Department of Cultural Affairs

The Yen Hsi-shan House

Yen Hsi-shan was born in 1883 in Wutai County, Shanxi Province. He went to Japan for formal military training in 1904. During his years in Japan, he joined Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s Revolutionary Alliance, and began to advocate revolution in China. After the founding of the Chinese Republic, Yen served many important governmental positions, including military commander, military-governor, governor and government chairman of Shanxi Province, as well as ROC premier and state councilor for the ROC national government. In 1960, he died of natural causes in Taipei at the age of 77.
Not long after the 1945 victory of Chinese forces over Japan, the civil war between China’s communist and nationalist forces broke out. In March of 1949, communist troops surrounded the walled city of Taiyuan, embroiling Yen’s army in a bitter battle. Five hundred of his men ultimately sacrificed their lives defending Taiyuan from the communists.
In March 1950, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek resumed the position of ROC president in Taiwan, and Yen Hsi-shan began to gradually play a less prominent role in political affairs, living a life of seclusion in this residential home in Yangmingshan. Out of a sense of homesickness, and also to protect against heat and typhoons, he had his house built into a hillside according to the yaodong style of architecture prevalent in the high plains of Shanxi Province. Here he wrote on a daily basis, and lived out the end of his days peacefully.