This began the written history of the Khitan as an independent tribe. In the period of Zhenjun (r. 440–449) they 'asked for paying tribute' (any presentation of gifts by foreigners were seen as submissive 'tribute') and presented famous steeds to the court of the Northern Wei. In the Xianzu period (466–470) Mofuhe Hechen of the Khitan leading the eight Khitan tribes (Xiwandan, Hedahe, Fufuyu, Yuling, Rilian, Pijie, Li and Tuliuyu) presented famous steeds and high quality fur to the Northern Wei at their capital Datong and the Khitan were 'allowed' to trade in the area of modern-day Miyun County of Beijing City.
The Khitan lived on the eastern slopes of the Greater Khingan Mountain range, within the eastern portions of present-day Inner Mongolia. The area is ideal for the raising of cattle and horses, which was the basic source of wealth for the Khitan people. Their culture evolved over the course of centuries, influenced by both conflict and cultural interaction with their neighbors, both nomadic and sedentary. It was also common for Khitan to intermarry with people from neighboring steppe tribes. During the Tang Dynasty in China, it is known that the Khitan were subservient to the Uyghurs who had their capital set in the Mongolian Plateau before their move westward in the 840s. Initial expansion was to the west in the Mongolian plains, filling the power vacuum created by the departure of the Uyghurs. Other steppe peoples residing in the region were the Shiwei, Xi and Tartars. The remaining Uyghurs fled west in the face of the Khitan advance.
Over the course of time, the Khitan had made some important observations. They noticed how the Uyghurs had coerced the Tang Dynasty to pay them tribute. They also saw the fearsome effect steppe cavalry used by the Shatuo Turks, the Kyrgyz, and the Uyghurs had against Chinese military forces. Khitan leaders also apparently made the observation that to become sedentary themselves would mean that they would have to compete with the Chinese on their terms, something in which the Khitan would have no hope of success. They knew that they must have access to the resources of China without losing the culture and/or identity that was a critical component of their steppe culture. From the 750s, a clan using the surname Yaolian had held the title of khan, holding a monopoly on power for more than one hundred fifty years. They had full relations with the Tang Dynasty court. The first Yaolian khan even had the imperial surname of Li bestowed upon him, though no one in the steppe bothered with it. Yaolian khans wavered from alliance with the Tang Dynasty to joining in with coalitions against it. During this period of time, only the Yaolian clan used a surname among the Khitan.
Abaoji, who would later become Emperor Taizu of Liao, was born in 872, the son of the chief of the Yila tribe. At that time, the Yila tribe was the largest and strongest of the eight affiliated Khitan tribes, however the Great Khan, the overall leader of the Khitans, was drawn from the Yaolian lineage. In 901 Abaoji was elected to be the chief of the Yila tribe by its tribal council. By 903, Abaoji had been named the Yüyue, the overall military leader of the Khitans, subordinate only to the Great Khan. Four years later, in 907, Abaoji became the Great Khan of the Khitans, ending nine generations of Yaolian rule. Abaoji acquired the prestige needed to secure the position of Khitan Great Khan through a combination of effective diplomacy and a series of successful military campaigns, beginning in 901, against the Han Chinese forces to the south, the Xi and Shiwei to the west, and the Jurchens in the east.
The same year that Abaoji became Great Khan, the Chinese warlord Zhu Wen, who had in 904 murdered the last legitimate emperor of the Tang Dynasty, declared the Tang Dynasty over and himself the emperor of China. His Dynasty dissolved quickly, ushering in the 53 year period of disunity known as the Five Dynasties period. One of the five dynasties, the Later Jin Dynasty, was a client state of the Khitans. For much of Chinese history, the position of Emperor was determined by primogeniture; the position would pass from father to first born son upon the father's death. While Khitan succession was also kept within families, an emphasis was placed on selecting the most capable option, with all of a leader's brothers, nephews, and sons considered valid choices for succession. Khitan rulers were expected to hand over power a paternal after serving a single three year term. Abaoji signaled his desire to become a permanent ruler in 907, securing his position by killing most of other Khitan chieftains.
Between 907 and 910 Abaoji's rule went unchallenged. It was only after 910, when Abaoji disregarded the Khitan tradition that another member of the family assume the position of Great Khan, that Abaoji's rule came under direct challenge. In both 912 and 913 members of Abaoji's family, including most of his brothers, attempted armed insurrections. After the first insurrection was discovered and defeated, Abaoji pardoned the conspirators. After the second, only Abaoji's brothers were pardoned, with the other conspirators suffering violent deaths. Abaoji's brothers plotted additional rebellions in 917 and 918, both of which were easily crushed. In 916, at what would have been the end of his third term as Khitan Grand Khan, Abaoji made a number of changes which moved the Khitan state closer to the model of governance used by the Chinese dynasties. Abaoji assumed the title of Celestial Emperor and designated an era name, named his oldest son Yelü Bei as his successor, and commissioned the construction of a Confucian temple. Two years later he established a capital city, Shangjing, which imitated the model of a Chinese capital city.
Before his death in 926, Abaoji greatly expanded the areas that the Khitans controlled. At its height, the Liao Dynasty encompassed modern day Mongolia, parts of Kazakhstan and the Russian Far East, and the Chinese provinces of Hebei, Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, Jilin, Liaoning, and Shanxi. Abaoji had named his eldest son, Prince Bei, heir apparent in 918. However, his widow, Empress Dowager Yingtian, was more of a traditionalist than her husband. Thus, she did not so readily accept the notion of primogeniture. She believed that her second son, Deguang, would have made a more appropriate Khitan emperor because he displayed the traditional traits deemed appropriate to steppe leadership. He was declared the successor to Abaoji while Prince Bei retained his title. Prince Bei later went to China, where he was assassinated in 936. Succession issues were not solved upon Deguang’s death in 947. Empress Dowager Yingtian, favoring her third son, immediately denounced her grandson, who was in line to become the third Liao emperor. However, Prince Lihu was seen by all as being wholly inappropriate to be the leader of the Khitan. Civil war loomed, but did not materialize as the court failed to support Yingtian on this occasion. Her grandson became emperor Shizong. Succession did not return to Prince Bei’s line, as intended by Abaoji in 918, until 969 with the death of Muzong and the accession of Yelu Longxu as Emperor Jingzong. Succession would remain in this line until the fall of the Liao Dynasty in 1125. Despite this misleading stability, there were a lot of challenges to face.
By the mid 11th century, the Khitan began to adopt a more defensive attitude towards their neighbors. This was in part due to the influence of Buddhism and loss of the nomadic way of life among many of the Khitan. Around the 12th century, the empire's slow decline sped up as a result of succession problems, natural disasters, and the positive progress of the Jurchen in the northeast. More pressure was put on the Khitan when the Jurchens & Song entered the Alliance on the Sea against them. The Jurchens led by Aguda captured the Liao dynasty's supreme capital in 1120, and its central capital in 1122. The Liao emperor Tianzuo fled the southern capital Nanjing (today's Beijing) to the western region, and his uncle Prince Yelü Chun then formed the short-lived Northern Liao in the southern capital, but died soon afterwards. In 1125, the Jurchens captured Emperor Tianzuo and ended the Khitan Empire. In 1124, just before the final conquest of the Liao Dynasty, a band of Khitans, led by Yelü Dashi, fled northwest to the border area and military garrison of Kedun (Zhenzhou), in modern day northern Mongolia. Yelü Dashi convinced the people there, around 20,000 Liao cavalry and their families, to follow him and attempt to restore the Liao Dynasty. Yelü Dashi proclaimed himself emperor in 1131, after which he moved further west into modern Kazakhstan and then occupied the Karakhanid city of Balasaghun (in modern Kyrgyzia). After a failed attempt in 1134 to reclaim the territory formerly held by the Liao, Dashi decided instead to stay where he was and establish a permanent Khitan state in Central Asia. The state, known as the Kara-Khitan Khanate or the Western Liao Dynasty, controlled several key trading cities, was multicultural, and showed evidence of religious tolerance. The state survived for nearly a century before being conquered by the Mongol Empire in 1218.
Abaoji introduced a revolutionary new system of governing both nomadic and sedentary populations simultaneously. His concept was to divide the empire into two sections called Chancelleries. The Northern Chancellery consisted of nomadic steppe peoples, including the Khitan and conquered steppe tribes. The Southern Chancellery, by contrast, included territories incorporated into Khitan domains that was populated by Chinese and the people of Balhae. The Northern Chancellery was run on a steppe military model. Abaoji was known as the Great Khan of the Northern Chancellery. The entire steppe population was constantly mobilized, ready for military action should it be required. The Khitan language, for which scripts were devised in 920 and 925, was the official language of the Northern Chancellery. The Xiao family, the consort family to the new imperial family, would govern the North.
The Southern Chancellery was run on a civil model. Here Abaoji served as an emperor more in line with the Chinese model of leadership. The vast majority of the administrative work was done by the sedentary populations themselves under the leadership of Abaoji’s family, who at some point adopted the surname Yelü. Chinese was the official administrative language of the region. The Southern Chancellery even adopted the Tang practice of competitive civil service examinations to staff the various bureaucracies of government required to govern a large sedentary population. However, due to suspicions over this overtly Chinese system, initially small numbers of jinshi degree holders were actually appointed to government posts. Loyalty, a holdover of common steppe practices, was still a more important means of appointment, even in the Southern Chancellery.
Despite the brilliance of this administrative innovation, it most certainly did not meet with universal approval from the Khitan elite. They believed, with some justification, that the development of a Chinese-style imperial system would seriously harm their interests within Khitan society. Thus, many elite, including those in Abaoji’s own family, rebelled against his rule. This persisted for nine years. In 916, Abaoji began his attempt to institute another stabilizing innovation, borrowing the Chinese notion of primogeniture. He named his eldest son, Prince Bei, heir apparent, a first in the history of the Khitan. However, despite Abaoji’s support for this system, it never really took hold until the end of the tenth century. In 918, the government occupied a newly constructed walled-city that would serve as the Liao capital. Called Shangjing (Supreme Capital), it not only served as the administrative center of the new empire, it also included a commercial district called the Chinese city (Hancheng – not to be confused by the former Chinese name for Seoul which was the same). The city was built on a site hallowed by the Khitan people at the headwaters of the Shira Muren River.
More than thirty walled cities were built, including four additional capitals that served as subsidiary capitals for the four other regions of the empire. An Eastern Capital was built near present-day Liaoyang. After the Sixteen Prefectures were absorbed into the empire, a Western Capital was built near Datong while the Southern Capital was constructed on the site of present-day Beijing. There was also a Central Capital. These cities were not only capitals of their respective regions, they also served as centers of commerce, and provided considerable wealth for the Liao Dynasty. Law in the Liao Dynasty was applied differently in the Northern and Southern Chancelleries. The Northern Chancellery, governed by the Xiao consort clan, retained a distinctive Khitan-steppe character. The Yelu clan, who governed the Southern Chancellery, were considerably more sinified in character. Initially, justice was not delivered in an even-handed fashion to the Chinese inhabitants of the empire. This is reported to having changed from 989. Beginning in 994, Khitans having committed one of ten grave crimes would be punished according to Chinese law. This is indicative of a transition from “ethnic law” to “territorial law.”
From the rise of Abaoji to the fall of the Liao Dynasty in 1125, a total of six dynasties ruled what is now northern China. First were the Five Dynasties, which ruled northern China in succession from 907 to 960. Then, there was the Song Dynasty, which succeeded the Later Zhou Dynasty in 960, and which within two decades, was able to incorporate the southern kingdoms into its realm, taking nearly all of traditional Chinese lands. The Later Tang Dynasty was founded by the Shatuo Turks in 923 after its founder, Li Cunxu, the son of Abaoji’s blood brother Li Keyong, had overthrown the Later Liang Dynasty. However, relations between the two were deteriorating, largely because of Khitan incursions into Hebei, taking booty and captives. Li Cunxu had died in 926. Despite the general deterioration in relations, the Later Tang Dynasty sent an envoy by the name of Yao Kun to the Liao Dynasty. When he arrived, however, Abaoji was on campaign, completing the conquest of the sedentary kingdom of Balhae (known in Chinese annals as Bohai.) Abaoji’s appetite for expansion had apparently not been sated by the conquest of Balhae, because he sent a demand for cession of the Sixteen Prefectures, which made up the border region between the two empires. However, Abaoji died on September 6, temporarily removing attention from the Sixteen Prefectures.
The Later Tang Dynasty weakened in the 930s. When Shi Jingtang revolted, the Liao sent a large army through the passes at Shanxi to assist. In return for assistance in his revolt, the new Later Jin Dynasty, Shi ceded the Sixteen Prefectures to the Liao. Han Chinese and Shatuo Turks living in Later Jin territories chafed at the subordinate position they had in relation to the Liao. This led the Later Jin court to begin to display independence from the Liao. Consequently, the Khitan attacked as far as Kaifeng, where they stole maps archives, water clocks, musical instruments, and copies of the Classics, and kidnapped craftsmen and scholars. They then decided to move further into the present day provinces of Hebei and Shanxi. However, faced with the difficulties of governing a large sedentary population, the Liao emperor changed his mind about being emperor of China and decided to return to the Southern Capital. On the return in 947, the emperor died.
These events led to the collapse of the Later Jin Dynasty, and with the power vacuum left when the Liao emperor’s death, the short-lived Later Han Dynasty was founded. The Later Zhou Dynasty struck at Liao positions in 958 in an attempt to regain the Sixteen Prefectures. After successfully taking two prefectures in Hebei, Emperor Muzong sprung into action, leading a Khitan cavalry force to the Southern Capital the following year. Military confrontation was averted with the death of the Later Zhou emperor.
The Song Dynasty succeeded the Later Zhou Dynasty, the last of the Five Dynasties, in 960. Initially, the Song Dynasty court focused on reunifying the Chinese realm by incorporating the remaining southern kingdoms left over from the Ten Kingdoms period in the south. However, once Wuyue was brought into the fold in 978, Emperor Taizong began to focus on the north. Two major issues caused relations between the Liao and the Song to sour. One was the continued Liao occupation of the Sixteen Prefectures. The other was Liao support for the Northern Han kingdom, the remnant of the Later Han Dynasty that was toppled in 950. Emperor Taizong led the conquest of the Northern Han in 979. Then, he led an ill-advised invasion of the Sixteen Prefectures. The result was a resounding Liao victory, forcing the Song emperor to retreat in disgrace.
Song Emperor Taizong tried to take advantage of a fifteen-year-old Liao emperor by launching a three-pronged invasion in 986. The Song were decisively defeated on all three fronts. The Song court then resumed diplomatic contact with the Liao. The Liao invaded the Song Dynasty in 1004, and stopped just north of Shanyuan, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of the Song capital of Kaifeng. The Song emperor Zhenzong met them with a force. The Treaty of Shanyuan was worked out in January, 1005. The Song Dynasty was required to pay an annual tribute to the Liao. The treaty also stipulated that the two imperial families address one another using familial terms. The tribute was increased and extended to Xi Xia when the Liao and Tanguts threatened further invasion in 1042.
When the Khitan conquered the kingdom of Balhae, the border with Korea had been pushed to the Yalu River. Korea itself was undergoing significant transformations at the same time. Goryeo was founded in 918, and eventually unified the entire Korean Peninsula. The Silla kingdom, which had ruled the entire peninsula since the seventh century, fell in 935. In 993, the Khitan invaded Goryeo's northwest border with 60,000 troops. The Khitan withdrew and ceded territory to the east of the Yalu River when Goryeo agreed to end its alliance with Song Dynasty China. However, Goryeo continued to communicate with Song, having strengthened its position by building fortresses in the newly gained northern territories.
In 1010, Emperor Shengzong of Liao led a massive invasion with 400,000 men, commanding the troops himself. He easily defeated the resisting army of General Gang Jo, who was executed by the Khitans. However, Gang Gam-chan urged King Hyeonjong to escape from the palace, and not to surrender to the invading Liao troops. King Hyeonjong followed Gang Gam-chan's advice, and managed to escape from the burning capital. A Korean insurgency began to harass the Khitan forces. Eventually, Shengzong ordered a withdrawal of the entire Khitan force; the Khitans lost the war, and didn't gain anything. Thus another bloody war between two nations was foreshadowed, as both sides remained hostile to each other. After the war, Gang was promoted as the Minister of Government Administration.
In 1018, General Xiao Baiya of Liao invaded Goryeo with 100,000 men. This time, many officials urged to king to enter a peace negotiation, since the damage from the 2nd Koryo-Khitan War was so great and Goryeo was not able to recover from the damage. However Gang Gam-chan again urged the king to fight the Khitans, since the Khitan force was much smaller than the previous invasions. General Gang led about 200,000 men toward the Goryeo-Liao border. The first battle of the war was the Battle of Heunghwajin, which was won by General Gang by blocking a stream and then destroying the dam when the Khitans were mid-way through crossing. Many Khitans drowned, but General Xiao did not give up hope of capturing the capital, Gaeseong, and continued to march southward. Later Xiao realized that the mission was impossible to achieve, and decided to retreat. General Gang knew that the Khitan army would withdraw from the war, and waited for them at the fortress of Kwiju, where he encountered retreating Khitans in 1019. (Battle of Kwiju). Discouraged and starving, the Khitans lost the battle. Following his victories in the Third Goryeo-Khitan War, peace was made.
From the time of the empire's creation all the way to its decline, the Liao Dynasty was recognized by Korea. Russian people in their first contacts with Khitan people of Liao, had believed that they had in fact established contact with the empire of China, who were culturally and physically similar to the Chinese, and henceforth, the country-name of China in Russian is Китай (pronounced kitai). The Khitan were also in contact the Abbasid empire, and the court of Baghdad once asked for a Khitan princess for marriage. These relations established the Khitans all across the steppes, before the Mongol expansion. Commercial activity allowed the Khitans to make their name known beyond the Pamirs and in Europe.
The level of sinification of the Khitan people has been debated. While it is clear that the ruling Yelu clan had been sinified to some extent, the bulk of the Khitan people seems to have resisted Chinese acculturation. The above resistance to the idea of primogeniture among the Khitan elite is only one indication of a resistance to Chinese acculturation. However, physical similarities aside, the cultural assimilation is clearly noted by the fact that Russian people who had established contact with the Khitan people, had in fact believed they've established contact with the Chinese people, and the name for "China" in the Russian language has always been "Китай", which is pronounced "kitai", and related to "Cathay" used in other European languages (cf. Cathay Pacific Airline).
One of the stated purposes of the division of the empire between a Northern Chancellery and a Southern Chancellery is to create different forms of government for the steppe peoples in the north, which maintained steppe norms of society and government, and for the sedentary peoples in the south, which used mostly Chinese methods of governance. Abaoji, who himself spoke Chinese and was familiar with Chinese culture, did not speak Chinese in front of his subjects. He revealed to Later Tang Dynasty envoy Yao Kun before his own death that he did not wish the Khitan people to lose the edge that they enjoyed as a nomadic people. He did not want them to become “soft” like the Chinese. Another indication of resistance to acculturation is the Chinese notion of the use of surnames, a notion of which is a measure in the minimization of potential incestuous contacts. For a century and a half under the Yaolian clan, only the imperial clan used a surname. Only after Abaoji ascended to the position of Great Khan, did his clan as well as the Xiao consort clan adopt surnames, though the exact time is a matter of some debate. It may have taken place either before or after Abaoji's death. The issue arose again in 1074 when a proposal to have all Khitan use surnames was refused by the emperor as being too Chinese. It was believed that it was result in a radical reordering in Khitan society seen as undesirable.
By the time Abaoji assumed control over the Khitans in the early tenth century, a majority of the Khitan population had adopted Buddhism. Buddhism was practiced throughout the length of the Liao Dynasty. Monasteries were constructed during the reign of the first emperor, Taizu, and Buddhism was especially prominent during the reigns of Emperors Shengzong, Xingzong, and Daozong. Buddhist scholars living during the time of the Liao Dynasty predicted that the mofa, an age in which the three treasures of Buddhism would be destroyed, was to begin in the year 1052. Previous dynasties, including the Sui and Tang, were also concerned with the mofa, although their predictions for when the mofa would start were different from the one selected by the Liao. As early as the Sui Dynasty, efforts were made to preserve Buddhist teachings by carving them into stone or burying them. These efforts continued into the Liao Dynasty, with Emperor Xingzong funding several projects in the years immediately preceeding 1052. Evidence from excavated Liao burial sites indicates that animistic or shamanistic practices were fused with Buddhism and other practices in marriage and burial ceremonies. Both animal and human sacrifices have been found in Liao tombs, alongside indications of Buddhist practice. Indications of Daoist, zodiac, and Zoroastrian influences have also been found in Liao burial sites.
The Khitan spoken language is a member of the Altaic language family. The language is most closely related to the Mongolic language subdivision, but shares some terms with the Turkic spoken by the Uighur peoples, who shared the steppes of North Aisa with the Khitans for several hundred years. Prior to their conquest of north China and the establishment of the Liao Dynasty, the Khitans had no written language. In 920 the first of two scripts, the Khitan large script, was developed. A second script, the Khitan small script, was developed in 925. Both scripts are based off of the same spoken language, and both contain a mix of logographs and phonographs. The large script shows similarities with the kai shu, or standard, style of Chinese calligraphy, and the small script shows similarities to the xing shu, or running style. Despite the similarities to Chinese symbols, the Khitan scripts were functionally different from Chinese. Few documents written in Khitan script survive to this day. The surviving specimens of Khitan script have all been found carved into stone or cast into metal; no Khitan writing on paper or silk has been found. The Liao emperors read Chinese, and while there were some Chinese works translated into Khitan during the Liao Dynasty, the Confucian classics, which served as the core guide to the administration of government in China, are not believed to have been translated to Khitan.
The status of women in the Liao Dynasty varied greatly, with the Khitan Liao having much a more egalitarian view towards women than the Han Chinese did. Han Chinese living under the Liao Dynasty were not forced to adopt Khitan practices, and while some Han Chinese did, many did not. Unlike Han society, which had a strict separation of responsibilities along gender lines, and placed women in a very subservient role to men, tbe Khitan women of the Liao Dynasty performed many of the same functions that the Khitan men did. Khitan women were taught how to hunt, and managed family herds, flocks, finances, and property when their husbands were at war. Upper class women were able to hold governmental and military posts. The sexual freedoms of Liao also stood in stark contrast from those of the Han Chinese. Women from the upper Liao classes, like those of the Han Chinese upper classes, had arranged marriages, in some cases for political purposes. However women from the lower classes of the Liao did not have arranged marriages, and would attract suitors by singing and dancing in the streets. The songs served as self-advertisements, with the women telling of their beauty, familial status, and domestic skills. Virginity was not a requirement for marriage among the Liao, and many Liao women were sexually promiscuous before marriage, which stood in sharp contrast from the beliefs of the Han Chinese. Khitan women had the right to divorce their husbands, and were able to remarry after being divorced.
Abduction of marriage age women was common during the Liao Dynasty. Khitans men of all social classes participated in the activity, and the abductees were both Khitan and Han. In some cases, this was a step in the courtship process, where the woman would agree to the abduction and the resulting sexual intercourse, then the abductor and abductee would return to the woman's home to announce their intention to marry. This process was known as baimen. Other times, the abduction would be non-consensual and would result in a rape.
In Liao custom betrothal was seen as being equally serious to, if not more serious than, marriage itself, and was difficult to annul. The groom would pledge to work for three years for the bride's family, pay a bride price, and lavish the bride's family with gifts. After the three years were up, the groom would be allowed to take the bride back to his home, and the bride would usually cut off all ties with her family. Khitan marriage practices differed from those of the Han Chinese in several ways. Men from the elite classes tended to marry women from the generation their senior. While this did not necessarily mean that there would be a large gap in ages between husband and wife, it was often the case.
Among the ruling Yelü clan, the average age that boys married was sixteen, while the average age that girls married was between sixteen and twenty-two. Although rare, ages as young as twelve were recorded, for both boys and girls. A special variety of polygamy known as sororate, in which a man would marry two or more women who were sisters, was practiced among the Liao elite. Polygamy was not restricted only to sororate, with some men having three or more wives, only some of whom were sisters. Sororate continued throughout the length of the Liao Dynasty, despite laws banning the practice. Over the course of the dynasty, the Liao elite moved away from polygamy and towards the Han Chinese system of having one wife and one or more concubines. This was done largely to smooth over the process of inheritance.
Source : Wikipedia.
