On the eve of the fall of the Liao state, a small disagreement occurred within the Liao state, and this small disagreement took a royal family member, won a battle, and finally died a country. This was something that Emperor Tianzuo had not thought of.
I. The differences on the eve of the fall of the Liao State
When emperor Tianzuo ascended the throne, the wings of the Jurchen people in the north were already plump, and then, suddenly, sharp teeth were exposed. The Song kingdom in the south, after nearly a hundred years of peace, suddenly rose up.
The two new and old enemies began to attack from north to south, making the powerful Liao State feel stretched at once. The 700,000 main forces of the Liao State were unexpectedly defeated in front of the Jurchen army of less than 10,000, and there was a fear of gold in the territory of the Liao State.
When the country was about to die, two different views appeared on the direction of the Liao state.
Emperor Tianzuo had already lost most of the land in the north, but he still believed that although the Jin State was strong, it could not destroy the Liao State, and if it could go south to occupy the land of the Song State, perhaps everything would turn around. For the combat effectiveness of the Song army, the Judgment of the Tianzuo Emperor was correct, the Song army was 150,000 elite, invincible to the remnants of the Liao state, and once let the Liao state have the hope of ZTE.
However, another Liao royal family named Yelü Dashi had another plan: he hoped to be able to raise obscurity, and then wait for an opportunity to take revenge, after the defeat of the main force of the Liao state, Yelü Dashi took the remnants of his soldiers, supported Yelü Chun as emperor, and established another Liao state, which was a very short struggle for power in history, known in history as "Northern Liao".
It was also at this time that Emperor Tianzuo's Liao state had not yet perished, and another Liao state had been established.
Yelü Dashi and Yelü Chun were both very powerful figures, and the sudden rise of the Northern Liao made the flanks of the Jin Kingdom very threatening. However, in the year of the establishment of the Northern Liao, Yelü Chun fell ill and died, and his wife Empress Xiao led the imperial government. However, the Northern Liao's struggle for power lasted only one year before it collapsed, and Yelü Dashi had to turn to Emperor Tianzuo again.
This was Yelü Dashi's first attempt to establish political power, when he returned to the Side of Emperor Tianzuo, the Liao army was already like a dog that lost its family, completely lost its combat effectiveness, Yelü Dashi was captured alive that year, and in the next year, fortunately escaped, he ran all the way to the north, and finally got in touch with Wei Muguo, he won the support of Wei Mu and once again had an army.
At this time, the Liao state had completely lost hope, and his army did not have much chance to fight back in the face of the attack of the Jin army.
So, again, Yerushalayim began his westward journey with his few men. Half a year after Yelü Dashi's journey west, Emperor Tianzuo was captured, and the Liao state was immediately destroyed.
Second, the complicated situation in the western region
Yelü Dashi, who went all the way to the west, had the great dream of reviving the Liao Kingdom, but he also had to face an unknown world, this world, called the Western Regions. At that time, in the western region, the situation was extremely complicated.
In the middle and late Tang Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty lost control of the Western Regions, and the Western Regions became the territory of Tubo, but after Tubo ruled the Western Regions for more than sixty years, Tubo's Western Regions rule began to disintegrate, and the land of Hexi returned to the Tang Dynasty.
Then, the Uighur leader Gu gujun, who defected to the Tang army, led the Uighur army at the headquarters and, at the behest of the Tang army, recaptured Xizhou, Luntai, and Beiting. As a result, these places became the habitat of the Uighurs, established the Xizhou Uighurs, and Tubo completely lost its rule in the western region.
Among the Uighur tribes that migrated westward, another Uighur tribe, which went further, migrated to the area of The Green Ridge and merged with the Turks at that time to form another Uighur regime, known as the Qarakhanid Dynasty, born in the Uighur tribe of the Tang Dynasty, which remained in the land of Hexi and became the Uighurs of Ganzhou.
The Uighurs who migrated west divided into three major forces and ruled the western region for hundreds of years.
Among them, the Uighurs of Ganzhou and xizhou were obviously Sinicized, and they had very close relations with the Liao state and the Wei dynasty, and for a long time, they were all subject to the Liao state and became nominally a vassal state of the Liao state.
The Qarakhanid dynasty, on the other hand, was closely related to the Islamic state and was gradually Islamized. Yelü Dashi then began to maintain good relations with the Uighurs of Ganzhou and Gaochang, and began to focus his attacks on the Qarakhanid Dynasty.
However, the road to the west was quite difficult, and Yelü Dashi, with his wisdom and excellent military skills, constantly fought against the Jin army, constantly surrendered to the people of the steppe and the Liao state, and began to go south to make contact with the Song state.
However, with the fall of the Liao state, the Jin army began to attack the remnants of the Khitan led by Yelü Dashi, and although Yelü Dashi was very good at war and won victories on the eastern front, it was still unable to shake the status of the Jin state.
Therefore, Yelü Dashi continued to move westward, using the road of Gaochang, and began to attack the Qarakhanid Dynasty, hoping to completely control the western region. In the seventh year of Yelü Dashi's westward journey, the Liao army and the Qarakhanid Dynasty began a major war.
However, Yelü Dashi failed, and had to taoguang and recuperate, on the one hand, to recuperate, and on the other hand, to use the Gobi Desert to block and prevent the invasion of the Jin Dynasty. And Jinguo, under the unfavorable conditions of a long distance and insufficient supplies, gave up continuing to attack.
3. The continuation of the Liao State
After more than a year of recuperation, Yelü Dashi accumulated enough strength to successively recruit the Uighurs of Gaochang and the Uighurs of Ganzhou, defeated the Qarakhanid Dynasty, completely controlled the Western Regions, and sent troops to the East to crush the Jin Army and stabilize the situation in the Western Regions.
Since then, the Western Liaoning, the first power in the Western Regions, has been born.
At about the same time, at the same time, in West Asia and Central Asia, another powerful empire, known as the Seljuk Empire, also appeared at about the same time.
This huge empire was established only five years later than the Western Liao, and the Western Liao Empire, the largest power in the western region, and the Seljuk Empire, the largest power in Central Asia and West Asia, were at their peak.
So, in 1141, the two great powers fought a protracted war. As a result, Yelü Dashi won, and from then on, the status of the Western Liao was established.
After the death of Yelü Dashi, during the reign of Empress Gantian and Emperor Renzong of Liao, the Western Liao entered its heyday, but then, the Western Liao began to constantly use troops everywhere, and the national strength gradually declined, and eventually, it was destroyed by the Mongol Empire.
After the end of the Western Liao, in history, there was another Liao state, known as the Later Western Liao, also known as the Qierman Dynasty, which was also founded by the Khitan nobles in the territory of present-day Iran.
However, this post-Western Liao has nothing to do with the Yelü clan, not even much to do with the Liao state, and can only be seen as an Islamic state established by the Khitans. More than eighty years later, it became a vassal state of the Mongol Empire, the last state established by the Khitans.
Fourth, where did the Khitans go
After the fall of the Liao State, most of the Khitans were integrated into the Jin Kingdom, and even many yelü surnames, including the hero of the Mongol Empire, Yelü Chucai, was also a highly Sinicized Khitan and served the Jin people for several generations.
There are also many Khitan people, who have become one with the Han people and are gradually Sinicized.
As for the Khitan people of Yelü Dashi, because Yelü Dashi saw that the Liao kingdom had become weakened because of Sinicization, he tried to maintain the true color of the Khitan people, but he could not change the fact that the Khitan people had been Sinicized.
In order to resist this Sinicization, Yelü Dashi began to inadvertently accept Islamic culture and wanted to use Islamic culture to resist the process of Sinicization. At the same time, it is also possible to better control the Islamic countries of Central Asia.
Unfortunately, the Khitans did slowly slow down the process of Sinicization, but they islamized at an alarming rate, and the Khitans gradually became one with the Muslims, and in the end, the Later Western Liao became a completely Islamic state.
The Khitan nation was gradually Sinicized and Islamized, and has since disappeared. Now, there are still many theories that among the ethnic minorities in the north, there is a person called the Daur ethnic group, which is the closest to the Khitan ethnic group, and many living customs can still see the shadow of the Khitan ethnic group. Therefore, many people believe that the Daur people are descendants of the Khitan people.
Source: Tencent