At the time of the survival of the Liao Empire, a Khitan noble general appeared on the stage of history, and he was Yelü Dashi. In the wind and sand, he galloped through the rivers and mountains of the western region, provoked the heavy responsibility of the Khitan restoration, created the strength of the Western Liao Empire, and made the Khitan dynasty last for nearly a hundred years after the fall of the Liao State.
At first signs, they become captives
Yelü Dashi (1087-1143) was the eighth grandson of The Liao Taizu Yelü Abaoji. In 1115 AD, the 29-year-old Yelü Dashi passed the Jinshi examination and became the only Khitan Jinshi of the Liao Dynasty recorded in the History of Liao.
At that time, the once-prosperous Liao Dynasty had already reached the end of the road, and the reigning Tianzuo Emperor was faint and incompetent. Just a year before the Yelü Dashi Zhongjinshi, the Jurchen leader Guanyan Akuta led his troops to rebel against the Liao. In just a few years, the mighty Jurchen Iron Horse beat the Liao army to the head. In 1122, Emperor Tianzuo led 5,000 pro-army troops to flee all the way to Jiashan Mountain.
In 1123, Liaojin fought again. Emperor Tianzuo appointed Yelü Dashi as the capital. Because the Liao Army was inherently afraid of the female heart, it had already lost half of the momentum first. After a fierce battle, the Liao army was completely destroyed, and Yelü Dashi was also captured by the Jin army. This was undoubtedly the most humiliating scene in the military career of Jeroboam. Instead of killing Yelü Dashi, the commander of the Jin army, Yan Zongwang tied him to his horse with a rope and forced him to lead the way to attack Emperor Tianzuo's camp. The great stone of Jerusalem was overwhelmed and staggered forward like a slave.
Jiashan as the base camp of the Khitan counterattack, the Jurchens repeatedly marched because they did not know the way and returned without success, looking at the sixty miles of mud and sighing. This time, due to the path led by Yelü Dashi, the Liaoguo tent hidden in the middle of the mountain was quickly found by Jin Bing. Emperor Tianzuo's sons King Qin, King Xu, Princess Houfei, etc., as well as more than 10,000 jurchens, were captured by Jurchen. At this time, emperor Tianzuo was "hunting" in the Yingzhou area, thus surviving. When Emperor Tianzuo heard the news, he invited the Jin army to attack Yu Baishuiluo in an attempt to shame him, but was defeated again. Not only was another son, King Zhao, captured, but he also lost the Chuanguo Jade Seal in a desperate escape!
When Jin Taizu heard this news, he was overjoyed and specially issued an edict commending Yelü Dashi for his exploits as a guide. He also gave a woman his wife and returned to him the five sons of Yerushalayim that he had captured earlier. However, what flows in the veins of the Great Stone of Jerusalem is, after all, the blood of the Jerusalem family. Yelü Dashi, who was placed in the tent of Emperor Yanzong, was unmoved by the high-ranking official Houlu, and with his charisma, he conquered his wife, who might have been spying on him, and made her cover for his escape. Finally, the time has come. On the way to the west of the Jin people, with the guards unprepared, Yelü Dashi led his son to escape into the vast mountains. His wife, on the other hand, voluntarily stayed behind to negotiate with Yan Zonghan.
When he found out that Yerushalayim had escaped, he summoned the wife of Yelü Dashi and asked him about the whereabouts of Yelü Dashi, but the woman was silent. Yan Zonghan was furious and wanted to marry him to the poorest of the tribes. The fierce woman broke out and scolded, resisting death. Yan Zonghan was embarrassed and angry, took the bow and shot it with an arrow.
Iron Horse Two Hundred embarked on the road to the west
At this time, in the occupied areas of the Jin Dynasty, there were many Liao troops who had not yet surrendered, and when they heard that Yelü Dashi had escaped from the Jin camp, they came to attach themselves. Yelü Dashi collected the remnants of his army all the way, and by the time he reached Jiashan to meet Emperor Tianzuo again, there were already more than 7,000 horses.
Emperor Tianzuo should not have known that the Jin people's sneak attack on the Jiashan camp was led by Yelü Dashi, otherwise with his character of blindness and retribution, he would definitely not let him go. As one of the biggest stains in his life, Jeroboam also tried his best to hide it. The "History of Liao" only briefly recounts his capture and escape from the Jin camp, but the Jurchen "History of Jin" records in detail this disgraceful page in the life of Yelü Dashi.
Emperor Tianzuo excitedly greeted Yelü Dashi and the team he had brought. Claiming to be heavenly helper, his confidence began to swell, so he formulated an adventure plan to recover Yanyun. After learning of Emperor Tianzuo's idea, Yelü Dashi, who had many years of combat experience with the Jin people, understood that this was a dead end. After thinking about it, I felt that there was no future for staying in the Tianzuo Army. In particular, if Emperor Tianzuo had known that he had acted as a guide to break through the imperial accounts, resulting in the capture of the entire clan of the empress dowager, he would undoubtedly die. Therefore, Yelü Dashi killed Xiao Yixue, the Privy Counsellor of the Northern Yuan, who was monitoring him, and led more than 200 of his loyal iron horsemen to leave the Tianzuo camp at night and embark on a westward journey.
Jianxi Liao was officially proclaimed emperor
The western regions were closely related to the Khitans, and there were Liao generations, and there were endless exchanges, and the Khitan had a strong foundation there. Moreover, in the northwestern frontier, the Jurchen soldiers were not yet in reach.
The first stop on the westerly journey of the Great Stone of Jeremiah reached the city of Kotun. When the local Khitan army heard that the homeland had been lost, it was needless to say that their hearts were tormented. At this time, when he saw the prestigious Jeroboam coming, he was so excited that he wept and cried. As a bright spot in the rout of the whole country, the Great Stone of Yelü was pinned on all the hopes of the Remnants of the Khitan Army. After he accepted the garrison at Ködun City, he was shocked and initially gained a foothold.
In order to recover his homeland and revitalize the Khitan dynasty, Yelü Dashi gathered the governors of the seven prefectures and the leaders of the eighteen tribes to form an alliance with the city of Kedun. After listening to the passionate speech of The Great Stone of Jerusalem, the troops were touched and sent troops one after another, and the Great Stone of Jerusalem had received countless elite troops. At the meeting, Yelü Dashi was worshipped by the various tribes as an ally and established himself as a king, but he still worshipped The Heavenly Zuo Emperor as the main one to clean up the hearts and minds of the people.
The Jin Dynasty heard from the merchants who traveled along the Silk Road that there was actually an army of the Liao Dynasty in the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains thousands of miles away, and they were determined to cut down the grass and remove the roots. In 1131, the Jin Dynasty sent a large army to attack the city of Kedun to the north. As a result, he plunged headlong into the desert Gobi, struggling in the wind and sand of the sky, and when he arrived at Ködun City, he was already powerless to fight, and naturally became the appetizer of Yelü Dashi.
Lucky to escape the disaster, Yelü Dashi adjusted his policy in time, recuperated, and for a time, the number of households reached 40,000, and controlled a vast area from the Tula River in the east to the Emin River in the west. After Emperor Tianzuo's death in 1128, in order to continue the Khitan imperial lineage, on February 5, 1132, Yelü Dashi was officially proclaimed emperor in the Western Regions. The Khitan Empire was finally revived again in the distant West. History refers to this country as the Western Liao.
When he became famous, he regretted his death
In March 1134, Yelü Dashi made Xiao Huoli the Marshal of the Terracotta Army, and led 70,000 iron horses to conquer his homeland. However, due to the desert barrier, the Khitan army traveled eastward for more than 10,000 miles without gain, and the enemy had not yet seen it, but the army was exhausted, and the cattle and horses were dead, and it was difficult to advance. The commander Xiao Huili thought about it for a long time and had no choice but to return to the dynasty. The dream of the restoration that Jeroboam had been preparing for ten years was shattered. Waiting for the good news in the palace tent, he heard the army rushing back and sighed: "The emperor is not smooth, and his fate is also!" ”
The defeat of the Crusade caused Yelü Dashi to temporarily abandon the idea of returning to his homeland, and he was determined to complete the imperial hegemony in the western region. Under the administration of Yelü Dashi, in the past few years, the Western Liao Dynasty has prospered, the livestock have been fattened, and the merchants and merchants who have come and gone, and the people who cultivate have all praised the prestige of Yelü Dashi. Under the roaring fire, shiny steel knives are forged, and the vast pastures are stocked with horses. The army of the Western Liao dynasty was growing stronger and stronger. When everything was ready, The Great Stone of Jeroboam began a campaign to expand the territory.
In 1137, the Western Liao army fought a deadly battle with the Seljuk Empire. The Seljuk Empire was a state founded by the Turks, and at that time, the country was powerful and was the hegemon of West Asia. The Western Liao of the Great Stone of Yerushalayim did not border the Seljuk Empire. But the rise of the Western Liao posed the greatest threat to the Seljuk Empire. The Seljuk sultan Sanjar spent six months assembling a powerful cavalry legion of more than 100,000 men. Before the war, Sanjar wrote to Jeroboam asking him to surrender unconditionally and boasting of his warriors: "They can shoot the whiskers of their enemies with arrows!" ”
After Reading the Letter, Jeroboam had Sanjar's envoys pull off one of his beards and give him a needle. He said, "Your sultan boasts that his warriors can shoot the beard of their enemies with arrows, so please use this needle now to pierce your own beard!" The envoy was stunned.
On September 9, 1141, on the katwan steppe north of the city of Samarkand, the two armies fought a decisive battle. Under the thunderous and ferocious attack of the Great Stone of Jerusalem, Sanjar's front was quickly broken. Thirty thousand people were killed, and ten thousand were wounded in the Dalgam Gorge alone. During the battle, Sanjar's prime minister and wife were captured. Sanjar fled with his remnants and was imprisoned by the rebels a few years later. The Seljuk dynasty, which once traversed Central Asia, died out. The territory of the Western Liao controlled tens of thousands of miles, and the tribes of the four sides all paid tribute to him. The territory was comparable to that of the Heyday of the Liao State.
However, the destruction of the Seljuk Empire was already the last song of the Great Stone of Jerusalem. In 1143, Yelü Dashi, who had been a horseman for a lifetime, finally came to the end of his life, and he died with his attachment to his homeland in the palace tent of Hu Si's ear at the age of 56.
A woman and a villain ruined the Western Liao
After the death of Yelü Dashi, the Western Liao remained stable for many more years. But because of a woman, she began to decline.
In 1177, the regent Empress Chengtian had an affair with her brother-in-law. Even if he stole love, he also demoted her husband from a donkey to the king of Dongping and transferred him to another land. Soon, he simply executed his husband on charges. When xiao Hanli's father, Xiao Hanli, learned of his son's murder, led his troops into the inner temple of the palace, shot Empress Chengtian and the little emperor to death, and made Yelü Zhilugu the new king of Western Liao. After the rebellion, Yelü Zhilugu took the throne and had no actual control over the Western Liao, and the Western Liao began to decline.
Just when the Western Liao Empire was in a state of decline, a prince who was a barbarian tribe accelerated the pace of the fall of the Western Liao, and this prince was called Qu Chulu. After the rise of the Mongols, the Naimanbu who lived in the Altai Mountains were crushed by Genghis Khan. Qu Chulu defected to the Western Liao, and the King of the Western Liao, Yelü Zhilugu, enthusiastically took him in and betrothed his daughter Xu to him.
With the decline of the Western Liao Empire, the original vassal states and subordinates rebelled one after another. Qu Chulu felt that his opportunity had come, so he made a request to Yelü Zhilugu to gather the old forces of Naiman to strengthen the strength of the Western Liao. Believing this to be true, Yerushalayim rewarded ququ with many treasures and made him a khan, freely expanding his military power. After gathering his own people, Qu Chulu began to lead this army into the Western Liao territory, killing and looting on a large scale, and repaying his father-in-law's acceptance in the most dangerous period with plunder. Qu Chulu also sent envoys to the Western Liao vassal state of Hua Lazimo, agreeing that the two sides would attack Yelü Zhilugu from the east and west and divide the land of the Western Liao.
According to the agreement, Hua Lazimo launched an attack on the Western Liao from the west, and the two sides fought fiercely near the Liaosi. Hua Lazimo defeated the Western Liao army and captured its commander Tayanggu. After that, both sides withdrew and returned to their respective homes.
At this time, the discipline of the Western Liao army was corrupt, and it burned and looted along the way, causing the people's resentment to boil. When the remnants of the Western Liao army returned to the capital city of Hu Si'er, a rare absurdity occurred: the residents of the city heard that the army had been killed and robbed all the way, and thought that the enemy was coming, so they closed the city gates and refused to let the army enter the city. No matter how the soldiers of the Western Liao explained it, they still could not gain the trust of the residents. After the people of the city insisted on defending for sixteen days, the Western Liao army finally destroyed the city gate with elephants. After the angry soldiers rushed into the city, they slashed their fathers and countrymen on the head with a large knife and brutally slaughtered the city for three days and three nights.
In the autumn of 1211, Qu Chulu led his troops to ambush him on the necessary road of the hunt of Yelü Zhilugu, and when he was out hunting, he raided him and seized the power of the Western Liao. However, the new king reigned for only seven years. In 1218, Genghis Khan of the Western Expedition killed the last emperor of the Western Liao Who occupied the magpie's nest, and since then, the Liao Empire has completely disappeared from this world.