Shi Yousan

Shi Yousan
石友三
Shi Yousan in NRA uniform, before 1933
3rd Provincial Chairman of Anhui Province
In office 21 October, 1929 – 27 January, 1930
Preceded by	Liu Ruming
Succeeded by	Hua Zeyu
9th Governor of the Chahar Province
In office 14 January, 1939 – July, 1939
Preceded by	Fang Zhenwu
Succeeded by	Wang Jinyu
Personal details
Born	(1891-12-01)1 December 1891 Changchun, Jilin, Qing China
Died	1 December 1940(1940-12-01) (aged 49) Puyang, Henan, Republic of China
Political party	Kuomintang
Nickname(s)	"Defector General" "Shi who turns three times" "Slave of Six Surnames"
Military service
Allegiance	Republic of China  Empire of Japan
Branch/service	New Army Guominjun National Revolutionary Army
Rank	Lieutenant general

Shi Yousan (Chinese: 石友三; pinyin: Shí Yǒusān; 1 December, 1891 – 1 December, 1940), courtesy name Hanzhang (汉章),^[1] was a Chinese general of the National Revolutionary Army who served as the 9th Governor of the Chahar and 3rd Governor of Anhui provinces in the Republic of China.

Shi is also notable for successively joining/defecting to, and subsequently betraying the forces of Wu Peifu, Feng Yuxiang, Chiang Kai-shek, Wang Jingwei, Zhang Xueliang, the Chinese Communist Party, and Japan. For his many betrayals and defections he is known as the "Defector General" (Chinese: 倒戈將軍; pinyin: Dǎogē Jiāngjūn), as "Shi Sanfan" (Chinese: 石三翻; pinyin: Shí sānfān; lit. 'Shi [who] turns three times'), for his most infamous triple betrayal of Feng Yuxiang in 1926, 1929, and 1930, and the "Slave of Six Surnames"(Chinese: 六姓家奴; pinyin: Liù xìng jiānú), the "surnames" being the prominent people and organisations he pledged himself to, in reference to historical warlord Lü Bu, who is sometimes known as the "Slave of Three Surnames".^[2]

While leading the 39th Army Group of the National Revolutionary Army, he planned to defect to the Japanese, but before he could do so he was kidnapped and buried alive by his sworn brother and subordinate Gao Shuxun, who later gained command of Shi's unit.

Shi was born in 1891 in Jiutai, Changchun, Jilin, Qing China, to an impoverished local family. In his youth, Shi worked as an apprentice at the Bijia Grain Store in Changchun. There, Shi befriended a member from the wealthy Bi family and was able to attend the government-run Dongguan Elementary through said friendship. One of his elementary school teacher was a teenaged Shang Zhen. In 1908, he ditched his studies to join the army, becoming a member of Wu Peifu's forces in the Third Division of the New Army, in the unit under Cao Kun's command,^[3] stationed in Changchun and later Langfang in Hebei.^[4]

On 29 February 1912, while in Beijing, Shi abandoned Cao's troop when his fellow soldiers started the Renzi mutiny [zh], motivated by unpaid salary and the controversial decision of Yuan Shikai to name Beijing the new capital in place of Nanjing. He answered a recruitment call by Feng Yuxiang, who described Shi as "having the head of a deer and the eyes of a rat, and [being] as skinny as firewood". Feng rejected his request to become a soldier in his army due to Shi's short height of 4 ft 8 in (142.24 cm), for which Feng nicknamed him "地八寸" ("eight inches"), but did let him join as a stableman. Shi eventually earned Feng's favor for displaying a strategic mindset during tactical meetings with his officers and showing off his hand-to-hand combat abilities he learnt during his three-month stay at a martial arts school (from which he was expelled after attempting to convince another student to take an exam for him). Additionally, despite being a junior secondary dropout, Shi still possessed a significantly higher education than most of Feng's soldiers and officers, and thus gradually rose through his ranks. In combat, Shi also distinguished himself as an effective commander, such as in the battle for Puyang under control of Chen Shufan during the Zhili–Anhui War. After several engagements by the regiments had failed, Shi organized a "death squad" composed of 120 soldiers, personally gave each one three silver dollars and led the charge on the village, resulting in a complete takeover.^[5]

During his time in Feng's army, Shi became close to Gao Shuxun, who joined his company in 1916, and would regularly serve directly under Shi for the following decade and became sworn brothers. Shi became promoted to the commander of the 6th Division in September 1924.^[4]

In October 1924, Feng launched the Beijing Coup and subsequently established the Guominjun. Shi became one of the "thirteen guardians/protectors"(十三太保) considered the most important commanders of the Guominjun, and subsequently the commander of the 8th Mixed Brigade of the 1st Army. In 1926, he gained the rank of lieutenant general in the Beiyang Army.

In 1926 during the Anti-Fengtian War, Shi's troops were stationed at Nankou (now Changping, Beijing), under regular threat of the Zhili and Fengtian clique alliance. Yan Xishan attacked the rear of the Guominjun from Shanxi, due to which Shi, along with Han Fuju's forces were sent to fight against Yan's army. Due to the inferiority of their strength, Shi and Han brokered a non-aggression pact with Yan without Feng's knowledge and staged a retreat in August of the same year. The main force of Feng subsequently abandoned their hold in Beijing, with several deserters running into the units of Shi and Han and being absorbed into their forces. Facing defeat, Feng left the country for the Soviet Union, after which, Shi and Han decided to surrender to Yan.^[4]

In September, Feng swore allegiance to Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang after the launch of the Northern Expedition in July. Seeing that Feng's military capabilites had been bolstered, Shi returned to Feng's forces, and was appointed as the commander-in-chief of the 5th division of the Guominjun Army in Shaanxi, reportedly after a heartfelt apology during which Shi knelt and cried in front of Feng. As punishment for Shi's desertion, Feng dismissed Shi's chief-of staff Zhang Longhua and replaced him with his trusted officer Li Bingxuan instead to directly report any of Shi's action to Feng. Not long after, however, Shi had Li abducted and buried alive as a warning to Feng.^[4][6]

In June of the following year, the Guominjun was reorganized into the 2nd Army Group of the National Revolutionary Army, and Shi became the deputy commander-in-chief of the 1st Front Army and the commander of the 5th Army. Subsequently, Shi defeated Sun Chuanfang's forces loyal to the Beiyang government in Shandong. During the second phase of the Northern Expedition, areas controlled by the National Revolutionary Army in Henan Province was attacked and captured by the forces of Fan Zhongxiu [zh]. Feng ordered Shi's troops to move south from Shandong to engage in battle with Fan's forces along with the forces of Song Zheyuan.

In mid-late March, 1928, Shi's troops were tasked by Feng to drive out Fan from Dengfeng County. Fan had set up base in Shaolin Monastery, having been a lay-disciple under former head monk Heng Lin [zh]. Earlier, the temple's latest head monk Miao Xing [zh] aligned himself with the Northern Warlords to protect local interests and was killed on 6 March 1927 in an engagement against NRA commander Ren Yingqi while commanding the 1st Shaolin Temple Self-Defence Regiment. By the time Shi arrived at the monastery to find Fan, the monks had formed an armed fighting force and refused to let any harm be done to Fan as a former member of the temple. In the ensuing battle, over 200 monks were killed and fire was set to the Dharma Hall. Brigade commander Su Mingqi then ordered for more of the temple to be set alight as punishment for the monks' resistance, and over the course of 40 days, 90 percent of the buildings were destroyed, and many manuscripts of the temple library were incinerated. It was later held in the opinion of the monastery that the event came about due to abbot Miao Xing violating the Vinaya through his self-defense initiative and that the negative karma led to his death and the 1928 cataclysm.^[7][8][9]

By the end of 1928, the Northern Expedition was declared over, and with the demobilization, Shi was reassigned to the of commander of the 24th Division of the National Revolutionary Army and was stationed at Nanyang.

In May 1929, when Feng aligned himself with the New Guangxi clique during the Chiang-Gui War, Shi defected to Chiang after being bribed and promised to be named Provincial Chairman of Anhui, publicly denouncing Feng for committing "the ten major crimes".^[a] In December, however, Shi had a falling out with Chiang over the chairman position and Shi's refusal to sent troops to fight Li Zongren and Chen Jitang in Guangdong, instead allying with Chiang's party rival Tang Shengzhi. The feud culminated in an incident on 2 December at Pukou railway station where Shi reportedly declared "老蒋不是个东西，轰他!" ("Old Man Chiang is nothing, blast him!") and subjected Nanjing to several hours of artillery barrage with a joint force of Tang, Li, and Chen, aiming at Chiang's office in the Presidential Palace. After Tang was purged, Shi reconnected with Yan Xishan and through him got back in touch with Feng Yuxiang.^[4]

During the Central Plains War, Shi continued to serve under Feng until late May, 1930, when Shi's secretary Liu Yidan arrived in Wuhan bearing a letter for He Yingqin, in which he agreed to side with the KMT government along with Han Fuju and all the soldiers under their command, totalling a third of all of Feng's forces. Shi had been incentivised by He's promise of generous concessions to generals under Feng willing to defect. It was this substantial loss that greatly contributed to Feng announcing his "retirement" and following flight to Taiyuan with Yan Xishan. On 1 June, Shi received a reward of five million yuan and was named commander-in-chief of the 13th Route of the Anti-Rebel Army in an impromptu ceremony in Xuchang through Chiang's emissary Qian Dajun.^[10]

In early 1931, while in Shenyang, Shi initiated contact with fellow warlord Zhang Xueliang, who had similarly split off from Feng to work with the KMT, and offered to enter an alliance with him, to which Zhang agreed, giving Shi a monthly 600,000 yuan salary, with 200,000 yuan up front as a sign of goodwill. Shi then formed a military force headquartered in Xingtai,composed of tens of thousands of former soldiers under Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan and used them to occupy the Pinghan railway, having heard of Zhang's plans to do so. In May 1931, Shi began working with Wang Jingwei, who had also joined forces with Li Rongzen and Chen Jitang, being appointed commander-in-chief of the 5th Army Group in Guangzhou Special Municipality. Shi's cooperation with Zhang nevertheless continued until 18 July, when Shi was informed that Zhang had died of illness in Beijing and assuming that Zhang's territories were free for the taking, Shi immediately rallied his troops north to take over. Once in Manchuria on 31 July, Shi's soldiers were intercepted in a pincer movement by the armies of Chiang Kai-shek and the very much alive Zhang Xueliang, leaving only around 4,000 men to return to Dezhou. Zhang would later muse about his involvement with Shi, "狗改不了吃屎，狼改不了吃人，真是本性难移啊。" ("A dog will always eat shit, and a wolf will always eat people, it's really hard to change one's nature.").^[4]

In September 1932, Shi was suspected of having taken part in the killing of warlord Zhang Zongchang, who had been a personal friend of his, in cooperation with his former allies Feng Yuxiang and Han Fuju, who had by then become military governor of Shandong. The day before Zhang's assassination, on September 2, 1932, Shi hosted a banquet in Han's name for Zhang to discuss a possible military operation to fight the Japanese, who had invaded Manchuria the previous year. Shi expressed great interest in the revolver Zhang carried with him and received the same gun as a present by the end of the festivities. The event was later alleged to have been a ploy intended to get Zhang drunk and disarm him before he left the province to depart for Beijing by ways of Jinan's train station, where Zhang would be shot to death by Zheng Jicheng [zh], the vengeful adoptive son of Zheng Jinsheng [zh], a general under Feng and one of his brothers-in-law, who was killed by Zhang during the Warlord Era.^[11][12]

In October 1932, Shi left Jinan for Japanese-occupied Tianjin to attend clandestine meetings with Japanese general Kenji Doihara and collaborator Yin Ju-keng. Chiang Kai-shek was aware of this treachery and ordered Beijing station commander Chen Gongshu [zh] to arrange Shi's assassination, who in-turn tasked agent Wang Wen with going to Tianjin. Wang bribed Shi's camp assistant Xian Hongxia to have a chef poison a hot pot Shi would eat with his third wife was on visit. The plan failed because Shi recognized the chef's anxious demeanour while serving and forced him at gunpoint to confess to the plot. In 1933, Shi was assigned Jibei Security Command of the National Government by the Japanese occupation. Xian was arrested when she tried to grab Shi's pistol and handed over to Japanese authorities as an "agent of Nanjing", but Shi ultimately never learnt who ordered the attempt on his life.

In December 1935, Shi sought a government job from his old brother-in-arms Song Zheyuan, who was now Governor of Chahar Province. By this point, Song held a great deal of disdain for Shi, knowing full-well of Shi's repeated betrayals, but was convinced to make him the commander of the 181st Division, supposedly composed of former bandits under Feng Shoupeng in Hebei to stop his persistent requests and keep him away from the Japanese forces he would likely be colluding with otherwise. Eventually, when the battalion was splint into three regiments, Shi was reunited with Gao, who gained control of one of the other regiments along with Song.^[4]

In the early stages of the Second Sino-Japanese War in mid-1937, Shi pledged to aid the KMT in the resistance against the invasion of the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces, but secretly planned to overthrow Chiang from his leadership position, both in collaboration with and separately from several other ex-warlords.^[13]

During the Battle of Wuhan, Shi briefly held Jinan with a garrison of 1,000 soldiers. Afterwards, he was paired with Gao to fight in the Battle of Taierzhuang, commanding the 69th Corps and New Eight Army respectively.

Starting around 1938, while serving as commander of the Nationalist 69th Corps and conducting guerrilla warfare against the Japanese in Shandong, Shi colluded with the Eighth Route Army of the Chinese Communist Party in Hebei, after he gave them vital intel that allowed for the capture of guerrilla leader Qin Qirong, who was a trusted friend to Shi.^[14] Shi planned to use the communists as a means to take control of Shandong, but grew disillusioned with this plan after realizing that he would not be getting promoted into higher ranks of leadership or given command over a large enough battalion to establish military governance. For a brief time, Deng Xiaoping and Yang Xiufeng worked in the departments supervised by Shi.^[6]

In April 1939, Shi was once again convinced to switch back to the KMT after being promised a leadership position in Northern China by Zang Bofeng. Around the same time, Shi began doing the bidding of his IJAF contacts by sending his soldiers to flush out and eliminate anti-Japanese partisans, for which he was locally reviled as "石阎王" ("Shi King Yan"). Shi ended up fully double-crossing the communists by staging a mutiny in July, 1939 and fled to Shanxi, subsequently being tracked down by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) on January 30, 1940. Preparations were made by Nie Rongzhen to attack Shi's location, but before any action could be taken, Shi and his troops fled south with those of Sun Liangcheng [zh], suffering substantial casualties before he was able to make it across the Wei River to Henan's Qingfeng County. In February, Shi participate in the Battle of Jinan, where he was forced out by the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army. The PLA troops found Shi on March 4 and attacked his location the same day, consolidating 17 regiments for this purpose, leading heavy losses for Shi, who again managed to escape and head for Shandong, where he was able to make contact with Kuomintang general Ding Shuben in the village of Xiaohanji near Huangjia. Shi did not inform Ding of the PLA troops after him, having made plans to use Ding and the units under his commands as cannon fodder to slow the Eighth Route Army's advance and aid him in his escape. Gao Shuxun, who was serving with Ding at the time and, as a communist sympathiser, had been briefed on the Eighth Route Army's movement through his contacts, ended up informing Ding of the communists' advance, allowing Ding to save himself and some of his troops, before the majority was almost completely annihilated by attacks by the PLA who had caught wind of Shi's planned counter-offensive. Shi went into hiding in Dingtao and avoided being discovered by the PLA for two months. He was eventually found out in June and driven out of Shandong, across the Yellow River, by communist forces.^[15]

In spring 1940, Shi, who had thus far kept his collaboration with the Imperial Japanese Army largely covert and on a largely transactional level, agreed with his contact Sasaki in Kaifeng to use his troops to strike against his fellow Chinese, whether that be KMT or CCP, starting on precisely midnight to 1 January, 1941, for which he was to be given the leadership of a puppet regime the Japanese would establish in Southeastern China.^[4] In November 1940, Shi married Lin Weijun, his fifth wife/concubine, making Shi the son-in-law of the late author Lin Baishui [zh], coincidentally a victim of Zhang Zongchang. Lin was coerced into marrying Shi by having his subordinates surveil and track her movements until she accepted his proposal.^[5]

In late 1940, while leading the 39th Army Group of the National Revolutionary Army, Shi once more served with Gao. While in Liulintun in Dongming County, Shandong, Gao incidentally read a telegram in Shi's quarters that revealed his defection to the Japanese and confronted Shi with this. Shi let Gao in on his plans to switch sides and tried to convince him to join him in doing so. Gao was disgusted by the offer and declined, saying "宁做亡命鬼，决不当卖国贼!" ("I'd rather be a hungry ghost than a traitor!"). In response to this, Shi attempted to absorb several of the troops under Gao's command into his own, but despite being superior and subordinate in rank, both controlled an equal portion of soldiers, who refused to subject the regiment size to change.

Although Gao first kept quiet about Shi's treachery, after Gao suspected that a Japanese ambush on a railway near the KMT headquarters in Dingtao that resulted in 2,000 casualties in the summer was made possible by Shi's collaboration with the enemy, further beginning to believe it had been a precision hit in an attempt to kill Gao for having ruined his plans with Ding Shuben a few weeks earlier. Gao reported Shi and received orders from Wei Lihuang representing Chiang Kai-Shek to have Shi executed for treason. Shi was kept under close watch for a few days until tbe evening of 1 December, when he was restrained by Gao's men during a meeting between him, Gao, Wei, and Sun Liangcheng in Liuxiatun, Puyang County. In response to Shi's visible bewilderment, Gao reportedly told him, "不是我杀是天杀，不是天杀是地杀，不是地杀是蒋杀，一报还一报，罪有应得！" ("It was not me who killed you, it was God who killed you. It was not God who killed you, it was the Earth who killed you. It was not the Earth who killed you, it was Chiang who killed you!")^[b], to reveal that he had informed his superiors and that what was happening was an order of Chiang Kai-Shek. Gao's troops took Shi to the bank of the Yellow River just outside of Puyang, had a grave dug for Shi and proceeded to bury him alive.^[c] Initially, Shi vehemently protested and scolded Gao for being a disloyal friend, before he began pleading for his life. The burial took 30 minutes and Gao gained command of Shi's unit. The date of Shi's death happened to coincide with his 49th birthday.^[4]

• Lü Bu