score a story for the "Franklin" about the town's supposedly hidden dark side (at least until Kirk curtains off every non-G-rated movie in the town's video store behind a "Rory Curtain", which Paris immediately jumps on for a story), and in a grade panic.


title: Paris Geller

text: With the departure of Tristan, there was no boy for Paris to be attracted to, and except for teasing a nerdy boy who got on her nerves sometimes (Brad Langford), she focused on her studies and building her college admissions chances. She also made a successful run for student body president in her senior year with Rory as her vice president towards the end of the season, and their reward is a two-month trip to Washington, DC for a Junior Leadership program.


title: Paris Geller

text: The third season begins towards the end of the Washington trip, with Rory and Paris as roommates and becoming very close. Paris is revealed to be a sleep talker in slumber, having dreams aloud about Woodward and Bernstein of Watergate and "Washington Post" fame, then dreaming of herself as Bill Clinton during his denial of having an affair with Monica Lewinsky.


title: Paris Geller

text: She finds romance at the conference with a boy named Jamie (Brandon Barash), who was often a partner with her in debates through the summer and took a liking to her assertive and commanding personality. This is proven as she tries to engage Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) in a debate, only to be passed onto a confused Rep. Doug Ose (R-CA) during a farewell luncheon.


title: Paris Geller

text: During the same luncheon, Jamie asks her to have dinner with him to celebrate, and she subconsciously accepts. Upon realizing that she has an actual date, Paris receives help from Rory while preparing.


title: Paris Geller

text: She later tries to hide the relationship from the gossip-happy circles of Chilton, and swears Rory to silence so she can date in peace. Rory, however, is forced to become a puppet to Paris' long-time rival in school and senior class president, Francine Jarvis. Francine had a vendetta against the two, thinking them the ones who had sabotaged the Puffs.


title: Paris Geller

text: Rory finds herself accidentally divulging Paris's dating status during a secret meeting with Francine. The set up for the secret meeting between Rory and Francine and the subsequent disclosure to Paris is remarkably similar to one of the plot lines in the 1981 movie, "Absence of Malice" starring Paul Newman and Sally Field. When Paris discovers that her relationship to Jamie has been made public, she confronts Rory in a ferocious fencing match during gym class. Feeling betrayed by Rory's revelation (whom by this point, Paris considered her best friend), the two are divided once again.


title: Paris Geller

text: Paris' family tradition was Harvard University (five generations according to her), and she had a complete meltdown on C-SPAN while she was supposed to be helping Rory deliver a co-written speech for the Chilton Bicentennial celebration in the wake of receiving a rejection letter from Harvard and losing her virginity to Jamie a few days earlier. Days before, Paris had told Rory first about her having sex, and the two reconciled, just in time as Rory was able to convince Paris that not getting into her dream college wasn't the end of the world. Rory, too, had intended to go to Harvard, but her infamous pro/con list came down on the side of Yale, partly because of Paris' rejection from the school, but mostly from the Gilmore family's Yale tradition.


title: Paris Geller

text: Rory would outrank Paris as valedictorian and Brad Langford (Adam Wylie) outranked her as salutatorian for Chilton's Class of 2003. Nanny and the rest of her family would see Paris walk down the aisle to receive her diploma, and though Paris joked that Rory would see bad luck in order to numb the fact she wasn't first in her class, she eventually accepted the fact.


title: Paris Geller

text: Rory walks into her Durfee Hall dormitory, surprised to find that not only has Paris decided to attend the school, but that Paris had her father exert his influence with the room assignments so that Paris and Rory would share a dorm. In their freshmen year they would share this room with two other girls, cross-country runner Janet Billings (Katie Walder) and Tana Schrick (Olivia Hack), a sixteen-year-old child prodigy. She also hires a life coach named Terrence to deal with her emotions when her nanny can no longer take care of her, and takes up arts and crafts in an attempt to deal with her anger issues through calm activities.


title: Paris Geller

text: She ends her relationship suddenly and coldly with Jamie in the middle of her Yale freshman year, after commencing an affair with Professor Asher Fleming (Michael York) shortly after the Harvard-Yale Game. Professor Fleming was a sixty-year-old Yale literature professor and writer who was notorious for having flings and affairs with much younger women and was also a classmate of Rory's grandfather, Richard.


title: Paris Geller

text: Paris also experiences spring break with Rory on an impromptu trip to Florida caused by awful weather conditions and drenching rain in New Haven. The two girls bonded even closer, with Paris paying for the whole trip and their odd way of spending a vacation that involved watching a marathon of the PBS miniseries "The Power of Myth" in their hotel room with pizza and assorted junk food. Paris still finds herself bored, however, and learning that Madeline and Louise (coincidentally in the same resort on their spring break) kiss each other to draw attention prompts her to kiss Rory square on the mouth, not only to show she can be wild, but to have Rory gauge her kissing style. Rory wouldn't elaborate, only saying that Paris was not her type.


title: Paris Geller

text: She would become closer to Asher and fall in love with him despite Rory's frowning upon the relationship; still Rory helped her hide the relationship all year from the public.


title: Paris Geller

text: Professor Fleming dies of a heart attack while he and Paris are at Oxford University over the summer. Being his last lover, Paris ends up becoming the executor of his estate, much to chagrin of the Fleming family, who clash with her at every opportunity. She would acquire a large antique printing press as her inheritance from him, and for a while displayed it in the common area of her dorm room.


title: Paris Geller

text: In their sophomore year at Yale, Paris and Rory would share a dorm alone together, causing much discomfort for them both when either one of their boyfriends were present and they wanted individual privacy. In the middle of the fifth season, Paris started dating Doyle (Danny Strong), editor of the "Yale Daily News" after attempting speed dating and finding herself wanting more to talk to Doyle than the men at the event (Paris dismisses one of them upon hearing his first line of "Well I'm a drama major", by saying "Ding, ding, ding!!" to imitate the bell that ends a speed date). They would end up having sex hours later and start a relationship fraught with neurotic tendencies and competitiveness on both sides, but still love and mutual respect for one another.


title: Paris Geller

text: Paris finds herself struggling upon the start of her junior year, due to her parents fleeing the country because of the IRS pursuing them on tax fraud and tax evasion charges, exhausting all of her funds except for those in her trust fund and her Yale tuition. This forces her to help Rory out by taking a job with a DAR event where she was a server and having to take small loans from her friend.


title: Paris Geller

text: Rory later drops out of Yale due to personal frustrations. Afterward, an upset Paris goes to Lorelai for comfort several times throughout the summer, much to the derision of the Dragonfly Inn's staff, who consider her bossy and demanding. Lorelai continues to show sympathy for Paris, despite her intensity.


title: Paris Geller

text: When Rory finally goes back to Yale, Paris shows indifference to the happy news of her friend getting back to her old, competitive self, knowing Rory would have eventually realized how much she missed school and how it would make her dreams come true, along with proving Logan's father wrong.


title: Paris Geller

text: In the meantime, Paris becomes editor of the "Yale Daily News", in preparation for Doyle's graduation, immediately instituting a quieter and less chaotic newsroom. The staff ends up resenting Paris's leadership and insists that Rory does something about her. Because of this grinding management style, the newspaper nearly misses a publication date, only making it to the press with a last-minute push by Rory to get it into the printer on time. In the end, the staff mutinies against Paris's behavior and chooses Rory as their new editor, ousting Paris.


title: Paris Geller

text: Paris and her boyfriend Doyle move into an apartment building in a more urban part of New Haven at the start of the semester, and eventually let Rory live with them. Paris takes measures to protect herself, including several door locks and chains on her apartment door, burglar alarms, and Krav Maga self-defense classes. When Paris hears that she had been ousted and replaced by Rory as Editor, she throws out all of Rory's belongings in an act of spite, forcing Rory to move in with Logan. After a few weeks, Paris returns to the "Daily News", feeling defeated and down. Rory sympathizes with her, and suggests that Paris turn an article she was writing into a week-long series.


title: Paris Geller

text: When Rory learns that Logan has cheated on her, she leaves him and moves back in with Paris. Doyle moves out following a break-up with Paris, and the girls make up while enjoying television and Chinese food. They reconcile with their boyfriends in the following episode.


title: Paris Geller

text: The final season of the series starts with Paris using the "Daily News" office for the summer to run her own test preparation service, called "The Paris Geller Yale Review", to help students pass standardized and admissions exams, like the services provided by The Princeton Review and Kaplan, because she wants to cut out the middleman and collect the fees that would have otherwise gone to the company itself.


title: Paris Geller

text: She offers a position to Rory, who eventually takes on a student, and then they discuss Logan in London, with Paris warning he might stray without Rory nearby, going from past experience with Jamie and Logan's past with Rory.


title: Paris Geller

text: As the last semester of Yale begins, Paris begins to push Rory to take several opportunities for grants, interviews and other things of interest with her outside of their given fields under the banner "Operation Finish Line" (referring to graduation), such as oceanography and a Goldman Sachs interview in order to add extra experiences to each of their resumes. Again, Paris uses a whiteboard system to keep track of these various items for both her and Rory. She also took up yoga with Doyle in pursuit of adding to her life experiences, surprisingly enjoying it in the end. Later, she was annoyed when Logan, disassociated from his father's business interests and as a result lost his apartment, moved in without prior notice.


title: Paris Geller

text: After receiving a windfall of acceptance letters from both law and medical schools, Paris agonizes over the decision of which profession to choose, much less which school. She breaks up with Doyle because she is afraid to make a decision based on a relationship, but he insists that he will follow her, wherever Paris decides to go.


title: Paris Geller

text: Paris decides to attend Harvard Medical School, and then tours India with Doyle over the summer. At graduation, she tells Rory she'll miss her, although Rory again notes no matter what, Paris always finds a way to get back into her life. She then tells her best friend that she'll go on to do great things, and both of them embrace in a hug a little tight at Rory's end. Paris and Rory then graduate from Yale.


title: Paris Geller

text: In the revival, it was revealed that she went into reproductive medicine, running a successful surrogacy/fertility clinic in New York known as Dynasty Makers, which Lorelai and Luke visit while considering having a child of their own. She has two children of her own with Doyle; a girl, Gabriela, and a boy, Timóteo (likely named for the Brazilian city), though she is in the middle of a separation with Doyle (who has become a successful Hollywood screenwriter) over the course of her arc. She also still holds her crush on Tristan Dugrey, and upon seeing him from afar during a student day in Chilton, lashes out about not meeting the expectations of others. In an argument with Francine Jarvis a few moments later, it is revealed that she additionally passed the bar and has a law practice license, is an expert on classical architecture, and may also be a certified dental technician. She remains close to Rory, who occasionally rooms with her.


title: Paris Geller

text: Paris has received a generally positive critical reception, with many critics feeling that she is most developed during the show's early seasons. Several writers have identified ambition as the core of Paris's character, noting that this creates a good deal of her wit, her resilience, and her eventual vulnerability as she bonds with others.


title: Paris Geller

text: In an article for "Vulture", writer Jackson McHenry noted, "With Paris, "Gilmore Girls" insisted that ambitious women are compelling in their very ambition." He described the character's struggles as "hilarious to watch", and declared that, in more dramatic scenes, "Paris tends to emerge from her challenges even stronger." While comparing Paris to Rory, Keely Flaherty of BuzzFeed felt that Paris's tribulations made her "a far more relatable heroine for the masses." Saba Hamedy of "Mashable" also found Paris's difficulties relatable, labeling the character "as real as it gets," and declaring her "the true heroine of "Gilmore Girls"."


title: Paris Geller

text: Due to her competitive nature, Paris initially feels antipathy toward Rory, whom she eventually comes to respect and befriend. Both characters develop as a result of this bond, particularly Paris, who reveals a gentler, more vulnerable side around Rory. A review for "Autostraddle.com" noted, "As the seasons progressed, it became clear how much they actually needed each other to grow and become the strong women they were [supposed] to be. Rory needed to grow a backbone and Paris needed to view the world as something other than a big test you either fail or ace."


title: Paris Geller

text: Critical reviews typically claim that Paris is less developed in the later seasons, during which her scenes become briefer and centered on the school newspaper. In a commentary for "Deadspin", Hannah Keyser noted that Paris was most humanized "early in the show". Reviews from "Vulture" and "Bustle" have stated that Season 3 contains Paris's best material, citing her disappointments, resilience, and friendship with Rory, while "Vanity Fair" claimed that Season 4 features "grade-A Paris". While commenting on the character's later appearances, Keyser stated, "Sherman-Palladino, it seems, is about as interested in the non-Gilmores of fictional New England as the titular ladies themselves are—which is to say: not very."


title: Paris Geller

text: Some critics chastised the producers for continually having Rory succeed where Paris fails, calling these developments unrealistic. Others have criticized the spin-off for making Tristan a source of Paris's distress during its second episode. In a review for "Vogue", Patricia Garcia declared, "Paris Geller wouldn't even remember Tristan's name, much less still care about him." Kaitlyn Tiffany of "The Verge" concurred, noting, "Paris is 32 and wildly successful, and her crush, Tristan, was in seven episodes, max." Additionally, certain reviewers believe that Paris represents a closeted lesbian, with some chastising the writers for not presenting her as openly gay. Molly McGowan of "Rogues Portal" felt that Rory and Paris were "obviously" in love at various points of the series.


title: Paris Geller

text: In a retrospective commentary, Brooke Camarda of "Her Campus" discussed Paris's determination, along with the layers it creates, stating, "Ambitious, painstaking, and brilliantly self-assured, Paris is the true MVP of the "Gilmore Girls" series."


title: Paris Geller

text: Numerous journalists have drawn comparisons between Paris and the candidates of the 2016 United States presidential election, with most citing a scene from the 2002 second-season finale of "Gilmore Girls". During the episode, Paris runs for Student Body President and learns that many voters consider her the most qualified candidate, but are hesitant to elect her for personal reasons. Several members of the media felt that this story paralleled Democrat Hillary Clinton's situation during the 2016 race.


title: Paris Geller

text: In 2017, Samantha Bee compared then-President Donald Trump to Paris Geller on an episode of TBS's "Full Frontal", accusing him of showing favoritism in staffing choices. "The Huffington Post" responded, "We're not sure Paris ― who on the surface seemed pretentious, but was actually strong and caring ― would appreciate the comparison."


title: Paris Geller

text: Paris is a fan-favorite character among the LGBT community and writers who have covered related topics, several of whom have wished to see her portrayed as a lesbian. Many writers note that she rarely has a long-term boyfriend, and affirm that her driven personality and powerful stature would represent the gay community well in a prominent work of fiction. In a review for "AfterEllen", Trish Bendix stated, "Seriously, everything about Paris Geller is perfect. I love her. I want her to follow me around and yell at me about how stupid I am and how she could do everything better than I'm doing it and [then] have her angrily make out with me." Following the premiere of "A Year in the Life", in which Paris undergoes a distinctive change in appearance, "Autostraddle" declared that the character had become "a queer icon." Reviewers from BuzzFeed concurred, calling Paris their "ultimate queer crush." "Loco Mag" labeled Paris "the most obvious choice for 'revival lesbian'." A review from "The Niche" noted, "Paris is far and away the most vivid, fully rendered, and realistic depiction of a lesbian that I have ever seen in any fictional medium," but declared that the show-runners "were actively trying not to portray Paris as a lesbian." Many writers have also expressed a specific interest in a romantic bond between Paris and Rory.


title: Paris Geller

text: In a 2016 interview, series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino revealed that the WB network did not allow her to depict characters as gay when the show premiered.


title: Paris Geller

text: Paris's most prominent relationship is with Rory, who is initially her rival before the two grow closer. Peggy Truong of "Cosmopolitan" declared that Paris was Rory's "true constant" in the series. Shirley Li of "The Atlantic" wrote an extensive commentary on the girls' friendship. Writers have also shown interest in a potential romantic relationship between the characters. The romance novel "Tell Me How You Really Feel", by Aminah Mae Safi, was partly inspired by Paris's bond with Rory. In 2016, Cassie Sheets wrote an article for "Pride.com" titled "10 TV Gal Pals Who Should've Been More Than Friends", listing Paris and Rory at number 1. Daniel Mallory Ortberg of "The Toast" posted a detailed article on their potential as lovers, while BuzzFeed's Cassie Smyth called their bond "the greatest romance of the 21st century." Following the announcement of "A Year in the Life", several journalists called for the creators to finally give Rory and Paris a committed romance.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan Xishan (; 8 October 1883 – 22 July 1960, ) was a Chinese warlord who served in the government of the Republic of China. He effectively controlled the province of Shanxi from the 1911 Xinhai Revolution to the 1949 Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War. As the leader of a relatively small, poor, remote province, he survived the machinations of Yuan Shikai, the Warlord Era, the Nationalist Era, the Japanese invasion of China and the subsequent civil war, being forced from office only when the Nationalist armies with which he was aligned had completely lost control of the Chinese mainland, isolating Shanxi from any source of economic or military supply. He has been viewed by Western biographers as a transitional figure who advocated using Western technology to protect Chinese traditions, while at the same time reforming older political, social and economic conditions in a way that paved the way for the radical changes that would occur after his rule.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan Xishan was born during the late Qing dynasty in Wutai County, Xinzhou, Shanxi, to a family who had been bankers and merchants for generations (Shanxi was known for its many successful banks until the late 19th century). As a young man he worked for several years at his father's bank while he pursued a traditional Confucian education at a local village school. After his father was ruined by a late 19th-century depression, which ravaged the Chinese economy, Yan enrolled in a free military school that was run and financed by the Manchu government in Taiyuan. While studying at the school, he was first introduced to mathematics, physics, and various other subjects imported directly from the West. In 1904, he was sent to Japan to study at the Tokyo Shimbu Gakko, a military preparatory academy, and he later entered the Imperial Japanese Army Academy from which he graduated in 1909.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Over the five years that Yan studied in Japan, he became impressed by the country's successful efforts at modernization. He observed the progress made by the Japanese, whom the Chinese had previously considered unsophisticated and backward, and began to worry about the consequences if China were to fall behind the rest of the world. That formative experience was later cited as a period of great inspiration for his later efforts to modernize Shanxi.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan eventually concluded that the Japanese had successfully modernized largely because of the government's abilities to mobilize its populace in support of its policies and to the close respectful relationship that existed between the military and civilian populations. He attributed the surprising Japanese victory in the 1905 Russo-Japanese War to the enthusiastic mobilization of the Japanese public in supporting the military. After returning to China in 1910, he wrote a pamphlet warning China that it was in danger of being overtaken by Japan unless it developed a local form of "bushido".


title: Yan Xishan

text: Even before studying in Japan, Yan had become disgusted with the open and widespread corruption of officials in Shanxi and had become convinced that China's relative helplessness in the 19th century was the result of the Qing dynasty's generally hostile attitude towards modernization and industrial development and its grossly inept foreign policy. While he was in Japan, he met Sun Yat-sen and joined his Tongmenghui (Revolutionary Alliance), a semi-secret society dedicated to overthrowing the Qing dynasty. He also attempted to popularize Sun's ideology by organizing an affiliated "Blood and Iron Society" within the ranks of Chinese students at the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. The goal of the student group was to organize a revolution that would lead to the creation of a strong and united China, similar to how Otto von Bismarck had created a strong and united Germany. Yan also joined an even more militant organization of Chinese revolutionaries, the "Dare-to-Die Corps."


title: Yan Xishan

text: When Yan returned to China in 1909, he was assigned as a division commander of the New Army in Shanxi but secretly worked to overthrow the Qing. During the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, Yan led local revolutionary forces in driving Manchu troops from the province and proclaimed it independent of the Qing government. He justified his actions by attacking the Qing's failure to repel foreign aggression, and he promised a wide range of social and political reforms.


title: Yan Xishan

text: In 1911 Yan hoped to join forces with another prominent Shanxi revolutionary, Wu Luzhen, to undermine Yuan Shikai's control of north China, but the plans were aborted after Wu was assassinated. Yan was elected military governor by his comrades but was unable to prevent a subsequent invasion by the troops of Yuan Shikai, who occupied most parts of Shanxi in 1913. During Yuan's invasion, Yan survived only by withdrawing northward and aligning himself with a friendly insurgent group in neighboring Shaanxi province. By avoiding a decisive military confrontation with Yuan, Yan preserved his own base of power. Though he was friends with Sun Yat-sen, Yan withheld support for him in the 1913 "Second Revolution" and instead ingratiated himself with Yuan, who allowed him to return as military governor of Shanxi, commanding a military that was then staffed by Yuan's own henchmen. In 1917, shortly after Yuan Shikai's death, Yan solidified his control over Shanxi, ruling there uncontested. After Yuan's death in 1916, China descended into a period of warlordism.


title: Yan Xishan

text: The determination of Shanxi to resist Manchu rule was a factor leading Yuan to believe that only the abolition of the Qing dynasty could bring peace to China and end the civil war. Yan's inability to resist Yuan's military domination of northern China was a factor contributing to Sun Yat-sen's decision not to personally pursue the presidency of the Republic of China, which was established after the end of the Qing dynasty. The demonstrated futility of opposing Yuan's military domination must have made it seem more important to Sun to bring Yuan into the process of ruling the republic and to come to terms with his (potential) enemy.


title: Yan Xishan

text: By 1911, Shanxi was one of the poorest provinces in China. Yan believed that unless he modernized and revived Shanxi's economy and infrastructure, he would be unable to prevent Shanxi from being overrun by rival warlords. A military defeat in 1919 inflicted by a rival warlord convinced Yan that Shanxi was not sufficiently developed to compete for hegemony with other warlords, and he avoided the violent national politics of the time by enforcing a neutrality policy on Shanxi to free his province from the civil wars. Instead of participating in the ongoing civil wars, Yan devoted himself almost exclusively to modernizing Shanxi and developing its resources. The success of his reforms were sufficient for him to be dubbed by outsiders as the "Model Governor," with Shanxi the "Model Province."


title: Yan Xishan

text: In 1918, there was an outbreak of bubonic plague in northern Shanxi that lasted for two months and killed 2,664 people. Yan dealt with the epidemic by issuing instructions on modern germ theory and plague management to his officials. Yan instructed people that the plague was caused by tiny germs that were breathed into the lungs, the disease was incurable, and the only way to keep the disease from spreading was physical isolation of the infected. He ordered his officials to keep infected family members, neighbors, or even entire infected communities from each other by threat of police force if necessary. Yan's promotion of germ theory and his enforcement of physical isolation to reduce the effect of epidemics were not completely accepted by the local population, and in some areas, the local people resisted the measures.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan's determination to modernize Shanxi was partly inspired by his interactions with the foreign doctors and personnel who arrived in Shanxi in 1918 to help him suppress the epidemic. He was impressed with the zeal, talents, and modern outlook of the personnel and subsequently compared foreigners favorably to his own conservative and generally apathetic officials. Conversations with other famous reformers, including John Dewey, Hu Shih, and Yan's close friend H.H. Kung, reinforced his determination to westernize Shanxi.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan attempted to modernize the state of medicine in China by funding the Research Society for the Advancement of Chinese Medicine, based in Taiyuan, in 1921. Highly unusual in China at the time, the school had a four-year curriculum and included courses in both Chinese and western medicine. Its courses were taught in English, German, and Japanese. The main skills that Yan hoped physicians trained at the school would learn were a standardized system of diagnosis; sanitary science, including bacteriology; surgical skills, including obstetrics; and the use of diagnostic instruments. Yan hoped that his support of the school would eventually lead to increased revenues in the domestic and international trade of Chinese drugs, improved public health, and improved public education. Yan's interest in having such a school active in Shanxi was sparked after staying in a western hospital in Japan for three months in which he was impressed by seeing modern medical equipment, including X-rays and microscopes, for the first time.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan continued to promote a tradition of Chinese medicine that was informed by Western medical science throughout his period of governance, but much of the teaching and publication that the school of medicine produced was limited to the area around Taiyuan. By 1949, three of the seven government-run hospitals were in the city. In 1934, the province produced a ten-year-plan that envisaged employing a hygiene worker in every village, but the advent of World War II and the subsequent civil war made it impossible to carry those plans out.


title: Yan Xishan

text: To maintain Shanxi's neutrality and to free it from serious military confrontations with rival warlords, Yan developed a strategy of shifting alliances between various warring cliques and inevitably joining only winning sides. Although he was weaker than many of the warlords who surrounded him, he often held the balance of power between neighboring rivals, and even those whom he betrayed hesitated to retaliate against him in case they needed his support in the future. To resist the domination of the Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin, Yan allied himself with the forces of Chiang Kai-shek in 1927, during the Nationalists' Northern Expedition. While aiding Chiang, Yan's occupation of Beijing in June 1928 brought the Northern Expedition to a successful conclusion. Yan's assistance to Chiang was rewarded shortly afterwards by his being named minister of the interior and deputy commander-in-chief of all Kuomintang armies Yan's support for Chiang's military campaigns and his suppression of Communists influenced Chiang to recognize Yan as the governor of Shanxi and to allow him to expand his influence into Hebei.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan's alliance with Chiang was interrupted in 1929 when Yan joined Chiang's enemies to establish an alternative national government in northern China. His allies included the northern warlord Feng Yuxiang, the Guangxi Clique led by Li Zongren, and the left-leaning Kuomintang faction led by Wang Jingwei. While Feng and Chiang's armies were annihilating each other, Yan marched virtually unopposed through Shandong and captured the provincial capital of Jinan in June 1930. After those victories, Yan attempted to forge a new national government, with himself as president, by calling an "Enlarged Party Conference." Under his plan, Yan was to be president, and Wang was to serve as his prime minister. The conference attempted to draft a national constitution and involved the participation of numerous high-ranking Chinese militarists and politicians from among Chiang's rivals. The deliberations were interrupted by Chiang, who decisively defeated Feng's armies, invaded Shandong, and virtually annihilated Yan's army. When the governor of Manchuria, Zhang Xueliang, publicly declared his allegiance to Chiang, whose support Zhang required to contest the Russians and Japanese, Yan fled to Dalian in the Japanese-held Kwantung Leased Territory and returned to an unconquered Shanxi only after he had made peace with Chiang in 1931. During the Central Plains War, the Kuomintang encouraged Muslims and Mongols to overthrow both Feng Yuxiang and Yan. Chiang's defeat of Yan and Feng in 1930 is considered the end of China's Warlord Era.


title: Yan Xishan

text: The events between 1927 and 1931 are best explained as the strategies of warlords accustomed to the constantly-shifting chaotic alliances that had characterized Chinese politics since the breakdown of the central government a decade earlier. The main causes of Yan's defeat were the low population and the lack of development in the areas that he had under his control, which made him incapable of fielding a large and well-equipped army similar to the ones commanded by Chiang at the time. Yan was also unable to match the quality of leadership in Chiang's officer corps and the prestige that Chiang and the Nationalist Army had at the time. Before Chiang's armies defeated Feng and Yan, Yan Xishan appeared on the cover of TIME Magazine, with the subtitle "China's Next President." The attention given to him by foreign observers in that period and the support and assistance that he had secured from other high-profile Chinese statesmen implied that there was a credible expectation that Yan would lead a central government if Chiang failed to defeat Yan's alliance.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan returned to Shanxi only through a complex effort of intrigue and politicking. Much of Chiang's failure to immediately and permanently eject Yan or his subordinates from Shanxi was largely from the influence of Zhang Xueliang and the Japanese, who were anxious to prevent the extension of Chiang's authority into Manchuria. In Yan's absence, the civil government of Shanxi ground to a halt, and the various military leaders of Shanxi struggled with one another to fill the vacuum, which forced Chiang's government to appoint Shanxi's leaders from among Yan's subordinates. Although he did not immediately declare his return to provincial politics, Yan returned to Shanxi in 1931 with the support and protection of Zhang. That move was not protested by Chiang because of his involvement in suppressing the forces of Li Zongren, who had marched up to northern Hunan from his base in Guangxi in support of Yan.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan remained in the background of Shanxi politics until the Nanjing government's failure to resist the Japanese takeover of Manchuria after the Mukden Incident gave Yan and his followers an opportunity to informally overthrow the Kuomintang in Shanxi. On 18 December 1931, a group of students, supported and perhaps orchestrated by officials loyal to Yan, gathered in Taiyuan to protest the Nanjing government's policy of not fighting the Japanese. The demonstration became so violent that Kuomintang police fired into the crowd. The public outrage that the "Massacre of December Eighteenth" generated was strong enough to give Yan's officials a pretext to expel the Kuomintang from the province on the grounds of public safety. After that event, the Kuomintang ceased to exist in Shanxi except as a dummy organization whose members were more loyal to Yan than to Chiang.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Future difficulties in securing the loyalty of other Chinese warlords across China, the ongoing civil war with the Communists, and the ongoing threat of Japanese invasion motivated Chiang to let Yan retain the title of Pacification Commissioner in 1932, and he appointed Yan to the central government's Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission. In 1934, Chiang finally flew to Taiyuan, where he praised Yan's administration in return for Yan's public support for Nanjing. By publicly praising Yan's government, Chiang in effect admitted that Yan remained the undisputed ruler of Shanxi.


title: Yan Xishan

text: After 1931, Yan continued to give nominal support to the Nanjing government while he maintained de facto control over Shanxi by alternatively co-operating with and fighting against Communist agents active in his province. Although he was not an active participant, Yan supported the 1936 Xi'an Incident in which Chiang was arrested by Nationalist officers, led by Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng and released only when he agreed to make peace with the Communists and form the united front to resist the impending Japanese invasion of China. In his correspondence with Zhang Xueliang in 1936, Yan indicated that the growing rift between him and Chiang was because of Yan's anxieties over the potential for a Japanese invasion and a concern for the subsequent fate of China and because Yan was not convinced of the correctness of focusing China's resources on anti-Communist campaigns. During the Xian Incident itself, Yan actively involved himself in the negotiations by sending representatives to prevent Chiang's execution and the civil war that Yan believed would follow and to push for a united front to resist the Japanese invasion of China that Yan believed was imminent.


title: Yan Xishan

text: The financial relationship between Shanxi and the central government remained complicated. Yan was successful in creating a complex of heavy industries around Taiyuan but neglected to publicize the extent of his success outside of Shanxi, probably to deceive Chiang. Despite his measured successes in modernizing the industry of Shanxi, Yan repeatedly petitioned the central government for financial assistance to extend the local railroad, and for other reasons, but his requests were usually denied. When Yan refused to send taxes collected from the trade of salt, produced in Shanxi's public factories, to the central government, Chiang retaliated by flooding the market of northern China with so much salt, produced around coastal China, that the price of salt in China's northern provinces dropped extremely low. Those artificially low salt prices made neighboring provinces virtually stop purchasing Shanxi salt altogether. In 1935, Chiang's announcement of a "five-year plan" to modernize Chinese industry was perhaps inspired by the successes of the "Ten-Year Plan" that Yan had announced several years earlier.


title: Yan Xishan

text: In Shanxi, Yan implemented numerous successful reforms in an effort to centralize his control over the province. Although embracing the traditional values of the landed gentry, he denounced their "oppression" of the peasantry and took steps to initiate land reform and weaken the power of landowners over the populace in the countryside. The reforms also weakened potential rivals in his province and benefited Shanxi farmers.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan attempted to develop his army as a locally recruited force, which cultivated a public image of being servants, rather than masters, of the people. He developed an all-encompassing idiosyncratic ideology (literally "Yan Xishan Thought") and disseminated it by sponsoring a network of village newspapers and traveling dramatic troupes. He co-ordinated dramatic public meetings in which participants confessed their own misdeeds and/or denounced those of others. He devised a system of public education, producing a population of trained workers and farmers literate enough to be indoctrinated without difficulty. The early date by which Yan devised and implemented the reforms, during the Warlord Era, contradicts later claims that these reforms were modeled on Communist programs and not vice versa.


title: Yan Xishan

text: When Yan returned from Japan in 1909, he was a firm proponent of militarism and proposed a system of national conscription along German and Japanese lines. Germany's defeat during World War I and Yan's defeat in Henan in 1919 caused him to reassess the value of militarism as a way of life. He then decreased the size of the army until 1923 to save money until a rumor circulated that rival warlords were planning on invading Shanxi. Yan then introduced military reforms designed to train a rural militia of 100,000 men, along the lines of Japanese and American reserves.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan attempted via conscription to create a civilian reserve, which would become the foundation of society in Shanxi. His troops were perhaps the only army in the Warlord era drawn exclusively from the province in which it was stationed, and because he insisted for his soldiers to perform work to improve Shanxi's infrastructure, including road-maintenance and assisting farmers, and because his discipline ensured that his soldiers actually paid for anything that they took from civilians, the army in Shanxi enjoyed much more popular support than most of his rivals' armies in China.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan's officer corps was drawn from Shanxi's gentry and given two years of education at government expense. Despite efforts to subject his officers to a rigorous Japanese-style training regimen and to indoctrinate them in Yan Xishan Thought, his armies never proved to be especially well-trained or disciplined in battle. In general, Yan's military record is not considered positive (he had more defeats than victories) and it is unclear whether his officer corps either understood or sympathized with his objectives or entered his service solely in the interests of achieving prestige and a higher standard of living. Yan built an arsenal in Taiyuan that for the entire period of his administration remained the only center in China that could produce field artillery. The presence of the arsenal was one of the main reasons for Yan maintaining Shanxi's relative independence. While not particularly effective fighting rival warlords, Yan's army was successful in eradicating banditry in Shanxi, which allowed him to maintain a relatively-high level of public order and security. Yan's successes in eradicating banditry in Shanxi included his co-operation with Yuan Shikai to defeat Bai Lang's remnant rebels after the failed 1913-1914 Bai Lang Rebellion.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan went to great lengths to eradicate social traditions that he considered antiquated. He insisted for all men in Shanxi to abandon their Qing-era queues and gave to police instructions to clip off the queues of anyone still wearing them. In one instance, Yan lured people into theatres to have his police systematically cut the hair of the audience. He attempted to combat widespread female illiteracy by creating in each district at least one vocational school in which peasant girls could be given a primary-school education and taught domestic skills. After Kuomintang military victories in 1925 generated great interest in Shanxi for the Nationalist ideology, including women's rights, Yan allowed girls to enroll in middle school and college, where they promptly formed a women's association.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan attempted to eradicate the custom of foot binding by threatening to sentence men who married women with bound feet and mothers who bound their daughters' feet to hard labor in state-run factories. He discouraged the use of the traditional lunar calendar and encouraged the development of local Boy Scout organizations. Like the Communists, who later succeeded Yan, he punished habitual lawbreakers to "redemption through labour" in state-run factories.


title: Yan Xishan

text: In 1916, at least 10% of Shanxi's 11 million people were addicted to opium, and Yan attempted to eradicate opium use in Shanxi after he came to power. At first, he dealt with opium dealers and addicts severely by throwing addicts in prison and exposing them and their families to public humiliation. After 1922, partly because of public opposition to harsh punishment, Yan abandoned punishing addicts in favor of attempting to rehabilitate them, pressuring individuals through their families, and constructing sanitariums designed to slowly cure addicts of their addictions.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan's attempts to suppress the opium trade in Shanxi were largely successful, and the number of opium addicts in the province had been reduced by 80% by 1922. In the absence of efforts by other warlords to combat opium production and trade, Yan's efforts to combat opium use only increased the price of opium so much that narcotics of all kinds were drawn into Shanxi from other provinces. Users often switched from opium to pills mixed from morphine and heroin, which were easier to smuggle and use. Because the most influential and powerful gentry in Shanxi were often the worst offenders, officials drawn from the privileged class of Shanxi seldom enforced Yan's decrees outlawing the use of narcotics and often evaded punishment themselves. Eventually, Yan was forced to abandon his efforts to suppress opium trafficking and attempted instead to establish a government monopoly on the production and the sale of opium in Shanxi. Yan continued to complain about the availability of narcotics into the 1930s and after 1932 executed over 600 people caught smuggling drugs into Shanxi. The traffic persisted, but Yan's interests in opposing it were perhaps limited by a fear of provoking the Japanese, who manufactured most of the morphine and heroin available in China in their concession area in Tianjin and came to control much of the drug trade in northern China in the 1930s.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan's efforts to stimulate Shanxi's economy mostly consisted of state-led investment in a broad variety of industries, and he generally failed to encourage private investment and trade. Though gains were made to improve the economy of Shanxi, his efforts were limited by the fact that he himself had little formal training in economic or industrial theory. He also suffered from a lack of experienced, trained advisers capable of directing even moderately complicated tasks related to economic development. Because most of the educated staff to whom he had access to were solidly entrenched within the landed gentry of Shanxi, it is possible that many of his officials may have deliberately sabotaged his efforts for reform by preferring that the peasants working their fields continue their traditional cheap labour.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Throughout his life, Yan attempted to identify, formulate, and disseminate a comprehensive ideology that would improve the morale and loyalty of his officials and of the people of Shanxi. During his time of study in Japan, Yan became attracted to militarism and Social Darwinism, but he renounced them after World War I. Throughout the rest of his life, he identified with the position of most Chinese conservatives at the time: social and economic reform would progress from ethical reform, and the problems confronting China could be solved only by the moral rehabilitation of the Chinese people. Believing that no single ideology existed to unify the Chinese people when he came to power, Yan attempted to generate an ideal ideology himself, and once boasted that he had succeeded in creating a comprehensive system of belief that embodied the best features of "militarism, nationalism, anarchism, democracy, capitalism, communism, individualism, imperialism, universalism, paternalism and utopianism." Much of Yan's attempts to spread his ideology were through a network of semi-religious organizations, known as "Heart-Washing Societies."


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan was emotionally attached to Confucianism by virtue of his upbringing, and he identified its values as a historically effective solution to the chaos and disorder of his time. He justified his rule via Confucian political theories and attempted to revive Confucian virtues as being universally accepted. In his speeches and writing, Yan developed an extravagant admiration for the virtues of moderation and harmony associated with the Confucian Doctrine of the Mean. Many of the reforms that Yan attempted were undertaken with the intention of demonstrating that he was a "junzi", the epitome of Confucian virtue.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan's interpretations of Confucianism were mostly borrowed from the form of Neo-Confucianism, which had been popular during the Qing dynasty. He taught that everyone had a capacity for innate goodness, but to fulfill that capacity people had to subordinate their emotions and desires to the control of their conscience. He admired the Ming dynasty philosophers Lu Jiuyuan and Wang Yangming, who disparaged knowledge and urged men to act on the basis of their intuition. Because Yan believed that human beings could achieve their potentials only through intense self-criticism and self-cultivation, he established in every town a Heart-Washing Society, whose members gathered each Sunday to meditate and listen to sermons based on the themes of the Confucian classics. Everyone at the meetings was supposed to rise and confess aloud his misdeeds of the past week, inviting criticism from the other members.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan attributed much of the West's vitality to Christianity and believed that China could resist and overtake the West only by generating an ideological tradition that was equally inspiring. He appreciated the efforts of missionaries, mostly Americans who maintained a complex of schools in Taigu, to educate and modernize Shanxi. He regularly addressed the graduating classes of the schools but was generally unsuccessful in recruiting the students to serve his regime. Yan supported the indigenous Christian church in Taiyuan and at one time seriously considered using Christian chaplains in his army. His public support of Christianity waned after 1925, when he failed to come to the defense of Christians during the anti-foreigner and anti-Christian demonstrations that polarized Taiyuan.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan deliberately organized many features of his Heart-Washing Society on the Christian church, including ending each service with hymns praising Confucius. He urged his subjects to place their faith in a supreme being that he called ""Shangdi"" and justified his belief in "Shangdi" via the Confucian classics but described "Shangdi" in terms very similar to the Christian interpretation of God. Like Christianity, Yan Xishan Thought was permeated with the belief that accepting his ideology could make people become regenerated or reborn.


title: Yan Xishan

text: In 1911, Yan came to power in Shanxi as a disciple of Chinese nationalism but subsequently came to view nationalism as merely another set of ideas that could be used to achieve his own objectives. He stated that the primary goal of the Heart-Washing Society was to encourage Chinese patriotism by reviving the Confucian church, which led foreigners to accuse him of attempting to create a Chinese version of Shinto.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan attempted to moderate some aspects of Sun Yat-sen's ideology that he viewed as potentially threatening to his rule. Yan altered some of Sun's doctrines before he disseminated them in Shanxi by formulating his own version of Sun's Three Principles of the People that replaced the principles of nationalism and democracy with the principles of virtue and knowledge. During the 1919 May Fourth Movement, when students in Taiyuan staged anti-foreign demonstrations, Yan warned that patriotism, like rainfall, was beneficial only in moderation.


title: Yan Xishan

text: After the Kuomintang succeeded in forming a nominal central government in 1930, Yan encouraged Nationalist principles that he viewed as socially beneficial. In the 1930s, he attempted to set up in every village a "Good People's Movement" to promote the values of Chiang's New Life Movement. The values included honesty, friendliness, dignity, diligence, modesty, thrift, personal neatness, and obedience.


title: Yan Xishan

text: In 1931 Yan returned from his exile in Dalian impressed with the apparent successes of Soviet Union's first five-year plan and attempted to reorganize the economy of Shanxi by using Soviet methods, according to a local "Ten-Year Plan" that Yan himself developed. Throughout the 1930s, Yan bluntly equated economic development with state control of industry and finance, and he had become successful in bringing most major industry and commerce under state control by the late 1930s.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan's speeches after 1931 reflect an interpretation of Marxist economics, mostly drawn from "Das Kapital", that he had gained in exile in Dalian. Following that interpretation, Yan attempted to change the economy of Shanxi to become more like that of the Soviets and inspired a scheme of economic "distribution according to labour". When the threat of Communists became a significant threat to Yan's rule, he defended them as courageous and self-sacrificing fanatics who were different from common bandits, contrary to Kuomintang propaganda and thought that their challenge must be met by social and economic reforms, which alleviated the conditions responsible for them.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Like Karl Marx, Yan wanted to eliminate what he saw as unearned profit by restructuring Shanxi's economy to reward only those who worked. Unlike Marx, Yan reinterpreted Communism to correct what he believed was Marxism's chief flaw: the inevitability of class warfare. Yan praised Marx for his analysis of the material aspects of human society but professed to believe that there was a moral and spiritual unity of mankind that implied that a state of harmony was closer to the human ideal than conflict. By rejecting economic determinism in favor of morality and free will, Yan hoped to create a society that would be more productive and less violent than he perceived communism to be and to avoid the exploitation and the human misery that he believed was the inevitable result of capitalism.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan interpreted Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal as promoting socialism to combat the spread of communism. "The New Deal is an effective way of stopping communism," Yan said, "by having the government step in and ride roughshod over the interests of the rich." Yan then undertook a series of public works projects inspired by the New Deal to reduce unemployment in his own province.


title: Yan Xishan

text: In spite of his efforts, Yan did not succeed in making Yan Xishan Thought widely popular in Shanxi, and most of his subjects refused to believe that his true objectives differed substantially from those of past regimes. Yan himself blamed the failure of his ideology to become popular on the faults of his officials by charging that they abused their power and failed to explain his ideas to the common people. In general, the officials of Shanxi misappropriated funds intended to be used for propaganda, attempted to explain Yan's ideas in language too sophisticated for the common people, and often behaved in a dictatorial manner that discredited Yan's ideology and failed to generate popular enthusiasm for his regime.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan did not come into serious conflict with the Japanese until the early 1930s. While he was in exile in Dalian in 1930, Yan became aware of Japanese plans to invade Manchuria and feigned collaboration with the Japanese to pressure Chiang Kai-shek into allowing him to return to Shanxi before warning Chiang of Japan's intent. Japan's subsequent success in taking Manchuria in 1931 terrified Yan, who stated that a major objective of his Ten-Year Plan was to strengthen Shanxi's defense against the Japanese. In the early 1930s, he supported anti-Japanese riots, denounced the Japanese occupation of Manchuria as "barbarous" and "evil," publicly appealed to Chiang to send troops to Manchuria, and arranged for his arsenal to arm partisans fighting the Japanese occupation in Manchuria.


title: Yan Xishan

text: In December 1931, Yan was warned that after taking control of Manchuria, the Japanese would attempt to take control of Inner Mongolia by subverting Chinese authority in Chahar and Suiyuan. To prevent that, he took control of Suiyuan first, developed its large iron deposits (24% of all iron in China), and settled the province with thousands of soldier-farmers. When the Manchukuo Imperial Army, armed and led by the Japanese, finally invaded Chahar in 1935, Yan virtually declared war on the Japanese by accepting a position as "advisor" of the Suiyuan Mongolian Political Council, an organization created by the central government to organize opposition to the Japanese.


title: Yan Xishan

text: The Japanese began promoting "autonomy" for northern China in the summer of 1935. Some high-ranking Japanese military officials believed that Yan and other warlords in the north were fundamentally pro-Japanese and would readily subordinate themselves to the Japanese in exchange for protection from Chiang. Yan was a particular target because of his education in Japan and his much-publicized admiration of the country's modernization. However, Yan published an open letter in September in which he accused the Japanese of desiring to conquer all of China over the next two decades. According to Japanese sources, Yan entered into negotiations with the Japanese in 1935 but was never very enthusiastic about "autonomy" and rejected their overtures when he realized that they intended to make him their puppet. Yan likely used the negotiations to frighten Chiang into using his armies to defend Shanxi since he was afraid that Chiang was preparing to sacrifice northern China to avoid fighting the Japanese. If those were Yan's intentions, they were successful since Chiang assured Yan that he would defend Shanxi with his army if it was invaded.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Although Yan admired their philosophy and economic methods, he feared the threat posed by Communists almost as much as that of the Japanese. In the early 1930s, he observed that if it invaded Shanxi, the Red Army would enjoy the support of 70% of his subjects and readily be able to recruit one million men from among its most desperate citizens. He remarked that "the job of suppressing communism is 70% political and only 30% military, while the job of preventing its growth altogether is 90% political." To prevent a Communist threat to Shanxi, Yan sent troops to fight the Communists in Jiangxi and (later) Shaanxi, organized the gentry and village authorities into anti-corruption and anti-communist political organizations, and attempted (mostly unsuccessfully) to undertake a large-scale program of land reform.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Those reforms did not prevent the spread of Communist guerrilla operations into Shanxi. Led by Liu Zhidan and Xu Haidong, 34,000 Communist troops crossed into southwestern Shanxi in February 1936. As Yan had predicted, the Communists enjoyed massive popularity; although they were outnumbered and ill-armed, they succeeded in occupying the southern third of Shanxi in less than a month. The Communists' strategy of guerrilla warfare was extremely effective against and demoralizing for Yan's forces, who repeatedly fell victim to surprise attacks. The Communists in Shanxi made good use of co-operation supplied by local peasants to evade and easily locate Yan's forces. When the reinforcements sent by the central government forced the Communists to withdraw from Shanxi, the Red Army escaped by splitting into small groups, which were actively supplied and hidden by local supporters. Yan himself admitted that his troops had fought poorly during the campaign. The Kuomingtang forces that remained in Shanxi expressed hostility to Yan's rule but did not interfere with his governance.


title: Yan Xishan

text: In March 1936, Manchukuo troops occupying the province in Inner Mongolia of Chahar invaded northeastern Suiyuan, which Yan controlled. The Japanese-aligned forces seized the city of Bailingmiao in northern Suiyuan, where the pro-Japanese Inner Mongolian Autonomous Political Council maintained its headquarters. Three months later, the head of the Political Council, Prince De (Demchugdongrub), declared that he was the ruler of an independent Mongolia (Mengguguo), and organized an army with the aid of Japanese equipment and training. In August 1936, Prince De's army attempted to invade eastern Suiyuan but was defeated by Yan's forces under the command of Fu Zuoyi. After that defeat, Prince De planned another invasion while Japanese agents carefully sketched and photographed Suiyuan's defenses.


title: Yan Xishan

text: To prepare for the imminent threat of Japanese invasion, which he felt after Suiyuan was invaded, Yan attempted to force all students to undergo several months of compulsive military training and formed an informal alliance with the Communists for the purpose of fighting the Japanese several months before the Xi'an Incident compelled Chiang to do the same. In November 1936, the army of Prince De presented Fu Zuoyi with an ultimatum to surrender. When Fu responded that Prince De was merely a puppet of "certain quarters" and requested him to submit to the authority of the central government, Prince De's Mongolian and Manchurian armies launched another more ambitious attack. Prince De's 15,000 soldiers were armed with Japanese weapons, supported by Japanese aircraft, and often led by Japanese officers. Japanese soldiers fighting for Mengguguo were often executed after their capture as illegal combatants since Mengguguo was not recognized as being part of Japan.


title: Yan Xishan

text: In anticipation of the war, Japanese spies destroyed a large supply depot in Datong and carried out other acts of sabotage. Yan placed his best troops and most able generals, including Zhao Chengshou and Yan's son-in-law, Wang Jingguo, under the command of Fu Zuoyi. During the month of fighting that ensued, the army of Mengguguo suffered severe casualties. Fu's forces succeeded in retaking Bailingmiao on 24 November, and he was considering invading Chahar before he was warned by the Japanese Kwantung Army that doing so would provoke an attack by the Imperial Japanese Army. Prince De's forces repeatedly attempted to retake Bailingmiao, but that only provoked Fu into sending troops north, where he successfully seized the last of Prince De's bases in Suiyuan and virtually annihilated his army. After Japanese officers were found to be aiding Prince De, Yan publicly accused Japan of aiding the invaders. His victories in Suiyuan over Japanese-backed forces were praised by Chinese newspapers and magazines, other warlords, and political leaders, and many students and members of the Chinese public.


title: Yan Xishan

text: During the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), most regions of Shanxi were quickly overrun by the Japanese, but Yan refused to flee the province even after he had lost the provincial capital, Taiyuan. He relocated his headquarters to a remote corner of the province and effectively resisted Japanese attempts to completely seize Shanxi. During the war, the Japanese made no less than five attempts to negotiate peace terms with Yan and hoped that he would become a second Wang Jingwei, but Yan refused and stayed aligned with the Second United Front between the Nationalists and the Communists.


title: Yan Xishan

text: After the failed attempt by the Chinese Red Army to establish bases in southern Shanxi in early 1936, the subsequent continued presence of Nationalist soldiers there, and the Japanese attempts to take Suiyuan that summer, Yan became convinced that the Communists were lesser threats to his rule than were either the Nationalists or the Japanese. He then negotiated a secret anti-Japanese "united front" with the Communists in October 1936 and, after the Xi'an Incident two months later, successfully influenced Chiang to enter a similar agreement with the Communists. After establishing his alliance with the Communists, Yan lifted the ban on Communist activities in Shanxi. He allowed Communist agents working under Zhou Enlai to establish a secret headquarters in Taiyuan and released Communists that he had been holding in prison, including at least one general, Wang Ruofei.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Yan, under the slogan "resistance against the enemy and defense of the soil," attempted to recruit young patriotic intellectuals to his government to organize a local resistance to the threat of a Japanese invasion. By 1936, Taiyuan had become a gathering point for anti-Japanese intellectuals who had fled from Beijing, Tianjin, and Northeast China and readily co-operated with Yan, but he also recruited natives of Shanxi who lived across China regardless of their former political associations. Some Shanxi officials attracted to Yan's cause in the late 1930s later became important figures in the Chinese government, including Bo Yibo.


title: Yan Xishan

text: In July 1937, after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident had provoked the Japanese into attacking Chinese forces in and around Beijing, the Japanese sent a large number of warplanes and Manchurian soldiers to reinforce Prince De's army. That caused Yan to believe that a Japanese invasion of Shanxi was imminent and so he flew to Nanjing to communicate the situation to Chiang. Yan left his meeting in Nanjing with an appointment as commander of the Second War Zone, comprising Shanxi, Suiyuan, Chahar, and northern Shaanxi.


title: Yan Xishan

text: After returning to Shanxi, Yan encouraged his officials to be suspicious of enemy spies and "hanjian" and ordered his forces to attack Prince De's forces in northern Chahar in the hope of surprising and overwhelming them quickly. The Mongolian and Manchu forces were quickly routed, and Japanese reinforcements attempting to force their way through the strategic Nankou pass suffered heavy casualties. Overwhelming Japanese firepower, including artillery, bombers, and tank, eventually forced Yan's forces to surrender Nankou, and Japanese forces then quickly seized Suiyuan and Datong. The Japanese began the invasion of Shanxi in earnest.


title: Yan Xishan

text: As the Japanese had advanced southward into Taiyuan Basin, Yan attempted to impose discipline on his army by executing General Li Fuying and other officers guilty of retreating from the enemy. He issued orders not to withdraw or to surrender under any circumstances, vowed to resist Japan until the Japanese had been defeated, and invited his own soldiers to kill him if he betrayed his promise. In the face of continued Japanese advances, Yan apologized to the central government for his army's defeats, asked it to assume responsibility for the defense of Shanxi, and agreed to share control of the provincial government with one of Chiang's representatives.


title: Yan Xishan

text: When it became clear to Yan that his forces might not be successful in repelling the Japanese, he invited Communist military forces to re-enter Shanxi. Zhu De became the commander of the Eighth Route Army active in Shanxi and was named the vice-commander of the Second War Zone, under Yan himself. Yan initially responded warmly to the re-entry of the arrival of Communist forces, who were greeted with enthusiasm by Yan's officials and officers. Communist forces arrived in Shanxi just in time to help defeat a decisively more powerful Japanese force attempting to move through a strategic mountain pass at the Battle of Pingxingguan. After the Japanese had responded to the defeat by outflanking the defenders and moving towards Taiyuan, the Communists avoided decisive battles and mostly attempted to harass Japanese forces and sabotage Japanese lines of supply and communication. The Japanese suffered but mostly ignored the Eighth Route Army and continued to advance towards Yan's capital. The lack of attention directed at their forces gave the Communists time to recruit and propagandize among the local peasant populations, who generally welcomed Communist forces enthusiastically, and to organize a network of militia units, local guerrilla bands, and popular mass organizations.


title: Yan Xishan

text: Genuine Communist efforts to resist the Japanese gave them the authority to carry out sweeping and radical social and economic reforms, mostly related to land and wealth redistribution, which they defended by labeling those who resisted as "hanjian". Communist efforts to resist the Japanese also won over Shanxi's small population of patriotic intellectuals, and conservative fears of resisting them effectively gave the Communists unlimited access to the rural population. Subsequent atrocities committed by the Japanese in the effort to rid Shanxi of Communist guerrillas aroused the hatred of millions in the Shanxi countryside, which caused the rural population to turn to the Communists for leadership against the Japanese. All of those factors explain how within a year of re-entering Shanxi, the Communists had taken control of most parts of Shanxi that were not firmly held by the Japanese.


title: Yan Xishan

text: By executing commanders guilty of retreating, Yan succeeded in improving the morale of his forces. During the Battle of Pingxingguan, Yan's troops in Shanxi successfully resisted numerous Japanese assaults, and the Eighth Route Army harassed the Japanese from the rear and along their flanks. Other units of Yan's army successfully defended other nearby passes. After the Japanese had successfully broken into the Taiyuan Basin, they continued to encounter ferocious resistance. At Yuanping, a single brigade of Yan's troops held out against the Japanese advance for over a week, which allowed reinforcements sent by the Nationalist government to take up defensive positions at the Battle of Xinkou. The Communist generals Zhu De and Peng Dehuai criticized Yan for what they called "suicidal tactics," but Yan was confident that the heavy losses suffered by the Japanese would eventually demoralize them and force them to abandon their effort to take Shanxi.