The mystery of the disappearance of the Khitan people, investigated and deciphered by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Khitan, the first thing this word reminds you of is Qiao Feng in the martial arts ** "Dragon Babu", although he was born in Han, he has the body of a Khitan person. or the Khitan army of the Liao State in "Yang Family General", they were brave and good at fighting, and once suppressed the entire East Asian region.
The meaning of Khitan is "iron", which is first recorded in the Book of Wei, about 1,400 years ago. Later, Yelu Abaoji unified the Khitan tribes and established the Liao State.
When the Liao State was at its strongest, it was even considered the most powerful country in the entire East Asian region, and even some countries in Central Asia and Western Europe believed that the whole of China was under Khitan rule.
As a result, the Khitan became synonymous with all of China, and even in modern Russian and Latin, China is still called the Khitan. And *** was also called "Khitan flower".
It turned out that the Liao State once had a population of 10 million, and even at the end of the dynasty, there were millions of people. However, such a powerful people seems to have disappeared in the long river of history, and only scattered graves and broken inscriptions tell of their glory.
So, how did the Liao state go to collapse? Millions of Khitans went again**? Can a letter reveal it all? The answers to these questions need to start with Yelu Yanxi, the "last emperor" of the Liao State who drove high and went low, and had a bad fate.
In 1077 A.D., a three-year-old child, Ago, was struck by the darkest moment of his life. Although his grandfather Liao Daozong loved him very much, he was mediocre and incompetent, and he did not distinguish between loyalty and treachery.
He gradually distanced himself from the queens, crown princes, and virtuous ministers who often spoke out, but he became closer and closer to those ministers who were good at observing words and flattering.
Among them, Yelu Yixin is the most favored, he is good at improvisation, pleasing people, and the power is tilted towards the government and the opposition, forming a political group that acts mischievously.
His power is getting bigger and bigger, and he even regards the prince as a thorn in the side and a thorn in the flesh, and wants to get rid of him as soon as possible. He used the crown prince's mother, Empress Yide, to fabricate charges to frame the queen and the servant for adultery.
Liao Daozong listened to his slander and put Empress Yide to death, and even "naked her body and wrapped it in a reed mat to return to her home". A generation of virtuous and virtuous queens, but in the end ended up with a tragic ending of a straw mat shroud.
In a palace conspiracy, the crown prince was framed for rebellion, and was demoted to a concubine and lost his protection. Yelu Yixin, a man full of resentment, took the opportunity to send a killer to assassinate the prince, and lied to his superiors that the prince had died.
Emperor Liao Daozong was very sad when he heard this, and planned to ask the prince's wife the truth about the matter. However, Yelu Yixin killed the prince's wife before the matter was revealed, leaving the prince an orphan.
Fortunately, in order to protect the crown prince, a loyal minister stepped forward and reminded Emperor Liao Daozong that if he left the prince behind as Yelu Yixin advised, his life might be in danger when he went out hunting.
So, Emperor Daozong of Liao took the crown prince on a trip to save him from this disaster. From then on, Yelu Yixin began to be suspicious of the emperor, and was soon exiled.
In October 1083, Yelu Yixin was found and hanged while preparing to flee to the Song Dynasty. Although his conspiracy was exposed, the crown prince and his family suffered great losses as a result.
Original text: Since Emperor Liao Daozong began to suspect Yelu Yixin, he recalled the beginning and end of the prince's rebellion and the strange death of his daughter-in-law, and then realized that he had wronged the prince.
But the Si people have passed away, and Emperor Liao Daozong can only put all his guilt on his grandson "Ah Guo", and pamper him even more, even to the extent that he can do whatever he wants without restraint.
But I didn't think about the rumor that "since ancient times, loving mothers have many defeated children", and the "loving grandfather" in the royal family is not exempt from vulgarity, and "Ah Guo" has been spoiled. The lack of parental guidance and precarious childhood, grandfather's words and deeds, and infinite doting have all had an extremely complex and far-reaching impact on the character shaping and psychological growth of "Ah Guo", making him cowardly and incompetent, willful and reckless, and at the same time, he has no interest in political affairs and indulges in pleasure.
Such a character made "Ah Guo", who was smart and meticulous in the eyes of his grandfather before ascending the throne, become the Tianzuo Emperor who was defeated outside the golden jade after ascending the throne. Even in the face of the dissatisfaction of the ministers and social turmoil, Emperor Tianzuo still regarded it as nothing and went his own way, pushing the Liao State, which had been declining since Emperor Daozong of Liao, into the abyss of collapse.
A banquet planted the root of the country's troubles, and Emperor Tianzuo inherited his grandfather, Emperor Liao Daozong, who was incompetent, loyal and treacherous. During his reign, he listened to slanderous rumors and had a close relationship with his late grandfather, and once again staged the court of giving death to his wise and elegant wife, and killing his well-known and beloved son**.
At the same time, it also developed shortcomings such as indulging in pleasures, abandoning political affairs, willfulness, cowardice and incompetence. Under the bewitchment of a group of flattering flattering flatterers around him, Emperor Tianzuo couldn't listen to any unspeakable advice, and also deposed Xiao Wuna and others, who had saved him and often spoke out to advise.
Every day, I think that I am either a guest of a big banquet, or I am traveling and hunting, and the political affairs of the court are becoming more and more deserted.
Emperor Tianzuo was addicted to fun, did not care about state affairs, and even regarded governing the country as a child's play. In the spring of 1112 A.D., he held a grand feast of head fish in the Mingtong River, and the leaders of various tribes sang and danced for him.
He also regards the appointment of ** as a lottery head, as long as he performs wonderfully, he can be promoted to the rank of knight. This absurd behavior caused discontent. Among them, Wanyan Aguta participated in this head fish banquet and saw the mediocrity and incompetence of Emperor Tianzuo.
He began to have the idea of pacifying the surrounding tribes of the Jurchens and raising troops against Liao. The Jurchens had always submitted to the rule of the Liao State, and they had to pay tribute to the Liao Dynasty every year, among which the Haidong Green Falcon was the most popular among the Tianzuo Emperor.
However, Emperor Tianzuo's absurd behavior deeply displeased Wanyan Aguta, and he decided to rebel against the rule of the Liao State.
The envoys sent by Emperor Tianzuo coveted the women of the Jurchen tribe and demanded them by any means, regardless of whether the women were married or not. The Jurchen tribesmen could not bear it anymore and rebelled angrily, and finally established the Jin State in 1115, replacing the Khitan Dynasty, which had flourished for a while.
However, Emperor Tianzuo behaved cowardly and timid in the face of the rebellion of the Jurchen tribes, which eventually led to the defeat of the Liao army. Even when the Kim ** team approached, the first thing he thought about was to escape, not how to defeat the enemy.
Finally, in 1125, Emperor Tianzuo was captured by the Wanyan Lou Room of the Jin State, and the Liao State was destroyed, and the Khitan nation has been in a state of collapse ever since. However, according to relevant historical research, more than one million people, including the followers of the last Khitan emperor and the Khitans who lived near the city of Nanjing in the Liao Dynasty, still exist.
At the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, the Khitans even wanted to restore the glory of their nation with the help of Genghis Khan's power. With such a large ethnic group, has it really not left any traces in the long river of history, passed down any culture, and become one of the 56 ethnic groups?
With the continuous research of experts, the answer to this question has finally surfaced. The tide of time has wiped out the traces of this mighty empire, leaving only buried tombs and dry bones, silently telling the past glory of this mighty empire.
Until now, almost all Khitan scripts have been found on epitaph inscriptions, and books written in Khitan script are almost nowhere to be found. Even less than a few decades after the fall of the Liao State, Yelu Chucai, a talented minister of the Jin State at that time, as a remnant of the Khitan, forgot the Khitan language, and had almost no chance to use it after re-learning.
But fortunately, the times and science and technology are also constantly advancing, after many studies and research by experts, three speculations have been put forward about the whereabouts of the Khitan bloodline: intermarriage and integration with other ethnic groups in the country; Localization after moving west to the Middle East; After defecting to the Mongol army, they were scattered all over the country.
However, there is no basis for speculation, and many experts at home and abroad are still struggling to explore the exact bloodline or cultural inheritance that the Khitan people may have left behind based on the words in the ancient books.
It wasn't until 1996 that a stranger sent a letter to Liu Fengzhuo, a researcher at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, that the mystery was finally solved.
The sender claimed to be from the Dahaner ethnic group and claimed that he and his people might be descendants of the Khitans.
In order to verify an ancient legend, Liu Fengzhuo came to the Molidawa Autonomous Region in the depths of the Hulunbuir Prairie in Inner Mongolia. He found that although the local people could not remember their ancestors four generations ago, there was a legend about the Khitan army among the ethnic group, which was consistent with his previous research results.
In order to obtain more conclusive evidence, Liu Fengzhu conducted DNA comparisons and determined that the Dahaner people were of Khitan descent. His long investigation in the area found that there is a large amount of evidence in the living customs and religious history of the Daur people, showing that the Daur people inherited many Khitan traditions.
In addition, experts also found the remains of Khitan descendants in Yunnan, thousands of miles away from Inner Mongolia, and confirmed Yunnan through ancient book searches, research in many places, and DNA comparison of the remains in the tombs"Personally"The legacy of this Khitan bloodline.
In Shidian County, Yunnan Province, a member of the Jiang clan still uses the Khitan script to worship their ancestors. A genealogy of the surname Jiang states that their ancestor Yelu was founded in the Liao Dynasty and was destroyed by the Jin Dynasty.
Later, at the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, he made meritorious contributions to the southern expedition with the Mongol army, and was awarded the chief official and hereditary position. However, over time, the Khitan gradually dispersed, some integrated into other ethnic groups, and some maintained their original ethnic groups.
Although the historical changes of the Khitan people belong to the stories of ancient nobles, the humanistic principles and life philosophy in them still have profound enlightening significance for modern people.
Remember, history is our mirror that helps us understand the rise and fall of dynasties, as well as our own lives. So, let's savor the story of the Khitan people carefully, draw wisdom from it, and guide us on our own life path.