His father, Zhang Zuolin, was a warlord with his own army.

Xueliang was captured, imprisoned in china, and transferred to Taiwan with the losing Nationalist army.

During the Xi'an Incident of 1936 during which Zhang Xueliang kidnapped Chiang in an attempt to force him to unite with the communists, He briefly held control of the Nationalist forces.

Xi’an Incident, also called Sian Incident, (Dec. 12–25, 1936), in Chinese history, seizure of the Nationalist generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) by two of his own generals, Zhang Xueliang (Chang Hsüeh-liang) and Yang Hucheng (Yang Hu-ch’eng).

): Zhang Xueliang, a one-time warlord who in two turbulent weeks in 1936 helped turn the course of Chinese history — and then spent the next 55 … Zhang Xueliang (Chinese: 张学良; Wade–Giles: Chang Hsüeh-liang, 3 June 1901 – 15 October 2001), nicknamed the "Young Marshal" (少帥) and known in his later life as Peter H. L. Chang, was the effective ruler of Northeast China and much of northern China after the assassination of his father, Zhang Zuolin (the "Old Marshal"), by the Japanese on 4 June 1928. Chiang agreed but turned on Xueliang. TIL during 1936 Xueliang kidnapped and imprisoned Chiang Kai-shek to unite China against the Japanese. Chinese warlord and later military official in the Republic of China government Xueliang Zhang was born in the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1901.

He’s the warlord who helped unite China against Japanese forces after his bold kidnapping of Chiang Kaishek in Xi’an in 1936 (aka the “Xi’an Incident”). He was under house arrest until Chiang died in … The New York Times actually mentions the two in this 2001 remembrance, when Zhang Xueliang passed away at the ripe old age of 100 (wow!