China is a country with a long history and vast land, and in this land, there are many ethnic groups living together, they have disputes, and there are times of harmonious coexistence, thus forming our rich and colorful history. For example, for people in the Tang and Song dynasties, the Khitan people were a headache. Today, the Khitan have become a "mysterious" people that we cannot imagine.
The Khitans were initially nothing more than vassals of the Turkic Khaganate and ruled by them. At this time, the Khitan was divided into eight parts, fighting each other, so the strength was not worth mentioning. However, during the reign of Wu Zetian, the ambitions of the Khitan tribe began to show, and a Khitan leader named Li Duzhong declared himself khan and rebelled.
Later, although Li Duzhong died, the khan system was retained and replaced by rotation. In 907 AD, it spread to the Yelü family of the Dielabu. At this time, a very ambitious person appeared in the Yerushalayim family, and this person was Jeru Apaoji.
Yerushalayim hoped that the khan's position could always be inherited by his descendants, so he constantly attacked and weakened other people who were likely to inherit the position, and successfully changed the rotation system to an inheritance system. Subsequently, Yelü Apaochi also successfully conquered the other seven tribes, allowing the Khitan to complete the true unification. On this basis, Yelü Abaoji established himself as emperor in 916 AD, and was known as Liao Taizu in history.
Obviously, Jeroboam was a man who was not easily satisfied, and later he directly extended his magic hand to the Central Plains. During this period, Yelü Apaochi colluded with certain rebels in the Central Plains and thus occupied many territories in the Central Plains. The same was true of the generations of emperors after Yelü Abaoji, which brought great disasters to the people of the Central Plains.
However, by the time of Emperor Xingzong of Liao, the Khitan power began to decline. In 1125 AD, the Jin state attacked the Liao state and captured the Liao Tianzuo Emperor, and the Liao state was destroyed. Fortunately, some of the Khitan royalty escaped, such as in 1132, when Yelü Dashi established the Western Liao.
However, it was very unfortunate that their strength was relatively weak after all, unable to compete with the powerful forces of the time, so in 1218 the Western Liao was also destroyed by Genghis Khan. At this time, the descendants of the Khitan tribe could only continue to choose to move west, came to the area of present-day Iran, and established the Later Western Liao State.
However, they did not escape the end of their demise, because the ambitions of the Mongols were too great and their power was too strong, so the last hopes of the Khitan were dashed in 1309. What is interesting is that in the days that followed, the name Khitan disappeared into the long river of history, making people wonder where the descendants of this nation went.
Someone has studied this and found that
Most of the Khitan people have merged with other ethnic groups, and only a small number of them have evolved into the Daur people of today, with a total population of about 130,000 people.
Scattered in various regions of the country. But in any case, this means that the Khitan people have stepped off the altar, and their glorious years are gone.
References: Liao Shi, Volume IV, Benji No. 4, Encyclopedia of China, Ethnic Volumes