Lead:
When you think of the Khitans, what comes to mind first? Qiao Feng, the hero Hao Jie who has a Khitan identity but has a heart for the Great Song? Wu Zetian's confidants of the Tang Dynasty were in trouble? Or is it the tv series with a rat's tail and wearing an unknown style of animal skin? In fact, these are all Khitans. Today's Khitan if you have carefully read the content of textbooks about ethnic minorities, you will not be unfamiliar.
From nomads to Daliao
From ancient times to the present, the origins of each ethnic group have been passed on by word of mouth, forming a somewhat romantic myth, such as the creation of people by Nuwa in the Central Plains of China, or the various legends about the Ganges in India. The Khitans were originally scattered nomadic tribes in the steppes, but they also had their own culture. They believe that their ancestors were born of a combination of a mighty god who rode a white horse and a fairy riding a green bull, combining the courage of their father and the dexterity of their mother, and were the proud sons of heaven on the grassland.
No matter how this legend evolved, it undoubtedly enhanced the core cohesion of the steppe tribe, only when everyone firmly believed that the same source, the grassland side has the possibility of unification, from here, the myth may be spread by the late chief for unification is also unknown.
At first, the Khitan tribe, although claimed to be a single tribe, split into eight tribes, and due to the scarcity of resources in the grassland winter, the chiefs fought and plundered each other. Later, however, the nomads turned their attention from the barren belt to the rich Central Plains, and the foreign wars quickly integrated them into the Ōga Alliance.
In the early Tang Dynasty, the Dahe clan alliance, which was still subordinate to the Turkic Khaganate, constantly harassed the border and swept up materials, which caused the people at that time to suffer greatly, and Li Shimin only swept away the invasion of large troops several times, but could not prevent these "border thieves".
By the time Wu Zetian ascended the throne, the Great He Clan Alliance produced a figure who led the troops in rebellion, showed disobedience to the Turkic Khaganate for the first time, and established himself as the supreme ruler of the nomadic nation, "Khan", who was the first leader of the Khitan tribe, Li Duzhong. Since then, the Khitan people have gradually awakened to a sense of unity, no longer willing to be bandits on the grasslands, but hope to establish their own territorial empire.
The Khitan khan's position belongs to the rotation system, which is deeply influenced by the consciousness of the steppe people Mu Qiang, after a family inherits the khan's seat, the men of the whole clan can compete for this position by their own ability, and the capable people live in it, completely ignoring ethics and morality. Compared with the system of concubines in the Central Plains, although this system is more conducive to the development of the tribe, it cannot meet the desires of the rulers. Thus, after the Birth of a male lord of the Khitan Yelü family, yelü Abaoji, the rotation system was finally changed to a succession system by his single-handed dictatorship and massacre.
After completing the ultimate counterattack of the system, Yelü Abaoji focused more on the outside, and vigorously integrated the other seven tribes, and through his facilitation, the Khitan tribe finally had a complete state power, and established the Great Liao in 916 AD, and Yelü Abaoji became the Liao Taizu. Qiao Feng's story also comes from here.
The fall and evolution of the regime to this day
In the Later Tang Dynasty, Shi Jingyao joined forces with the Liao to destroy the country, played with fire and self-immolated, and handed over the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun to others, and the Later Jin Dynasty quietly perished under the iron hooves of the Khitans. However, Liao, which received "start-up funds", based on the development of Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures as the starting point, through a series of efforts by Taizong Yelü Deguang, Sejong Yelü Ruan, Jingzong Shengzong and Empress Xiao, Daliao withstood drastic reforms, and its national strength reached its peak, forming a three-legged trend with the Song Dynasty and Western Xia.
But because of the limitations of the nomads themselves, once expansion ceases, internal strife and corruption ensues, and after severe internal attrition, institutional deficiencies and an increasingly deficient economy can also topple a prosperous regime to the ground. Therefore, behind Empress Xiao, Liao Xingzong did not want to forge ahead, and his subordinates danced in the intervening, and finally, the Jin state attacked the Liao and captured the Liao Tianzuo Emperor, and the Liao state was officially destroyed.
After this, although the Khitans also tried to rebuild the regime, unfortunately, they did not meet a good time, because the real generation of heavenly pride in the steppe, Genghis Khan, rose at this time, and the edge was unstoppable. There is no objection that the remnants of the Liao state became the nourishment and flower fertilizer for Genghis Khan to establish the Yuan Dynasty.
With the collapse of the regime, the sense of racial unity gradually dissipated, most of the Khitan people remained in the steppe, a small number of scattered into the western region or other places, later, the remaining ethnic groups in China gradually evolved into today's Daur ethnic group, a small number of Khitan scattered throughout China.
epilogue:
Nowadays, when it comes to the Khitan and the Great Liao, most people only know that there was such a correct history in the Jin Yong book, and people can no longer distinguish the difference between the various tribes of the steppe, the Turks, the Liao, and the Jin, and this regime that was once brilliant for a while and fell vigorously has now only existed in the dusty memory of the history books.