Genghis Khan was a very legendary figure, and both Chinese and world history acknowledges this. The author of The History of the Conquerors of the World even believed that even if Alexander the Great was alive, he would have to worship Genghis Khan as a teacher. The western expedition of Genghis Khan and his descendants Hulagu and others undoubtedly cast a shadow on the Eurasian countries of the feudal era, making them deeply jealous of the Mongol cavalry.
But in ancient Chinese history, the emperors who made the Eurasian countries in the feudal era jealous were not only Genghis Khan, but also the emperor of the Western Liao, Yelü Dashi. Yelü Dashi was the founder of the Western Liao, the eighth grandson of the Liao Taizu Yelü Abaoji, and later scholars believe that the Yelü Dashi should be of equal status to yelü Abaoji, and even Genghis Khan's assistant Yelü Chucai praised Yelü Dashi's outstanding ability: "Quite literate, the people of the Western Regions still think about it", which is in stark contrast to Genghis Khan's slaughter of the city.
Jeroboam was an emperor who terrified and obeyed the nations of Europe and Asia. He was born in 1087, during the reign of Yelü Hongji, the 8th emperor of the Liao Dynasty, during which the government was chaotic, full of contradictions, and the national strength was wasted, and the Liao Dynasty gradually went downhill and the Jin Dynasty rose. Yelü Dashi, who studied seriously since childhood, was admitted to the Jinshi with his own ability, and he was the only Khitan Jinshi in the Liao Dynasty recorded in the "History of Liao", which shows its uniqueness.
However, Yelü Dashi alone worked hard to be strong can not change the decline of the Liao Dynasty, Yelü Hongji's grandson Yelü Yanxi (that is, Emperor Tianzuo) became the king of the fallen country, when the Jin soldiers attacked in a big way, The Tianzuo Emperor directly ran away, Yelü Dashi consulted with the group to establish the Qin and Jin King Yelü Chun as emperor, known as the Northern Liao, with the emperor to stabilize people's hearts, Yelü Dashi began to negotiate with Song Jin, and won several battles, who knew that later he was still unlucky to be captured by the Jin soldiers, and was forced to help the Jin soldiers lead the way straight to the camp of the Tianzuo Emperor.
Yelü Dashi did not want to do this, and fled halfway back to the Tianzuo Emperor. However, Emperor Tianzuo felt that he was not dead, and that Yelü Dashi was suspected of conspiring to establish another emperor, and he could not accept the explanation that Yelü Dashi was an expedient measure, and Yelü Dashi felt that he would not be able to follow the confused Tianzuo Emperor any day, so he simply took people away and traveled all the way west.
The northwestern part of the Liao Dynasty had not yet been affected by the Jin-Liao dispute, and Yelü Dashi used his wisdom to gain the support of many people during his westward journey, and the ranks continued to expand. His military prowess far surpassed that of Emperor Tianzuo, defeated the soldiers and horses of the countries of the Western Regions gathered against him, ascended the throne with the support of the people, established the Western Liao, and extended the life of the Liao State.
When Emperor Zuo had been captured by the Jin people and became the king of the Jin people, Yelü Dashi started a new business. Taking advantage of the civil unrest in the Eastern Qarakhanids of Central Asia, Yelü Dashi turned him into his vassal, and by the way, he set the capital at Balasagun (in present-day Kyrgyzstan Tank territory), and then continued to expand in Central Asia, defeating the Western Qarakhanids, and the Khan mahmud of the Western Qarakhanids put all the blame on the Turkic nomadic tribes of the Gelug people, and the two sides took revenge, and then fought.
Mahmoud then asked his uncle, Sultan Sanjar of the Seljuk Empire, to send troops to help. Sanjar launched the Islamic countries to participate in the war, played the slogan of defending the Muslims, and formed a 100,000-strong coalition army, the Gelug people saw that Mahmud could find help, and hurried to ask the Western Liao Emperor Yelü Dashi for help, Yelü Dashi wrote a letter to persuade him, but Sanjar did not accept mediation, and also wrote back that Yelü Dashi also believed in Islam, otherwise sooner or later he would be wiped out.
Yelü Dashi failed to persuade peace, and simply gathered his own army including the Khitans, Turks and Han Chinese to face the Sanjar army head-on, and as a result, Yelü Dashi commanded well and won more with less, defeated the Seljuk Empire's allied forces, drove the Seljuk Empire's forces out of the river region, and the Western Liao became the hegemon of Central Asia, which was the first time that Islam succumbed to a non-religious dynasty, and the Muslim historian Ibn Al-Asir once commented: "In Islam, there is no greater battle than this." ”
Under the rule of Yelü Dashi, the Western Liao threatened Asia and Europe, and the territory once encompassed Central Asia to reach the Caspian Sea and even bordered Europe. Yelü Dashi was more lenient in his treatment of religion, never enforcing a unified belief, he learned the lessons of the previous liao dynasty, adopted a tolerant management system for vassal states and vassals who submitted to the Western Liao, and promoted the exchange of various ethnic groups in Central Asia and the integration of Eastern and Western cultures.
At that time, Europe was carrying out the Second Crusade, and the deeds of yelü Dashi's western expedition were also transmitted to Europe, and Europe began to spread that there was a mysterious, brave and omnipotent king in the eastern world, and his tolerance of religion and the expansion of the western expedition made the European countries at that time afraid and obedient, and the Western Liao was equivalent to "China" in the eyes of the countries. The pronunciation of Chinese in Arabic, Russian, Latin, and Old English is now similar to "Khitan", which was influenced by the Great Stone Expedition of Yelü.
However, although Yelü Dashi made Xiliao hegemonic for a while, he himself only lived for fifty-seven years and died of illness in 1143. Later, the Western Liao Emperor passed on the throne for several generations, and the Mongols were destroyed after their rise. If Yelü Dashi lived for a few more decades, the territory of the Western Liao would probably have expanded to Europe, and it can only be said that history always has accidents, and the rise of yelü Dashi and the demise of the Western Liao are the result of the combination of multiple factors.