Zhang Xueliang or
Chang Hsueh-liang (; 3 June 1901 in
Haicheng,
China – 15 October 2001 in
Honolulu, Hawaii), occasionally called
Peter Hsueh Liang Chang and nicknamed the "Young Marshal" (少帥), was the effective ruler of
northeast China and much of northern China after the assassination of his father,
Zhang Zuolin, by the
Japanese on 4 June 1928. He was an instigator of the 1936
Xi'an Incident, in which
Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of China's ruling party, was arrested in order to force him to enter into a truce with the insurgent
Chinese Communist Party and form a united front against Japan, which had
occupied Manchuria. As a result, he spent over fifty years under house arrest, first in mainland China and then in Taiwan. He is regarded by the
Chinese Communist Party as a patriotic hero.