The Chinese source cache identifies this person as a emperor associated with Dali. This entry preserves the source-backed identity and records the available chronology without adding unsupported claims.
Dali Kingdom
PROFILE
The Chinese source cache identifies this person as a emperor associated with Dali. This entry preserves the source-backed identity and records the available chronology without adding unsupported claims.
Chinese name
Duan Siying
Period
Dali
Date of Birth
916
Date of Death
967
Role
emperor
Predecessor
Duan Siping
Successor
Duan Siliang
LIFE TIMELINE
Birth ｜ Son of Duan Siping; his birthplace and the details of his birtOpen
Birth ｜ Son of Duan Siping; his birthplace and the details of his birth are not recorded in the sources
Accession ｜ His father Duan Siping died and Duan Siying succeeded him.Open
Accession ｜ His father Duan Siping died and Duan Siying succeeded him.
Era change and deposition ｜ He changed the era name to Wenjing; accordOpen
Era change and deposition ｜ He changed the era name to Wenjing; according to another account he was deposed by his uncle Duan Siliang that year and became a monk. Part of the text of a further account places the coup in 946.
Death ｜ The histories record that Duan Siying died; another account haOpen
Death ｜ The histories record that Duan Siying died; another account has him dying in old age, but no evidence suffices to fix the same year.
BIOGRAPHY
Biography
Succeeding to the Throne
Duan Siying was a son of Duan Siping. He succeeded in 944 (9th year of the Tianfu era, Later Jin) after his father's death and became the second ruler of Dali. One account places the end of his reign in 945 (1st year of the Wenjing era, Dali), and a summary in another account likewise says that "he reigned only one year", yet the later part of that account writes his abdication in 946, which shows that the details of the chronology are disputed.
Loss of the Throne and After
The main narrative of both encyclopedic accounts is that Duan Siliang replaced Duan Siying, who was deposed and became a monk. One account places his monastic residence at the Chongsheng Temple in Dali; another also records the Chongsheng Temple and the monastic name Hongxiu but at the same time preserves the different version that Duan Siying died soon after his accession and that the people installed Duan Siliang. The text follows the main line of the deposition and monastic life, without expanding the place and monastic name into a definite biography with further corroboration.
Another account also includes the *History of Dian*'s accusations that Duan Siying was "licentious in his pleasures" and "altered the old institutions", together with scholarly discussion of the credibility of those accusations and their political background. The accounts available offer no evidence sufficient to settle his character, so such language should be treated as later evaluation and interpretation rather than rewritten as established personal conduct. The same account's narrative that he died at ninety-seven, wrote books and saw twenty-four consorts take monastic vows together lacks corroboration from other accounts or from the sources available here and is not used as biographical fact.
Major Activities
Political and institutional context
The cached record places Duan Si Ying within the institutions and conflicts of Dali.
Source-based record
Personal Relations
Relationships are recorded from the cached source text and should be read together with the related entries listed below.
Historical Assessment
Duan Siying reigned briefly, and later narratives mostly concern the reasons for his loss of the throne. The moral accusations in the *History of Dian* and modern scholarly explanations in terms of the distribution of political power are not evidence of the same order. The more reliable conclusion is that Duan Siying lost the throne soon after his accession and that the line of Duan Siliang obtained it; his personal administration and private life lack verifiable continuous records.