There is a country whose land area extends from the Sea of Japan in the east, the Altai Mountains in the west, central Hebei in the south, the northwest of Shanxi, and the area around Lake Baikal in the Outer Khingan Ridge in the north, covering an area of more than 5 million square kilometers, equivalent to half the size of today's China.
There is an ethnic group, with a population of more than 9 million at its peak, and a Han population of about 120 million at the same time, which is equivalent to about 1/13 of the Han population, the second largest ethnic group.
This country, after galloping through the northern steppe for more than 200 years, was destroyed by foreign enemies and withdrew from the stage of history; This nation, with a population of more than 9 million, mysteriously disappeared with the demise of the state.
The above history tells the story of the Great Liao Empire and its rulers, the Khitan people. The country collapsed, the history of the Khitan tribe came to an abrupt end with the demise of the Liao state, and there was no Khitan tribe in the world.
Only one unsolved mystery is left for posterity: where are the descendants of the Khitan scattered? And what nation has it become? Revisiting history may find some answers.
A man and a woman created a powerful nation on horseback
Legend has it that a long time ago, a fairy riding a green bull met a godman riding a white horse in Konoha Mountain (in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia), and the two bumped into the spark of love, gave birth to 8 children, and respectively took charge of 8 tribes of the Khitan nation.
The legend is beautiful, the reality is cruel. In fact, the Khitan people are nomads in the ancient northeast region, living a backward life in animal husbandry and hunting, and living in tribal units. The tribal leader is a strongman elected by everyone.
The eight tribes then jointly elected the khan of the entire Khitan tribe. Although there are Khitan khans, they are also puppets, and the tribes still govern independently and do not obey commands. Tribes share the same roots, but they are also constantly fighting and encroaching on each other. Until the appearance of a man, the Khitan tribe completed a complete makeover.
This man is Yelu Abaoji of the Dierak tribe. Yelu Abaoji, who became the Khitan khan, was not satisfied with being a nominal puppet and used a series of cruel means to eliminate the opposition.
One of the moves that sealed the victory was a "Hongmen Banquet", known in history as the Change of Yanchi, in which the heads of the other seven tribal leaders landed. At this point, the eight Khitan departments were officially unified, the Liao State was established, and Yelu Abaoji became emperor. The khanate system, which was previously elected by the Khitans, became a hereditary imperial system and was completely reformed.
Since then, under the genes of the warlike and wild people of the horseback nation, the Liao State has fought in the south and the north, and the territory and population have grown rapidly. Among them, the Liao State loved to infringe the Song Dynasty in the Central Plains.
The two countries of Song and Liao have been at war for many years, and most of the losses are the Song State, but the Liao State has also had problems with national stability due to years of conquests and the iteration of the emperor.
At this time, an extremely outstanding woman appeared, she was Empress Dowager Xiao. She took the young Liao Shengzong and personally led an army to conquer the Song Dynasty, directly beating the weak Song Dynasty into a younger brother. The Song Dynasty took the initiative to seek peace and sign the "Alliance of the Lanyuan", paying tribute on time every year.
Yelu Abaoji completed the unification of the Liao state, and Empress Dowager Xiao established the status of a great power, and this man and woman created a powerful horseback state.
One south and one north encroached on the end of the Great Liao Empire
After the "Alliance of the Lanyuan", the Liao State ushered in more than 100 years of peaceful development, and its national strength became increasingly strong, creating the Khitan nation described at the beginning of the article as "vast in territory and large in population".
However, the iron law of prosperity and decline has not been opened up because of ethnic minorities. The Liao Kingdom began to decline.
When someone gets old, someone grows up. While the Liao State was declining, the Jurchens in the south established the Jin Kingdom, and under the leadership of excellent leaders, the Jin State became stronger and stronger, and the comprehensive national strength developed better and better.
The emperor of the Liao State was arrogant and accustomed to treating the Jin State very unfriendly, always oppressing the Jin State as an empire, and even asked the chiefs of the Jin State to dance for him, which gradually led to the complete rupture of the relationship between the Liao and Jin countries.
Although the Song Dynasty regime in the north survived, it always held a grudge against the invasion of the Liao State and always wanted to wait for the opportunity to be humiliated.
So, the southern Jin Dynasty took the initiative to attack, and the Liaojin War began. Under the invasion of the Jin Dynasty in the south and the counterattack of the Song Dynasty in the north, the Liao State collapsed with a bang, was completely subjugated, and the Khitan nation also submitted to the subsequent rulers, withdrew from the foreground, and hid from the world.
A test confirmed the disappeared ethnic descendants
For many years, where did the Khitan nation go? What kind of encounter did you go through? And what ethnic groups have they continued to evolve into? It has been an open question.
Generations of historians have been tracing back, but for years, particularly accurate answers have not been available, and confirmed truths are still rare. It wasn't until the involvement of a modern detection technology that the tip of the mystery was solved.
Jointly researched and implemented by the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the most advanced DNA detection technology was used to compare and detect 55 ethnic minorities, especially those living in the northeast region.
By extracting the bone DNA from the ancient tombs of the Khitan people and comparing it with the DNA of the current Daur people, it was found that the Daur people living in the Daur Autonomous Banner of Inner Mongolia and the Daur Ethnic Area of Meris in Heilongjiang Province had a relatively high degree of homology with the Khitan people.
So historians went deep into the Daur to try to find more definitive evidence. They read materials, visited the elderly, archaeological tombs, and compared and studied the historical texts, lifestyles, religious beliefs and other aspects of the Daur and Khitan people.
In the end, it was agreed that the Daur had the most recent genetic relationship with the Khitans.
The question of the attribution of Khitan descendants seems to have been answered, but some new archaeological discoveries have added some puzzles. In 1990, a tombstone engraved with Khitan characters was found in Shidian County, Yunnan Province, and the owner of the tomb was a Yunnan "himself" surnamed Jiang.
The researchers also went to Yunnan to extract the DNA of "himself" surnamed A, Mang and Jiang, and compared it with the Khitan and Daur ethnic groups, and concluded that it was highly homologous, and "me" may also be a Khitan descendant.
Then why did the Khitans in the northeast run to the southwest? Historical data also provide the answer: many Khitan people who died in the country were homeless and could only defect to Mongolia, and Mongolia fought in the south and north during the establishment of the Yuan Empire, and the Khitan people who followed the Mongol conquest battlefield were scattered to various places.
To sum up, the Khitan people inherited the brave and good fighting and fearlessness of the horseback people, and made brilliant achievements in the long-term battlefield conquests, creating the grassland power "Daliao". In the game against the Song Dynasty in the Central Plains, he had a long-term advantage, which gave the Song Dynasty a headache.
The rolling wheel of history did not hesitate, crushing the Daliao Empire and tearing the Khitan people apart. But the Khitan bloodline has not been cut off, it is still continuing, and the Daur people in today's northeast and the southwest "myself" are all descendants of the Khitans, preserving the memories of the original nation.