Both the Khitans and uighurs were important ethnic minorities that had emerged in Chinese history. The Khitans established important dynasties such as the Liao Dynasty and the Western Liao Dynasty, which deeply influenced the direction of Chinese history. The Uighurs, on the other hand, were also deeply involved in the history of the Central Plains and had certain ties to modern Ethnic Minorities in China, such as the Uyghurs and Yugu. In fact, there has been a deep intersection between these two ethnic groups, not only once treating each other as subjects, but also having intensive personnel exchanges. According to some records, the Xiao family, which played an important role in the history of the Khitan and Liao dynasties and influenced Chinese history, may have a Uighur background. So what kind of connection did they have with each other, and what kind of existence did the Uighur descendants exist among the Khitans?
The territory of the Liao Dynasty at its peak
Both the Uighurs and the Khitans were nomadic groups that arose in northern China in ancient times, but the core areas of the activities of these two groups were not the same, the Uighurs were mainly active in the desert steppes in the early days, and the Khitan activities were relatively northeastern. In both groups, the Uighurs rose somewhat, and around the beginning of the 7th century AD, the Uighurs and other Tiele tribes rebelled against the enslavement of the Eastern Turks, after which the Uighur chieftain Tejian was elected as the head of the various tribes that rose to the same cause.
For more than 200 years, the Uighurs submitted to the Tang Dynasty for a long time and fought against the Turks. In 742 AD, the Uighur Huairen Khan Bone Force Peiluo, together with the tribes of Gelulu and Bathsimi, attacked the Later Turkic Khaganate and killed the last Later Turkic Khan, Baimei, after which the uighurs' strength entered its peak.
Uighur nobles in ancient frescoes
During this period, the Uighurs came into close contact with the Khitans, who were then active in northeast China. At that time, because the Uighurs were in their prime, many surrounding tribes also submitted to them, including the Khitans. At that time, the Khitan claimed to the Uighurs, and in addition to paying certain tributes to the Uighurs on a regular basis, they also had to accept the uighurs' dispatch of the overseers, that is, nominally to accept the uighur rule. Of course, this kind of "rule" was only nominal, and the Uighur-dispatched overseers were basically responsible for only one thing, that is, to make the Khitan pay tribute to the Uighurs on time and in sufficient quantities. But at that time, there was no doubt that there were a lot of personnel exchanges between the two sides.
Portrait of the Uighur princess in an ancient painting
However, after entering the 9th century AD, the Uighur ruling clique was deeply attrition and infighting continued. The Yakrogar clan, which had long ruled the Uighurs, was overthrown, and another Tiele tribe, the Aku clan, seized power. However, these internal frictions greatly weakened the uighurs, and finally in 846 AD, the uighurs were destroyed by the formerly subjugated to themselves. After that, some uighur descendants moved south to Han china and integrated into the Han chinese, while others moved westward, and later formed regimes such as the Gaochang Uighurs, the Onion Ridge Uighurs (Qarakhanid Dynasty) and the Ganzhou Uighurs. However, a considerable number of Uighurs also remained in uighur homelands.
After this, because of the reversal of the strong and weak relations between the two sides, the relationship between the Uighurs and the Khitan also underwent a large reversal. First, in 913 AD, the Uighurs of Gaochang, located in the eastern part of the Tianshan Mountains, began to submit to the Khitans. Beginning in 925, the Khitan in turn began to send overseers to the Uighurs of Gaochang. Later, the Liao Dynasty also stationed heavy troops in the Uighur territory of Gaochang to work with them to prevent the invasion of the Qarakhanid Kingdom. During this period, a considerable number of Khitans moved into the territory of the Gaochang Uighurs, and khitan princesses also married into the Gaochang Uighurs.
Khitan figures in ancient frescoes
The Onion Ridge Uighurs, that is, the Qarakhanid Dynasty, after seeing the warm relationship between the Gaochang Uighurs and the Khitans, also requested marriage to the Khitan twice in 1020 and 1022, and later the Khitan also married a princess into the Qarakhanid royal family. After the fall of the Liao Dynasty and the westward movement of Yelü Dashi, the Eastern and Western Qarakhanid States, which were split off from the Qarakhanid Kingdom, were all submitted to the Western Liao Dynasty founded by Yelü Dashi. Before and after this, the Ganzhou Uighurs in the Hexi Corridor also submitted to the Khitans, and in the historical materials that can be seen in modern times alone, there are 64 records of Ganzhou Uighurs paying tribute to the Khitan Dynasty.
Both the Gaochang Uighurs and the Ganzhou Uighurs submitted to the Khitans, mainly because of the rapid rise of the Khitan in the late 9th and early 10th centuries AD. In the process, in 890 AD, the Khitan also expelled the Uighur homeland and occupied the Uighur homeland. Some historical records record that after the Khitan conquered the Uighur homeland, many of the local Uighur tribes were integrated into the Khitan tribes. That is to say, the later Khitans were likely to contain many Uighur descendants.
Images of Khitanjin Life
There is actually a very specific case in this regard. As we all know, in the history of the Khitan and Liao Dynasties, almost all the nobles and generals had only two surnames, one was the royal surname of the Khitan and Liao Dynasties, Yelü, and the other was the Xiao clan, which had been married to the Yelü clan for a long time. However, the Xiao people of the Khitan were not originally surnamed Xiao, but came from several different tribes in the Khitan originally. At the beginning of the Khitan self-reliance, the Khitan leader Yelü Abaoji was very fond of the allusion that Xiao He assisted Liu Bang during the Han Dynasty (Yelü Abaoji once had a Han named Liu Yi), so he gave the Han surname of Xiao to the two Khitan tribes he relied on at that time, the Bali clan and the Yimu clan. After his son Yelü Deguang ascended the throne, he gave the surname Xiao to the Shulu family of his mother Shu Luping (that is, the empress of Yelü Abaoji).
And this Shulu family is likely to be a Uighur descendant family. Because according to authoritative historical records such as the History of Liao, the fifth ancestor of Shu Luping was called Shu Lu Nuosi, and he was a Uighur. Some modern studies suggest that Shulu Nuosi was probably a prisoner sent by the Uighurs to the Khitan during the Period when the Khitans were vassals to the Uighurs. He later probably stayed in Khitan and became a Khitan courtier. His descendants should have gained a very important position in the Khitan very early on, and formed a long-term intermarriage relationship with the Yelü clan, such as Empress Shuluping's mother was a woman from the Yelü family.
Portrait of Jeroboam, whose queen may have Uighur ancestry
Therefore, at the beginning of the founding of the Khitan state, the Uighur descendants occupied a very important position in it. Therefore, in the later history of the Liao Dynasty, many important figures of the Liao Dynasty with the surname Xiao, especially many empresses of the Liao Dynasty, were actually from the Shulu family. For example, in addition to the Liao Taizong already mentioned, the other four emperors of the Liao Dynasty, namely the birth mothers of Muzong, Jingzong, Xingzong and Daozong, were also descendants of the Shulu family. And these people, together with many Uighur commoners who were integrated into the Khitan ethnic group, it is not an exaggeration to say that there is a considerable number of Uighur blood in the Khitan ethnic group. After the fall of the Liao Dynasty and the gradual disappearance of the Khitans, the Uighur blood originally carried by the Khitans gradually integrated into various modern ethnic groups such as han, Mongolian, Manchu and Dahuer. (Image from the Internet, infringement notice deleted)