The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 06. Alien Regimes and Border States, 907-1368
Подождите немного. Документ загружается.
THE REIGN OF TAO-TSUNG 131
power to exploit the common people.
I72
Tao-tsung was forced to take mea-
sures to placate the Khitan interest. For example, in 1067, although he was
then engrossed in his Buddhist studies, Tao-tsung underwent the traditional
"rebirth" ceremony, to reestablish his legitimacy as the leader of the Khitan
nation.'"
A number of significant measures began to place restrictions on the Chi-
nese population. In 1070 they were forbidden to engage in hunting, which
was regarded as a form of military training.
174
In 1064 the private publica-
tion of books was forbidden,
175
a measure that can have had an impact only in
those regions with an educated Chinese elite. In
io63,
176
1064,
177
and
1070,
178
prohibitions were placed on the sale of metals, especially copper to
the Hsia and iron to the ever-troublesome Tsu-pu tribes and the Uighurs.
179
In 1064 a ban was placed on the manufacture in the Southern Capital circuit
of patterned satins, as part of sumptuary legislation aimed at its wealthy
population.
180
Finally in 1070 Tao-tsung, "because he considered that the customs of the
Khitan and Chinese were different and that the national laws should not be
applied indiscriminately," ordered I-hsin and Yeh-lii Su to revise the laws yet
again.
181
This revision was a reversal of earlier attempts to produce a univer-
sally acceptable code heavily influenced by Chinese patterns. The new laws
attempted to define and preserve the traditional differences between Khitan
and Chinese customs. The resulting codification was almost twice the size of
the Hsin ting
t'iao
chih of 1036, and further amendments and supplements
were added between 1075 and 1085, until the code extended to well over one
thousand articles. These new laws, attempting as they did to combine both
Chinese and Khitan customary laws in a single codification, were so compli-
cated and so far out of step with actual practice that they proved unenforce-
able.
Finally in 1089 the new laws were abandoned, and the codification of
1036 was reinstated, which remained the basic body of law until the fall of
the dynasty.
l8s
Another sign of the changing times came in 1074, when the scholarly
172
LS,
22,
p.
268.
173
LS,
22,
p.
267.
174
LS,
22,
p.
270.
175
LS,
22,
p.
264.
176
LS,
22,
p.
262.
177
LS,
22,
p.
264.
178
LS,
22,
p.
270.
179
LS,
22,
p.
270.
180
LS,
22,
p.
264.
181
LS,
62,
p.
945.
182 LS, 62, pp.
945—
6; translated in Herbert Franke, "The 'Treatise on punishments' in the Liao
history," Central Asiatic Journal, 27 (1983), pp. 9-38.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
132 THE LIAO
official Yeh-lii shu-chen (d. 1082) suggested granting Chinese-style sur-
names to all the Khitan tribes, implying the adoption of the Chinese princi-
ple of surname exogamy. But the emperor rejected this proposal out of hand,
declaring that "the old order should not be changed
suddenly.
"
l8
3
It is clear that the differences and tensions between Khitan and Chinese, or
perhaps between centralizing and pro-tribal interests, continued to influence
politics and that the pro-Chinese measures of the preceding half century had
reached a turning point.
Natural
disasters
Another factor that certainly affected the government during much of Tao-
tsung's reign was the constant threat of natural disasters and famine. From
1065 until the end of the reign, barely a year went by without some area of
the Liao empire being struck by some natural catastrophe.
184
At first these
problems mainly affected the southern agricultural regions; later, in the
1080s and 1090s the tribal areas, too, seem to have suffered greatly. These
disasters are usually recorded either because they required the payment of
relief to the local population or because they forced the government to grant
tax exemptions. The government must have constantly lost revenue as well as
faced the great expense of providing
relief.
There was also widespread suffer-
ing and reports of great numbers of displaced families and vagrants. But the
government could do little. Even when an opportunity arose, as with the
disastrous floods in the Eastern Capital circuit in 1074, after which orders
were given to build flood control works, the suggestion was opposed on the
grounds that the hardship caused by the necessary levies of labor would
outweigh the benefits.
l8
'
It is impossible to give any precise estimate of the impact of these natural
disasters. We have no reliable basis even for estimating the Liao population at
this period. It is possible that as in Sung China during the eleventh century,
there had been a large increase in population and that a crisis of subsistence
was in the making. Certainly, Sung territories in northern China also suffered
similar series of natural calamities, especially the devastating locust plagues
that affected the whole region in the 1070s and 1080s. One disaster, how-
ever, hit the tribal population most cruelly. In the bitter winter of 1082-3 an
unusually heavy snowfall killed enormous numbers (the sources perhaps exag-
183 LS, 89, p. 1350.
184 For a collection of some of the source material, see Witttfogel and Feng, pp. 389—95.
185 LS, 105, p. 1460.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
THE REIGN OF TAO-TSUNG 133
gerated by putting the number at 60 or 70 percent) of livestock and horses,
the main form of wealth among the nomads.'
86
The execution of the
empress
and the murder of the heir apparent
In 1072 Yeh-lii Jen-hsien, the only man whose influence in any way rivaled
I-hsin's, died. In 1075 the heir apparent, Prince Chun (1058-77; Khitan
name Yeh-lu-wo, later canonized as Shun-tsung, although he never reigned),
who was both a model Khitan warrior, skilled as a horseman and archer, and a
very intelligent and well-educated young man, began to participate in court
affairs and was given charge of some of the business of the northern chancel-
lery.'
87
Yeh-lii I-hsin perceived in him a potential threat to his own long-
established dominance and influence over the emperor. As a first step he de-
cided to bring about the downfall of the prince's mother, Empress Hsiian-i.
l88
In 1075
tn
e empress, who was a highly cultivated and well-educated lady, a
poetess and a fine musician, was falsely accused by a palace slave and a minor
member of the office of music of having had a sexual liaison with a musician
member of her household entourage called Chao Wei-i. Yeh-lii I-hsin reported
this slander to the emperor, and although Chao Wei-i strenuously denied the
charge even under torture, I-hsin and his ally the learned Chinese scholar
Chang Hsiao-chieh apparently fabricated evidence in the form of some erotic
poems alleged to have been written by the empress to Chao Wei-i. Chao was
executed together with his whole clan. The empress was ordered to commit
suicide, and her corpse was returned to her family wrapped in a mat as a public
mark of disgrace.'
89
Having removed the empress, I-hsin had her replaced by the sister of one
of his henchmen, Hsiao Hsia-mo. This woman, usually referred to by her
186 IS, 14,, p. 288.
187 LS, 23, p. 277172, p. 1215.
188 Hsiian-i was the posthumous title given to her in iooijseeLS, 27, p. 318. Her title at the time was
I-te. For her biography, see LS, 71, p. 1205. Her epitaphs are included in Chin Yii-fu, Liao lingsbih
k'o chi lu (1934); repr. as vol. 1 of Liao Chin Yiian yii wen
chin
ts'un lit (Taipei, 1974), pp. 8b-ioa.
189 LS, 62, p. 945; 71, p. 1205; 23, p. 277. The affair is described in dramatic detail in the only
historical work surviving from the Liao, the
Fen chiao
lu of Wang Ting
(Pref.
1089). This claims to
have been based partly on eyewitness recollections. Although the Ssu-k'u editors commend its value
as a supplementary source
—
see Chi Yiian et al., comps.,
Ssu-k'u ch'iian shu /sung mu
t'iyao (Shanghai,
1931;
repr. Shanghai, 1934), 52, pp. 1154-5 - it is obviously written from a violently partisan
viewpoint. The Cb'i-tan kuo
chih's
biography of the empress, which is wrong in almost everything it
says about her, does not mention her forced suicide. For a detailed study of this incident, see Yao
Ts'ung-wu, "Liao Tao-tsung Hsiian-i huang hou shih hsiang tz'u yiian yii te wen hua te fen hsi," Wen
sbib
che hsiieh
poo, 8 (1958), pp. 97—134. Holmgren, "Marriage, kinship and succession," suggests
(p.
80) that this incident was a struggle between rival wives in Tao-tsung's harem. But this idea is
not supported by the evidence cited. The only other wife mentioned in LS, 7/, pp. 1205—6, entered
the harem only after the death of the Hsiian-i empress.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
134
THE
later title Hui-fei,'
9
° was recommended to Tao-tsung and was introduced
into the imperial harem. In 1076 another of I-hsin's enemies, the empress
dowager, died. A few days after her death the new consort, Hui-fei, was
formally installed as the empress.
19
' Hui-fei was expected to give I-hsin
direct influence inside the palace and to ensure his family's future, for her
younger sister was married to one of his own sons.
192
With the empress Hsiian-i and the empress dowager dead, I-hsin was
forced to move swiftly against the heir apparent, who had sworn revenge on
him for the murder of
his
mother and who enjoyed the sympathy of
many
of
the court and the people, who saw the empress's death as a flagrant injustice.
Shortly after her suicide I-hsin had survived a bungled attempt at his assassi-
nation'
93
and was well aware that once the heir apparent succeeded to the
throne, he and his partisans would soon be brought to justice.
Once again I-hsin resorted to slander and subterfuge. In the fifth month of
1077 he had a false report presented to the emperor alleging that a number of
officials, all of them his own enemies, were conspiring to dethrone Tao-tsung
and place the heir apparent on the throne in his place. The emperor found the
accusation unsubstantiated, although for the sake of prudence he assigned the
accused officials to provincial posts. I-hsin now suborned some minor palace
officers to confess falsely to having been involved in the conspiracy, in order
to have the case reopened. Even though the heir apparent was beaten and
interrogated by I-hsin's henchmen, he denied all the charges, pointing out
that because he would eventually succeed to the throne anyway, he would
have nothing to gain. The interrogators thereupon falsified the evidence and
claimed that he had confessed. The emperor was enraged, reduced the heir
apparent to commoner status, and sent him to be imprisoned in the Supreme
Capital. Shortly after, I-hsin sent emissaries to kill him and to persuade the
viceroy of the Supreme Capital to report that he had died of illness. Tao-
tsung, meanwhile, had almost immediately repented of what he had done in
the heat of the moment and wished to summon the heir apparent's widow to
court; I-hsin, terrified that the truth would now emerge in full, sent his men
to murder her as well.'
94
For the time being I-hsin was safe and secure in his position. Not only had
he removed his main rival for power, but he also had managed to implicate in
the alleged conspiracy a good many of
his
enemies, who were executed in the
purge that followed. His own partisans were promoted and honored; indeed,
190
LS,
71,
p.
1205.
191 LS,
23,
pp.
277-8.
192
LS,
71,
p.
1205.
193 LS, no,
pp.
1484—5.
194 LS,
72,
pp.
1215-16;
23,
pp.
279-80;
no,
pp.
1485-8;
62,
pp.
945-6.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
THE REIGN OF TAO-TSUNG 135
the court attendant whose false testimony had reopened the case was married
to a royal princess.
The fall of
I-hsin
Nonetheless, I-hsin's future remained dependent on the new empress whom
he had introduced into the palace. He had naturally expected that in due
course she would bear a royal heir over whom he could establish dominance.
But the empress remained childless. In desperation I-hsin had her younger
sister divorced from his son and had her, too, received into the royal harem.
But she also failed to produce any children. To make matters worse for I-hsin,
the heir apparent had left an infant son (Yen-hsi; 1072-1128; Khitan name
A-kuo. Reigned as T'ien-tso huang-ti, 1101—25;
n0
temple name), born in
1072 or 1075.
'95
Because the emperor had to decide on an heir, at the urging
of Hsiao Wu-na he chose this grandson over the other possible candidate, his
nephew Ch'un, the son of Tao-tsung's younger brother Ho-lu-wo (Ch'un,
1063—1122; Khitan name Nieh-li, reigned as emperor of Pei Liao for a few
months in 1122, canonized as Hsiian-tsung).
I96
This child-heir stood in the way of I-hsin's ambitions. In 1079, when the
emperor was about to leave for his customary winter hunting expedition,
I-hsin requested that the infant imperial grandson be left behind at the
capital. Immediately various courtiers hostile to I-hsin, convinced that he
planned to murder the prince, protested that the young boy would be left in
danger and volunteered to remain behind to guard him. The emperor was
finally persuaded to take him along in the imperial entourage.'
97
This incident seems finally to have awakened the emperor to I-hsin's
devious and ambitious nature. Accordingly, in 1080 I-hsin was reduced in
noble rank, stripped of the highest office, and sent away to govern Hsing-
chung fu. His days were numbered, however; in the winter of 1081 he was
found guilty of trading prohibited goods with a foreign state and was sen-
tenced to death. One of his allies had the death penalty reduced on account of
his high status, and so he was banished to Lai-chou on the coast just north of
modern Shan-hai kuan.
I98
Later I-hsin was accused of storing up weapons and
armor and plotting to defect to Sung, and finally, he was put to death.'
99
With the fall of I-hsin went the whole of the corrupt faction that had
195 LS, 24, p. 276, gives 1075 as his date of birth. However, it is probably wrong. LS, 30, p. 351,
records his death in 102; at the age of fifty-four which would put his birth in 1072.
196 LS, 98, p. 1413.
197 LS, no, p. 1079.
198 LS, 24, p. 286; no, p. i486.
199 LS, 24, p. 288; no, p. i486.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
136 THE LIAO
supported him, the most important of them being Hsiao Yii-li-yeh and Yeh-
lii Hsiao-chieh.
Yeh-lii Hsiao-chieh was very different from the corrupt and vicious Khitan
nobles who made up most of I-hsin's clique. Originally a poor scholar from a
Chinese family named Chang Hsiao-chieh, Yeh-lii Hsiao-chieh had passed
the chin shih examination in first place in 1055. He had enjoyed steady
promotion in the bureaucracy until the early 1060s when he attracted the
emperor's attention and became northern prime minister. He was granted the
imperial surname after the suicide of
the
empress, in whose fall he had played
a sinister part. After I-hsin's fall from power, Yeh-lii Hsiao-chieh, who was
notorious for his insatiable greed and open corruption, was found guilty of
malfeasance of official funds in 1080 and sent in disgrace to a provincial post.
In 1081 he was reduced to commoner status. Later, however, he was allowed
to return to the capital, and he died peacefully sometime in the late 1080s.
When I-hsin was exiled, the new empress was sent away as well, reduced
to the rank of Hui-fei and banished from the palace to serve at the Ch'ien-ling
imperial tomb.
200
Her sister was expelled from the palace and returned to her
family.
201
The emperor did nothing, however, to rehabilitate the unlucky
victims of I-hsin's intrigues. The empress was not reburied in an imperial
tomb or granted a posthumous title until 1101, after T'ien-tso's accession.
The heir apparent was somewhat more fortunate. In 1083 Tao-tsung posthu-
mously restored his rank, granted him the posthumous title Chao-huai t'ai-
tzu, and reburied him with full imperial ritual at Yii-feng mountain.
202
But
the nobles and high officials who had been purged remained dishonored, and
those who had been banished were left to languish. Tao-tsung was not
generous to those who had once roused his suspicion and anger.
The last years of Tao-tsung's reign, after the fall of Yeh-lii I-hsin, were
comparatively uneventful. Tao-tsung was by now an elderly man (he turned
fifty in 1082), and the active, peripatetic Khitan life-style was strenuous and
demanding, even for an emperor. Only one of his predecessors had lived to
reach his sixtieth birthday. The emperor continued nonetheless to pursue his
200 LS, 24, p. 287; 71, p. 1205.
201 LS, 71, p. 1205. Sometime afterward, in 1086, their mother Hsiao-ku, lady of Yen, was executed
for having formerly seduced the prince of Liang. The prince of Liang was the title of Yen-hsi, the
imperial grandson, from the third month of 1080 until the eleventh month of 1083. The accusa-
tion seems implausible if Yen-hsi is meant, because at the time of her execution he was still only
eleven years old, and when he held the title prince of Liang, he was between five and eight. It is
probable that the case involved not Yen-hsi but his father, the heir apparent, who had held the
same title from 1063 onward. See LS, 22, p. 263. The case may therefore have resulted from the
heir apparent's posthumous rehabilitation in 1083. As a result of her execution, Hsiao-ku's
daughter, the former empress, was reduced to commoner status and sent to live in seclusion. See
LS, 71, p. 1205; 24, p. 292.
202 LS, 72, p. 1216; 24, p. 288.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
THE REIGN OF TAO-TSUNG 137
intellectual and religious interests; scholars were summoned to expound
various of the Confucian classics, and monks to lecture on the Buddhist
scriptures. In 1090 a Sung envoy commented at length on his lavish patron-
age of the Buddhist clergy and their all-pervasive influence in society.
203
But
Tao-tsung seems to have become more and more indolent and inattentive to
his political duties. An anecdote tells how in the latter years of his reign he
even resorted to selecting officials for high-ranking posts by having the
candidates roll dice; even the historian who was later to compile the record of
his reign was himself said to have been selected in this way.
2
"
4
From the late 1080s the imperial grandson Yen-hsi, now prince of Yen,
was carefully groomed to succeed to the throne. In 1086 Tao-tsung solemnly
showed the young prince the armor and weapons of the first emperors T'ai-
tsu and T'ai-tsung and described to him the hardships of the campaigns that
led to the foundation of the dynasty. A few weeks later the prince underwent
the "rebirth" ceremony, an important mark of his destiny as a ruler.
205
In
1088 he was appointed to the first of
a
series of offices, to serve an apprentice-
ship in government. In the same year he was married,
2
"
6
and sons were born
in 1089 and 1093,
2
°
7
a further guarantee of an orderly succession.
The fall of I-hsin and his clique was not followed by any significant shift in
policy. The pro-Khitan reforms of the legal code begun under I-hsin were
continued, and more revisions were carried out in 1085, but these proved
impossible to implement.
208
In 1090 the whole new legal system was aban-
doned, and the laws of 1034 were reinstated. Otherwise, the annals of these
two decades record few administrative measures, except for the granting of tax
exemptions and relief payments for districts stricken by natural calamities.
The most noteworthy events had to do with relations with the neighboring
peoples. Relations with major powers remained generally peaceful. There had
been a troublesome border demarcation crisis with Sung in 1074, but after
lengthy negotiations, this was settled peacefully by diplomacy in 1076.
20
'
The treaty itself held, and the steady exchange of ambassadors continued.
The same was true of relations with Hsia and Koryo: In 1078 the king of
203 See Su Ch'e, Luan
ch'eng
chi, 42, p. 940. For some information on the scale of Buddhist influence
during the Liao, see Wittfogel and Feng, pp. 291-7.
204 LS, 98, p. 1416.
205 LS, 24, p. 292.
206 LS, 24, p. 297; 25, p. 300; 27, p. 317.
207 LS, 71, p. 1206; 25, pp. 298, 302.
208 In 1090 in a report to the Sung emperor, Su Ch'e commented that the disparity of treatment between
Chinese and Khitan was largely confined to the adjudication of crimes of violence and was not so
unfavorable to the Chinese population as generally believed. He also reported on the universal
corruption and bribery in the Liao legal system. See Su Ch'e, Luan
ch'eng
chi, 42, p. 940.
209 See Klaus Tietze, "The Liao—Sung border conflict of 1074—76," in Studia
Sino-Mongolica:
Festschrift
fiir
Herbert
Franke, ed. Wolfgang Bauer (Wiesbaden, 1979), pp. 127—51.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
138 THE LIAO
Kory6 asked for the cession of territory east of the Yalu River, but this was
refused without causing any break in relations.
210
Tao-tsung's real problems were with the tribal peoples of
the
northern and
northwestern frontiers. The tribal borderlands of the Liao empire were never
clearly denned, constituting a zone inhabited by fragmented and unstable
tribal groups who were loosely subject to the Liao court. Often some ele-
ments of the same people would be assimilated into the tribal section of the
Liao empire while others of their relatives lived beyond the borders. The
situation was always fluid, as groups merged and split apart and changed
their allegiance. This situation was particularly complicated for two sets of
peoples: the Jurchen in northern and eastern Manchuria and the Tsu-pu tribes
living in the heartlands of Mongolia, the Orkhon and Selenga valleys.
The Tsu-pu war, 1092—1102
The Tsu-pu were a Mongolian people either identical with or closely related
to the Tatars (Ta-ta, Ta-tan).
211
Like the pre-dynastic Khitan, they were a
"nation" comprising various nomadic tribes who would join together when
necessity demanded and could then become a powerful military force. The
Liao classified them as a subordinate people, and they came to court and
rendered tribute fairly regularly. Some of them lived in Liao territory, and
some even served in one of the royal
ordos.
However, they were fiercely
independent and had bitterly resisted the Khitan whenever the latter had
attempted to expand to the northwest. There had been major trouble with
the Tsu-pu at the turn of the eleventh century: There were outbreaks of
warfare in 997-1000, 1007, 1012-23, and 1027* almost all of them coincid-
ing with Khitan attempts to expand into Uighur-controlled territories in
western Kansu. In 1069 there was a renewed Tsu-pu rebellion, which was
put down by Yeh-lii Jen-hsien. After this, friendly relations had been re-
stored, and in 1086 the Tsu-pu chieftain attended court, and Tao-tsung
ordered the young prince Yen-hsi to befriend him as a potential ally.
In 1089 the Tsu-pu came under the leadership of a powerful chieftain
called Mo-ku-ssu. In 1092 the Khitan attacked some of their neighboring
tribes on the Mongolian border, and during the conflict the Tsu-pu also
became involved. In 1093, ^ ky Mo-ku-ssu, they launched a series of
powerful raids across the northwestern borders of Liao, driving off many of
the state herds of horses grazing there. Several other tribes joined their
210 LS, 115, p. 1522.
211 See Wang Kuo-wei, "Ta-ta k'ao," in his Kuan t'ang chi tin (repr. Peking, 1959), 14, pp. 5b—12a.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
THE REIGN OF T'lEN-TSO AND COLLAPSE OF LIAO 139
rebellion, including the warlike Ti-lieh (Tiriet) living around Hulun-nor (in
western Heilungkiang), who had previously rebelled in 1073. The Tsu-pu
invasion was a serious threat to the Khitan grazing lands, and the court
entrusted its suppression to Yeh-lii Wo-t'e-la, the northern commissioner for
military affairs. It took him eight years of constant heavy fighting to recover
the Liao pasturelands and to force the Tsu-pu to submit. In the spring of
1100 Mo-ku-ssu was captured and sent to the capital, where he was hacked
to pieces. But the war in the northwest dragged on. By the end of the year
Wo-t'e-la was again at war with other northwestern tribes, and peace was not
restored until 1102, when he suppressed these uprisings and beat off a new
Tsu-pu invasion.
This campaign was to be the last military victory of the Khitan, but Tao-
tsung's reign ended on a successful note. When he died in IIOI, his empire
still enjoyed power, stability, internal peace, and the respect of the surround-
ing peoples.
THE REIGN OF T'lEN-TSO AND THE COLLAPSE OF THE
LIAO
The succession proceeded without incident: The imperial grandson Yen-hsi
accepted the succession before his predecessor's coffin, announced a new
regnal title, and promulgated the customary act of grace. Immediately he set
about taking posthumous vengeance on I-hsin and his partisans who had
brought about the deaths of his grandmother and his parents. The tombs of
I-hsin and his allies were broken open; their corpses were mutilated; their
posthumous offices and titles were rescinded; and all their families' posses-
sions were confiscated and distributed to the families of those they had
killed. The victims of their false accusations were restored to their ranks and
noble titles; their confiscated properties were returned to their families; and
those long banished were brought back to court. The deceased emperor was
interred in his mausoleum together with the remains of the empress who had
been falsely forced to commit suicide. The new emperor's father, the mur-
dered heir apparent, was given a posthumous temple name as though he had
actually reigned as monarch.
Having vented his pent-up hatreds, the new emperor seems to have settled
down into a round of routine and inactivity. This inactivity, however, may
well be only a false impression created by the sources. No veritable record was
ever compiled for T'ien-tso's reign, and the Liao history's basic annals for his
first decade on the throne is little more than a scrappy itinerary of his
hunting expeditions and travels around his empire, punctuated by the recep-
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
140 THE
LIAO
tion of ambassadors from neighboring peoples.
212
Reports of natural disasters
continue spasmodically, and in 1105 T'ien-tso went out in disguise to see the
sufferings of the people for
himself.
But he is harshly criticized for his
excessive indulgence in hunting and, above all, for his arbitrariness, vio-
lence, and personal cruelty.
2
'
3
There is almost no information about internal
policy decisions, save that in 1105 members of merchant families were barred
from taking the
chin-shib
examinations, a rather strange and belated adoption
of an old-established Chinese social convention, quite out of place in the
Khitan context, which shows the degree to which Chinese ideas had perme-
ated government.
Between 1103 and 1105, the Hsi Hsia repeatedly sent envoys asking for
aid during their troubles with the Sung, and on one occasion in 1105, they
asked the Khitan to attack the Sung. The Liao court wisely refused but
cemented its relations with the Hsia by a marriage alliance. It also sent an
envoy to the Sung court asking that they cease their attacks on Hsia and
return the Hsia territories they had seized.
War with thejurchen
Until 1112 the Khitan state remained apparently secure. T'ien-tso had suc-
cessfully resisted efforts to involve the Liao in the quarrels of the Sung and
Hsia; the Tsu-pu had returned to their allegiance and sent embassies in 1006,
1110,
and 1112; and relations with Kory6 remained amicable. In late winter
the imperial entourage, according to custom, went on its seasonal fishing
expedition to the Hun-t'ung River (the modern Sungari) somewhat west of
modern Harbin. Here, again according to custom, the chieftains of the
northeastern tribes, including the "wild" Jurchen from eastern Manchuria,
came to pay homage. At the First Fish Feast at which they were entertained
in the emperor's camp, the chieftains were expected to get up in turn and
dance, as a symbolic gesture of submission. When it came to his turn, one of
them, A-ku-ta, refused to do so, even after being bidden three times. T'ien-
tso wanted to have him executed for his deliberate act of defiance, recogniz-
ing in him a potential enemy. But the influential chancellor Hsiao Feng-
hsien dissuaded him, belittling the harm that A-ku-ta could possibly do. It
212 The relevant section of CTKC, 10, pp. 99—100, also dismisses the first decade of his reign in a few
lines,
entirely devoted to embassies to the Sung court. The comparatively detailed account of
the
fell of
the dynasty that follows mostly derived from the Chinjen wang Liao
kuo,
written by Shih Yuan, a man
from the Liao Southern Capital who surrendered to the Sung and served as an official for many years
before being sent back to the Chin. His book (long lost except for fragmentary quotations) was widely
read in the Sung in the mid-twelfth century. See Fu Le-huan, Liao sbib u'ung k'ao, pp. 168-71.
213 See especially LS, 62, pp. 946—7, and the bitter denunciation made by Yeh-lii Yii-tu when he
surrendered to the Chin in 1121. See also CS, 133, pp. 2847—8.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008