'Reactionary' was highly effective governor

I learned about Yan Xishan for the first time in a Chinese-language textbook in primary school in the early 1990s. The "reactionary" and his soldiers killed a young unyielding revolutionary hero Liu Hulan with a woodchopper, in front of hundreds of villagers.

The second time I read about Yan was in my college library in 2000. I then realized that a cruel reactionary could also have other sides.

More books on Yan and written by him have been published recently. I now have more sources of information to learn more about him as a person.