Xie Jinyuan (Hsieh Chin-yuan; 26 April 1905 – 24 April 1941) was a Chinese Nationalist military officer famous for commanding the Defense of Sihang Warehouse during the Battle of Shanghai in the Second Sino-Japanese War. Biography Xie was a born in Jiaoling County, Guangdong province. He attended the Whampoa Military Academy in Guangzhou and graduated in 1925 majoring in politics. He served in the National Revolutionary Army until his death. After graduation he was assigned to the 5th Regiment, 2nd Division as a platoon commander. In 1928 he was promoted to company commander. The next year the division was involved in the defence of Shandong from a Japanese invasion and Xie was badly wounded in the defense. After he recovered he took command of the machine gun battalion of the regiment, and was later promoted to major and transferred as a staffer to the Wuhan HQ. In 1931 he accepted an assignment to the 78th Division of the 19th Route Army, and in October 1930 he was transferred to the 88th as the battalion commander of the Reserve Regiment. Xie saw combat against the Japanese during the January 28 Incident. He later served as vice regimental commander and was promoted to lieutenant colonel. Defense of the Sihang Warehouse On 26 October 1937, as the Chinese defense of Zhabei faltered, Chiang Kai-shek wanted to withdraw all Chinese forces to defend the rural western regions of Shanghai and ordered acting commander of the 3rd Military Region Gu Zhutong to leave the 88th Division behind to cover their retreat. Gu was personally attached to the 88th Division and was vehemently against this plan, as was the division's commander Sun Yuanliang, who sent his chief of staff Zhang Boting to Gu's headquarters to argue against it. However both hesitated to go against Chiang's orders; Sun instead suggested that the number of troops left behind to cover the withdrawal would not matter. He proposed (through Zhang) that a single regiment instead be left to defend one or two fortified regions, a plan Gu approved. Back at his own headquarters, however, Sun decided that a regiment would still be too many lives wasted and decided to instead order a single over-strength battalion - the 524th Regiment, which had been reduced to 423 men - to defend the divisional headquarters at Sihang Warehouse instead. Xie Jinyuan, relatively new to the 88th, volunteered to lead the regiment, relieving