The Khitan and Xi under the Jin

Who rules

Title

No Khitan king or common chief: clan elders, Khitan unit commanders (meng'an and mouke) and Jin-appointed prefects and frontier commissioners speak for the people

Since

not pinned

Born

not known

Confidence

medium

The Liao dynasty ended with the capture of Tianzuo in 1125; the Khitan who stayed became Jin subjects and none holds a royal or princely title in 1200. The one Khitan state is the Qara Khitai of the Gurkhan far to the west, on the Persia map. We found no named Khitan chief of the Liao country for 1 January 1200.

Overlord

The Jin emperor Zhangzong (Wanyan Jing, Madage), through the Beijing circuit (liushou at Dading fu) and the north-east frontier commission at Taizhou

What the realm holds

• The pastoral country of the Xar Moron and Laoha: the Linhuang plateau, the Bairin steppe, the Khitan homeland at the Xar Moron and Laoha junction (the mountain Muye of the Liao ancestral rites, site not pinned)
• The upper Liao and Xiliao plain towards Kailu and Tongliao, where Khitan herds winter on the sand-hill pastures
• Khitan and Xi meng'an and mouke units of the Beijing circuit, under Jin commanders
• Frontier 'jiu' units of Khitan, Xi and other local horsemen on the boundary trench commands
• The Khitan official families in Jin service: Yila (Yelu) and Shimo (Xiao)

How it was acquired

Jin conquest of the Liao lands 1120-1125 (Supreme Capital taken 1120, Central Capital 1122, Tianzuo captured February 1125). The Khitan who stayed were enrolled as Jin subjects; the rising of Saba and Wowo in 1161-1162 was crushed (from memory).

Allies and rivals

Patron and master: the Jin court, which uses Khitan officers and fears Khitan risings. Kin and rival claimants: the Qara Khitai (Gurkhan Zhilugu) in the west, which the Khitan of the east know of and the Jin watch for. Neighbours across the trench: the Tatars, Onggirat and Mongols, who raid or serve the Jin by turns. Khitan officers such as Yelu Ahai and his brother Tuhua (Jin envoys and frontier men c. 1196) stand between the Jin and the Mongols.

The realm that morning

A conquered people under suspicion, quiet on the morning of 1 January 1200. The 1196-1198 rising is over (outcome and dates not pinned, see notes). The Khitan plain round Linhuang is thinly held by Jin garrisons and trench forts; Jin Dading fu (the old Central Capital) and Linhuang fu are garrison towns rather than Khitan courts. No Khitan prince or king exists in the Liao country. Across the border to the west the Qara Khitai are a real kingdom, but they have no troops or officers in the east.

Wealth

Herds of horses, sheep, cattle and camels on the Xar Moron and Horqin pastures; farming in the Laoha and Daling valleys; transit trade on the Linhuang road to the steppe markets; service pay and land grants for Khitan soldiers in Jin units. Many Khitan households are poor, as Jurchen ones are.

Military

No Khitan army of their own. Khitan serve in Khitan meng'an and mouke units and in the frontier jiu horse under Jurchen commanders. The Jin keep the units dispersed. The Khitan reputation for horsemanship and archery is why the Jin use them on the trench line and why the Jin fear them there.

Threats

• Jin suspicion, land seizure for Jurchen households and any new levy or order to move Khitan households
• A dzud (ice winter) on the pastures
• The Mongols, Tatars and Onggirat across the trench, who take in Khitan officers who defect (a later event: Yelu Ahai goes over to Temujin in 1203, see the likely course)

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

In 1200

1. 1200, all year (not pinned)No Khitan rising is recorded for 1200 in the sources we could check; the Jin keep Khitan units apart under Jurchen commanders and the Linhuang road under watch.Depends on: Quiet harvests, the trench forts staffed, no new levy Stopped by: A dzud, a new order to move or disarm Khitan households, or a Mongol move on the trench

Later, on the likely course

1. 1203 (later than the start of play; month not pinned)Yelu Ahai, a Khitan officer of the Jin on the northern march who invested Temujin as the Jin envoy in 1196, joins Temujin (English Wikipedia, Jin dynasty); his brother Tuhua is named with him in the Yuan sources.Depends on: Temujin surviving the war with Toghrul in 1203 and the brothers still serving on the Mongolian frontier Stopped by: Their removal from the frontier, or Temujin's defeat
2. January-February 1212 (Chongqing 1; later than the start of play)Yelu Liuge, a Khitan border thousand-commander of the Jin, rises at Long'an and gathers a host in a few months; in March 1213 he proclaims himself king of a Liao state (the Eastern Liao) allied to Temujin.Depends on: The Mongol invasion of 1211 breaking Jin control of the north-east and Jin officials mistrusting him Stopped by: A Mongol failure in 1211, or Jin conciliation of the Khitan on the frontier

Places of note

• Linhuang fu (Liao Supreme Capital): Jin garrison town and prefecture in the ruins of the Liao Supreme Capital; the base of the Khitan frontier command
• Qingzhou and the white pagoda: Liao city of the imperial tombs of Qingling, a ruined town with its Liao pagoda
• Xingzhong fu (Chaoyang): Jin prefecture seat on the Daling river among Khitan and Xi settlements

Where the sources disagree

• The brief asks for 'the Khitan rising of the 1190s (check leaders and outcome)'. We could not read the Jinshi in this session (zh.wikisource and zh.wikipedia were blocked). From memory of the Jinshi annals of Zhangzong and the biographies of Wanyan Xiang and Wanyan Anguo the rising is that of the Khitan Deshou and Tuosuo in 1196-1198 (Cheng'an 1-3) in the Linhuang and north-east frontier country, crushed by Jin armies. Names, place and dates are LOW confidence: check before any use in play. The Khitan leader Saba and the rebel Wowo belong to 1161-1162 under Hailing, not to the 1190s.
• The Khitan script ban of Mingchang 2 (1191) is from memory, medium confidence.
• A Nestorian (Church of the East) Khitan community is not attested for 1200 in anything we could check. The Syriac gravestones of Chifeng are Yuan-period; the Ongud Christians are on the Mongolia map. We made no religious record for it.
• The campaign board has no Khitan power; it treats Linhuang as 'a garrison in a ghost of a city', which fits.

Evidence: The Jinshi and the Liaoshi are the real sources and we could not open them this session. We had one Chinese article on the Khitan under the Jin (names of Yila and Shimo officers, the account of the Yelu Liuge rising of 1212, a later event) and the English Wikipedia pages on the Jin dynasty and Zhangzong. Everything about the Khitan country in 1200 itself is inference from the structure of Jin rule and later events.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: The Khitan were mixed with Jurchen, Han, Bohai and Xi households in the Jin prefectures. The outline shows where Khitan herds and Khitan units were thickest, not a territory they governed.

Primary sources for this realm

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• History of the Jin, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office, with Ouyang Xuan among the chief compilers (1343 to 1344, from the Jin veritable records and the Jin national history). The official history of the Jurchen empire that ruled north China and Manchuria in 1200. Read online
• Record of the Great Jin State, Attributed to Yuwen Maozhao (宇文懋昭); the attribution is doubtful (preface dated 1234; probably assembled in the Southern Song from Song and Jin material, with later accretions). A Song-side history of the Jin, with annals for each emperor and chapters on institutions, customs, the capitals and the Jurchen way of life. Read online
• Compendium of Chronicles: the Turkic and Mongol tribes and the life of Chinggis Khan, Rashid al-Din Hamadani (about 1300 to 1311, in the Ilkhanate). The fullest description of who held what on the steppe around 1200, written a century later from Mongol court records (the Altan Debter) and from informants such as Bolad Chingsang. Read online
• History of the Liao, chapter 30, on the Western Liao, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1344). The only Chinese official notice of the Qara Khitai, a few pages at the end of juan 30. Read online
• History of the Yuan, Song Lian (宋濂) and the Ming history office (1369 to 1370). Juan 1, the annals of Taizu (Chinggis Khan), gives a dated outline of Temujin's early wars drawn from the same lost Altan Debter as the Shengwu qinzheng lu: the Tatar war with the Jin in 1196, the Merkit and Naiman campaigns, the Tayichi'ut war, Jamuqa's coalition of 1201 and the Tatar and Kereyit wars of 1202 and 1203. Read online
• Brief Account of the Black Tatars, Peng Daya (彭大雅) with notes by Xu Ting (徐霆) (1237 (Peng Daya's text from a 1232 to 1233 embassy, Xu Ting's notes from a 1235 to 1236 embassy)). Two Song envoys' notes on the Mongols under Ogodei: the steppe, climate, herds, hunting, the ruler's tent and court, the army, taxes, trade, the postal relay, the Uyghur and Khitan clerks, and the subject peoples. Read online
• Full Record of the Mongol Tatars, Zhao Gong (趙珙), formerly attributed to Meng Gong (孟珙) (1221). The earliest outside description of the Mongols, by a Song envoy sent to the Mongol commander Muqali at Yanjing (Beijing) in 1221. Read online