Wanyan Aguda

Biography

Family Background and Early Years

Wanyan Aguda was born on August 1, 1068, the first day of the seventh month in the fourth year of the Xianyong era under Emperor Daozong of Liao. He was the second son of Wanyan Helibo, chieftain of the Wanyan branch of the so-called “unregistered” Jurchen and later posthumously honored as Emperor Shizu of Jin. His mother was Lady Nalan, later Empress Yijian. The Wanyan clan had long lived along the Anchuhu River, the present-day Ashi River southeast of Harbin. From the ancestral founder Hanpu onward, generations of the Wanyan family had held leadership. By the time of Aguda's grandfather Wanyan Wugunai, the clan had become a powerful tribal force and Wugunai had received a military governorship from Liao. After Wugunai's death, Aguda's father Helibo and his uncles Polashu and Yingge successively led the confederation, campaigning widely and gradually consolidating Jurchen unity.

Aguda was strong and skilled with the bow from childhood and was described as dignified in bearing. When Helibo received four wounds in fighting against Lapei and Machan, he stroked Aguda's hair and said that once this son grew up he would have nothing more to fear. Aguda enjoyed archery by age ten and was already an accomplished archer as a youth. On one visit, a Liao envoy saw him carrying bow and arrows and ordered him to shoot at a flock of crows; Aguda hit with three consecutive shots, causing the envoy to marvel at him. At a banquet in the household of Huolihan of the Heshilie group, Aguda shot toward a distant southern rise that no one else could reach, sending an arrow more than 320 paces. Even Manduhe, regarded as the longest-range archer among the imperial clan, fell short by one hundred paces.

When Helibo campaigned against the Buhui group, Aguda was twenty-three. Wearing short armor without a helmet and riding an unarmored horse, he directed the siege. A warrior named Taiyu charged from the city with a spear, and Aguda's maternal uncle Huolahu intervened on horseback, broke Taiyu's spear, and struck his horse, allowing Taiyu only narrowly to escape death. On another occasion, Aguda and Shahudai launched a night attack on an enemy camp. He was pursued by a large force on the return and, riding alone through a narrow lane, reached a high bank about the height of a man; his horse leapt over it and the pursuers turned back.

When Helibo was gravely ill, Aguda had gone on business to a Liao military command. Helibo instructed him to return before the middle of the fifth month. Aguda completed his business and arrived the day before his father's death. Seeing him return, Helibo told his younger brother Yingge that only this son could accomplish the great enterprise and, before dying, said that Uyašu was gentle by nature and that Aguda alone could settle affairs with the Khitan.

Unification of the Jurchen Tribes

In 1092 Helibo died and his younger brother Polashu succeeded him. During Polashu's leadership, Machan of the Heshilie group defied the confederation from Zhiyukai River. Aguda and his elder brother Uyašu were ordered to suppress him, and Aguda personally captured Machan and sent his head to Liao, receiving the office xiangwen. Under Yingge, Aguda pursued and killed Bate of the Wendu group, broke Liuke City, captured Wuta City, and campaigned against Xiao Haili, accumulating major military merit and becoming one of the confederation leaders with substantial military power.

When Yingge campaigned against Xiao Haili, he assembled a little more than one thousand troops, more than the Jurchen had ever fielded before. Aguda was exhilarated and said that with such troops there was nothing that could not be attempted. When Xiao Haili came to fight, Aguda urged Liao troops not to intervene and fought with the Jurchen force itself. A Bohai garrison commander offered him armor, but Aguda refused, saying that if he wore another man's armor and won, the victory would be credited to that man. In Yingge's later years, he adopted Aguda's proposal that the various tribes no longer issue their own relay tokens for transmitting messages, thereby unifying command.

In 1103 Yingge died and Uyašu succeeded him. Goryeo frontier commander Im Gan attempted to exploit the transition by moving beyond the Thousand-Li Wall into Helandian, beginning the conflict there. The Jurchen counterattack defeated Goryeo forces under Im Gan and Yun Gwan. In 1107, Goryeo returned with superior forces, swept through Helandian, and established the Nine Fortresses in the Northeast. Many subordinates urged Uyašu to abandon Helandian, but Aguda rejected the proposal, arguing that failure to fight would cost not only Helandian but the allegiance of all the tribes. Uyašu therefore sent his half-brother Wosai against Goryeo, repeatedly defeating relief forces. In 1109 the two sides made peace and Goryeo returned Helandian.

A famine struck Jurchen communities in 1109. Hungry people migrated, the poor sold wives and children to repay debts, and stronger men took to the hills as “bandits.” Wanyan Huandu and others proposed executing thieves under harsh laws. Aguda opposed them, saying: “One cannot kill people because of property. Property is something produced by people.” He proposed reducing compensation for theft to threefold restitution and ordered a three-year suspension of collections so that the poor could survive. The orders were accepted, and the source says people wept on hearing them and increasingly gave him their allegiance.

Rising against Liao

After Emperor Tianzuo came to the Liao throne, extraction from the independent Jurchen became heavier. Local products—including ginseng, sable pelts, famous horses, pearls, gyrfalcons, wax, and cloth—had to be delivered in fixed quotas. Liao established officials along the Wandu route to supervise hunting and opened a route more than five thousand li long from Linhuang Prefecture to Nurgan City for obtaining gyrfalcons. Frontier officials and merchants also used exchange markets to force Jurchen communities to sell goods at low prices, a practice known as “beating the Jurchen,” and resentment accumulated.

In spring 1112, Emperor Tianzuo held a fishing gathering and received tribal leaders at the First-Fish Banquet, ordering each in turn to sing and dance. Aguda repeatedly refused. Tianzuo wanted to kill him under the pretext of frontier affairs, but Xiao Fengxian persuaded him not to. After returning to the Wanyan group, Aguda intensified preparations for resistance.

In the tenth month of 1113 Uyašu died and Aguda became confederation leader with the title Du Bojilie. In the sixth month of 1114, Emperor Tianzuo sent an envoy to confer on him the title Military Commissioner of the Independent Jurchen Tribes. Aguda sent Pujianu to Liao demanding the return of Ashu, a Heshilie leader who had fled to Liao, and then sent Xigunai and others under the same pretext to gather intelligence. Their reports described Tianzuo's rule as arrogant and lax. Aguda therefore built fortifications, prepared weapons, and readied a southern campaign.

In the ninth month of 1114, Aguda advanced toward Ningjiang Prefecture and gathered tribal troops at the Lailiu River, present-day lower Lalin River, assembling 2,500 men. He invoked Heaven and Earth, listed Liao offenses—including failure to reward service, repeated insults, and refusal to return Ashu—and had the commanders pass a club in a military oath. He promised that slaves with merit could become commoners, commoners could gain office, and existing officeholders would rise according to merit, while those who violated the oath would be beaten to death and their families would not be spared.

The following day, after crossing into Liao territory, Aguda encountered a Bohai army led by the Liao commander Yelü Xieshi. He shot Yelü Xieshi dead and the Liao force collapsed. In the tenth month, the Jurchen captured Ningjiang Prefecture and took its defender Dayao Shinu prisoner. To isolate Liao, Aguda secretly released Dayao Shinu to spread a proclamation among Liao subjects. He also summoned the Bohai men Liang Fu and Wodala and had them pretend to escape so that they could tell their communities: “Jurchen and Bohai were originally one family. I have raised an army to punish guilt and will not indiscriminately harm the innocent.” He further sent Wanyan Loushi to persuade Jurchen registered under Liao to join him.

After learning of Ningjiang's fall, Emperor Tianzuo sent seven thousand elite troops under Xiao Sixian to Chuhedian. Aguda led 3,700 men on a night march, crossed the Huntong River, now the Songhua River, and defeated the Liao army. After Chuhedian, Jurchen forces expanded to about ten thousand. Aguda then captured Binzhou, Xiangzhou, Xianzhou, and other places, rapidly collapsing Liao power in the northeast.

Founding Jin

On January 28, 1115, the first day of the first month of the Shouguo era, Aguda proclaimed himself emperor at Huining, in present-day southern Acheng District of Harbin, founded the state of Great Jin, adopted the era name Shouguo, took the personal name Wanyan Min, and added the imperial title Great Sage Emperor. He established the capital at Huining Prefecture and made the Bojilie system the central political institution.

After accession, Aguda continued the war against Liao. In the ninth month of 1115 he captured Huanglong Prefecture, present-day Nong'an in Jilin. Emperor Tianzuo personally led a large counteroffensive, but Aguda met him at Hubudagang with twenty thousand elite troops and inflicted a crushing defeat. Tianzuo narrowly escaped. After this battle, Liao was badly weakened and could no longer mount a major counteroffensive.

In 1116, the Bohai leader Gao Yongchang declared an independent regime at Liao's Eastern Capital, Liaoyang Prefecture. Aguda sent Wolu to suppress it and occupied the Eastern Capital. Jin forces continued to attack year after year; in 1117 they took Changchun Prefecture and Taizhou, forcing Liao power back toward the Supreme Capital.

Destruction of Liao and the Alliance Conducted at Sea

In 1120 Aguda concluded the “Alliance Conducted at Sea” with Song, agreeing to coordinate attacks on Liao and to return the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun to Song after Liao's destruction. That year, Jin captured Liao's Supreme Capital at Linhuang Prefecture. In 1122 it took the Central and Western Capitals and captured Yanjing at year's end.

Aguda's policy toward Song is described in the source as comparatively conciliatory, unlike the more hostile policies of later Jin rulers. Jin official Zuo Qigong urged him not to return the Yanyun lands, but Aguda nevertheless transferred Yanjing and the seven prefectures Zhuo, Yi, Tan, Shun, Jing, and Ji in accordance with the agreement. He retained Pingzhou, which lay south of the Great Wall but was not part of the Sixteen Prefectures, and appointed the surrendered commander Zhang Jue as garrison commander there. Shortly before Aguda's death, Zhang Jue rebelled against Jin and went over to Song; Emperor Taizong later used the affair as part of the break with Song that led to invasion.

In 1123, after driving Emperor Tianzuo into flight, Aguda died while returning toward the Supreme Capital, aged fifty-six.

His Family, His Birth and Early Years

Wanyan Aguda, whose Chinese name was Wanyan Min, was a Jurchen of Huining county in the Huining prefecture, and the founding emperor of the Jin. By the annals of Taizu in the History of Jin, in the time of the Daozong of Liao five-coloured clouds repeatedly appeared in the east, "as large as a round granary of two thousand hu," and the astronomer Kong Zhihe privately told men that beneath them a strange man must be born who would do extraordinary things, that heaven showed it in signs and no human power could bring it about; and on the first day of the seventh month of the fourth year of Xianyong, 1068, Taizu was born. Playing with the other boys he was as strong as several of them and grave in bearing, and the Shizu loved him especially; and when the Shizu fought Labbei and Machan at the Yeque water and was wounded in four places and lay gravely ill, he seated Aguda on his knee, stroked his hair and asked what he would have to fear once the boy was grown. At ten he loved bow and arrow and, hardly more than a boy, was a good shot; and one day when a Liao envoy sat in the hall and saw him with bow and arrows in his hand and had him shoot at a flock of crows, he hit three times in succession, at which the envoy started up and called him a marvellous man. Once, feasting at the house of the Huolihan of the Heshilie tribe, he walked outside the gate and looking south at a high mound had the company shoot at it, and none could reach it, while Aguda's single arrow flew over it, the distance being measured at more than three hundred and twenty paces, and the clansman Manduhe, the best of long shots, fell short of it by a hundred paces; and in the third year of Tiande a shooting stele was set up to mark it.

His Campaigns under the Shizu and the Muzong

When the Shizu marched against Buhui, Aguda asked through Cibushi to go with him, and the Shizu refused though he wondered at him. When Wuchun died, Womouhan sued for peace and, having sued for it, attacked again, and his city was invested; and Aguda, then twenty-three, "in short armour, without helmet and with no armour on his horse, rode about the lines giving orders to the armies," and those in the city knew him at sight, and the brave Taiyu, riding a fine horse with a spear, came out of the city and charged at him, and Aguda, taken unawares, was saved by his mother's brother Huolahu, who galloped between them and struck at Taiyu, whose spear broke and whose horse was wounded, so that he barely escaped. Again he once went out with Shahudai to kill and plunder without the Shizu's knowledge, and on the way back the enemy pursued with heavy forces; and going alone into a narrow lane he lost his way while the pursuers pressed the harder, until coming to a bank as high as a man his horse leaped over it and the pursuers turned back. When the Shizu lay ill and Aguda had business at the Liao commandant's office, the Shizu warned him on setting out to finish the matter quickly and be back before the middle of the fifth month, that he might yet see him; and Aguda, having seen the commander Helusaoju and finished the business, reached home a day before the Shizu's death, and the Shizu, seeing that all he had asked had been granted, rejoiced greatly and taking his hand and embracing his neck told the Muzong that Wuyashu was mild and good but that this boy alone could settle the Khitan business; and the Muzong, who also esteemed Aguda, went in and out with him always, and when Aguda returned from a distant journey would go himself to meet him. In the eighth year of Dakang, 1092, Helibo died and his brother Pociashu took his place as chief of the tribal league and military commissioner: in his time the Heshilie tribe rebelled and Aguda was ordered to put them down, taking Machan with his own hands and sending his head to the Liao, which made him a xiangwen for his merit. Under the Yingge as chief of the league Aguda pursued and killed Batei of the Wendu tribe, broke Liuke city, took Wuta city and attacked Xiao Haili, so that he became one of the leading men of the league with military power in his hands. When Yingge attacked Xiao Haili he raised more than a thousand soldiers, and the Jurchen force having never reached a thousand, Aguda's courage doubled and he said that with such armoured men there was nothing he might not attempt. Haili came out to fight, and Aguda, though he had been to join the Liao troops, restrained the Liao and fought himself; and when the Bohai governor offered him armour he refused it, and being asked why, said that to fight in another's armour meant that the victory would be owing to him. In the last years of the Muzong he decreed that no tribe might send its own credentials by post to communicate, "and from this the orders were first unified, all of it begun by Taizu."

The Affair of Helandian

In the third year of Tianqing, 1103, Yingge died and Wuyashu succeeded as chief of the league, and the tribes were unsettled. The Koryo frontier general Lin Gan, meaning to sweep away the Jurchen in the confusion, crossed the border early the next year with the Koryo army; and Koryo, having sued for peace after defeat, filled up its forces and in the seventh year of Qiantong of Liao, 1107, came again, sweeping Helandian with superior strength. Koryo killed the envoys Akuo and Shengkun and built nine cities in Helandian; and when the news came that Koryo had taken Helandian, his subordinates all advised Wuyashu to abandon it lest the Liao interfere, but Aguda alone held out against them, saying that if they did not take up arms they would lose not only Helandian but every tribe as well. So Wuyashu sent his half-brother Wosai with the troops within and without, with Hegu Huonizhuo and Pucha Digunai to assist him; and the Koryo army coming against them in tens of thousands, Wosai divided his force into ten companies, sending them out in turn, and heavily defeated them. In the seventh month Koryo asked for peace, returning all who had fled and all the land it had taken and withdrawing its garrisons from the nine cities, and peace was made.

The Winning Over of the Tribes and His Rising against Liao

In Wuyashu's time Jurchen society grew daily more divided: in the ninth year of Qiantong of Liao, 1109, famine came on the tribes, the starving wandered, the poor could not live and sold wives and children to pay debts, and the strong took to the hills as bandits. When Huandu and others, to steady matters, proposed heavy penalties and the killing of all bandits, Aguda said that to kill men for property was not to be done, for property was what all men sought, and he proposed reducing the fine for robbery to three times the value. Many being in debt and in flight, and selling wife and children without paying, Wuyashu discussed it with the officers, and Aguda outside the court tied silk to the end of a staff, pointed it at the people and decreed that the poor, unable to live, sold wife and children to pay their debts, and that the love of flesh and blood was the same in every heart, and that for three years no levies should be made and after three years the matter be slowly considered; and all obeyed his order and those who heard it wept, and "from this men near and far turned their hearts to him." These measures let the poor live, eased the divisions within society, saved the poor tribesmen from ruin and secured the source of soldiers, so that the league was the more firmly knit. After his accession the Khitan nobles oppressed and extorted from the Raw Jurchen tribes more and more: the products of the region had to be sent in tribute at fixed times and in fixed quantities, and among them the sea-falcon was the bird the Liao emperors loved best, "the Liao loving it exceedingly and demanding it every year"; and the officers and merchants of the Liao frontier, with the court's connivance, would often buy the tribes' goods at forced low prices in the market. In the sixth month of the fourth year of Tianqing, 1114, the Tianzuo emperor sent envoys to give Aguda the title of military commissioner of the Raw Jurchen tribes; and Aguda sent Pujianu to Liao to demand the return of the Bohai chief of the Heshilie of the Xingxian water who had fled there, using the demand for Ashu as a pretext to sound out the state of Liao. Xigunai reported that the Tianzuo emperor's rule was arrogant, extravagant and slack, and Aguda therefore built walls and prepared weapons for a southern expedition against Liao. The Khitan nobles, already wary of the Jurchen rise, had the Tianzuo emperor send the commander Xiao Tabuye with eight hundred Khitan and Bohai troops to guard the frontier; and Aguda told his subordinates that the Liao, knowing he would rise, were gathering their troops against him, and that he must strike first and not be struck at. He therefore assembled his officers, sacrificed to heaven and earth, proclaimed the crimes of Liao and declared his intention of war, ordering all the tribes.

The Victories of Ningjiangzhou and Chuhedian, and the Founding of the Dynasty

In the ninth month of the fourth year of Tianqing Aguda marched on Ningjiangzhou, joining the tribal forces; and leading his men he announced to heaven and earth that the crimes of Liao were two: that it did not reward merit but heaped on insults, and that the criminal Ashu, though demanded again and again, had not been given up. He then had his generals pass the oath, that those who strove with one heart should have slaves made commoners and commoners made officials, and those already in office be promoted according to merit, and that whoever broke the oath should die beneath the staff without his household being spared. Then marching on Ningjiangzhou, on reaching the Liao border the next day he met the Bohai troops under the Liao general Yelü Xieshi, and Aguda shot Yelü Xieshi dead, so that the Liao army broke with heavy loss, the first Jurchen victory doubling their spirit; and in the tenth month the Jurchen took the city of Ningjiangzhou. To isolate the Liao rulers strategically Aguda used division and dissolution: he secretly released the great physician's slave to win over the Liao, called the Bohai and had them pretend to flee and win over their countrymen, saying that the Jurchen and the Bohai were of one house and that he raised troops to punish crime and would not harm the innocent, and sent men to win over the Jurchen of the Liao registers and to expose the cruelty of the Khitan nobles, while others were sent to settle the tribes of the far northeast. Then, leading three thousand seven hundred armoured men himself, with drums and torches by night, he reached the river at dawn and crossed the ice; and only a third of his men had crossed when he met the Liao army, and a great wind rising and dust blotting the sky, he led his men with the wind and the Liao broke. He pursued them to the Wulun marsh, killing and taking their men, horses, weapons and treasures beyond counting. He enrolled the captured Liao troops in his own army, bringing it to ten thousand, and the victory became the founding of his royal work. In the war against Liao the Jurchen grew to be the first power in the northeast and Aguda became its military leader, so that the conditions for turning the tribal system into an organ of state ripened daily. When Sagai sent his son Zonghan and Wanyan Xiyin to congratulate him and urge the imperial title, Aguda said that to take the great name after one victory would show men how shallow he was. On the first day of the first month of the fifth year of Tianqing, 28 January 1115, he took the imperial throne and the ministers offered him the honorific. As to the dynastic name, Taizu said that Liao took its name from wrought iron for its hardness, but that wrought iron, hard as it is, in the end changes and decays, whereas gold neither changes nor decays, and that the colour of gold was white, which the Wanyan tribe esteemed; and so the dynasty was named Great Jin and the era changed to Shouguo. Another account holds that the Jurchen rose at the Jin water and so named the dynasty Jin, whence "Jin source" became a name for it; others hold that there was no dynastic name at first and that it was taken at the alliance of the sea with Song, the Song, claiming the fire virtue, proposing gold to overcome it; and some hold that the dynasty was not named Great Jin but simply called the Jurchen state and that the founding was as late as 1117 or 1118 on the advice of the Bohai Yang Pu, and even that Taizu's words about wrought iron were invented later and that the whole founding history was constructed by the Jin court to prove its mandate; though others refute this and hold the account in the History of Jin to be sound.

The Taking of Huanglongfu and the Battle of Hubudagang

In the first month of the first year of Shouguo, 1115, Aguda having founded Jin prepared to attack Huanglongfu: he first took Yizhou himself and brought back its people who had not fled, and then returned. Liao sent the commander Yelü Eliduo and others with two hundred thousand horse and seventy thousand foot to guard the frontier, and Aguda on the news advanced toward the city of Dalugu; in the eighth month, taking the Liao unawares, he crossed the Huntong river and went in person against Huanglongfu. Its outer city was well defended and its inner city strong, so that to storm it would expose him to attack from the rear if relief came; and it was agreed to take Lou Shi's advice and clear the approaches first, and when the outer places were cleared he attacked it in full force, the city being besieged for months, and in the ninth month its commander surrendered under the assault. The Tianzuo emperor, learning of its fall, felt the matter grave and led more than a hundred thousand Khitan and Chinese troops, claiming seven hundred thousand, against Jin; and Aguda met him with twenty thousand, the two armies facing each other about Dalugu city. Aguda held that though the Liao were several times his number and came on fiercely, they were a rabble of poor generals and cowardly men and not to be feared, and that to attack first might well succeed; and to hearten his army he wept aloud before them, saying that he had raised them up so that they should no longer suffer under Liao and the Jurchen should have a state of their own, that the Tianzong would not suffer him and had come in person against him, and that they had but two courses — to fight to the death and turn danger into safety, or to seize him and hand him over to the emperor, and their kin would be killed and they would submit to the Khitan; at which his officers and men all wept and resolved to fight to the death. The Jin took the defensive with deep ditches and high walls to hold the Liao, and before the armies joined battle the Tianzuo emperor turned back because of trouble at home; and the Jin, overtaking the Liao, closed with them and took them on both flanks, so that the Liao were heavily beaten and the Jin took great stores of weapons, goods and cattle. The battle showed Aguda's extraordinary daring and military skill, and with it the main Liao force was broken and the state could hardly stand. He then had Wolu take the eastern capital of Liao, and in the fourth month ordered Gao Yongchang to give up the imperial title. Between the second and third years of Tianfu Aguda rested his troops and negotiated with Liao, envoys passing more than ten times; and in the sixth month of the third year of Tianfu the Liao grand tutor Xini Lie came with seals and patents to enfeoff Aguda as emperor of the state of eastern cherishing, which Aguda refused, telling his ministers that the Liao, having been beaten again and again, sent envoys to sue for peace with empty words as a device to gain time, and that they should consider an advance; and so the talks broke and war began again.

The Five Capitals of Liao, the Alliance of the Sea, and His Death

The Jin then reached the walls of Shangjing with Aguda directing in person, and attacking in the morning they took the city before noon, the keeper of the Liao eastern capital Tabuye surrendering, while the Tianzuo emperor fled west; and in that year Aguda made the alliance of the sea with Song. Learning further that Liao was hollow within, he resolved on a second great campaign: making Xie Ye commander-in-chief of the armies within and without, with Zonghan and others as his deputies, he decreed that the Liao government was out of order and cast off by gods and men, and that as he now wished to unite all within and without he charged him to lead the great army of punishment, thus plainly making the seizure of Liao territory the aim. Xie Ye and Zonghan advanced by different roads toward the Yuanyang marsh while the Tianzuo emperor fled to the western capital; in the fourth month the Jin took the western capital and brought over Tianhe, Yunnei, Ningbian and Dongsheng; and on the first day of the sixth month Aguda set out from Shangjing in person after the Tianzuo emperor, leaving the anban bojilie Wuqimai to hold the government. In the eighth month, learning that the Tianzuo emperor was at Dayu marsh, he went in person with ten thousand picked troops, and Xie Ye and Zong Wang with four thousand as van marched day and night and came up with him at Shinian post: the emperor, seeing the Jin few and expecting their defeat, went up a height with his consorts to watch the fighting, and Zong Wang seeing his chance charged straight at him with cavalry so that he fled in terror and the Liao broke, and Guihua and Fengsheng submitted one after the other. Aguda himself arriving, the Chinese officers opened the gates to the Jin, and he entered the city of Yanjing and received the congratulations of the officers; and so all five Liao capitals fell and the Liao power swiftly dissolved. In the seventh year of Tianfu, 1123, the Jin swept Yan of its gold and silk, its great families, craftsmen and households, and Aguda then, by the terms agreed with Song, gave Song the six prefectures about Yanjing; and having ordered Wolu and Zong Wang to pursue the Tianzuo emperor, he led his troops home. In the sixth month he fell ill and set out for Shangjing; on the fifteenth day of the eighth month he reached the north of the Hun river, where Wuqimai with the imperial kin and the hundred officials came to greet him; and on the twenty-eighth day of that month, 19 September, he died at the western travelling palace of Budupo marsh, at fifty-six, though some give the fifth or sixth month for his death. In the ninth month Wuqimai took the throne as Emperor Taizong, and that month Aguda's coffin was brought back to Shangjing and buried southwest of the palace city with a temple of tranquil spirits built there. He was buried twice more and at last at Dafangshan, the tomb being called the Ruiling: in the third month of the third year of Tianhui he was given the posthumous name Wuyuan and the temple name Taizu with a temple of origin at the western capital; in the second month of the thirteenth year of Tianhui he was moved to the Heling with a stele of his divine merit set up south of Yanjing; in the fourth year of Huangtong the Heling was renamed Ruiling; and in the eleventh month of the third year of Zhenyuan he was moved again to Dafangshan, the tomb keeping the name Ruiling.

Major Activities

Unification of the Jurchen Tribes

Aguda continued the work of his father and elder brothers and completed the unification of major Jurchen groups. He successively suppressed Machan of the Heshilie, Bate of the Wendu, Liuke City, Wuta City, Xiao Haili, and other resisting forces and drew the tribes into the Wanyan confederation. He combined force with political division and persuasion, including efforts to win Liao-registered Jurchen and Bohai support, thereby creating the social foundation for the Jin state.

Founding the Jin Dynasty

On the first day of the first month of 1115, Aguda proclaimed himself emperor and founded Great Jin. He established the Bojilie system, with the Anban Bojilie as designated successor and other Guolun Bojilie assisting government, and made Huining Prefecture the capital. The state remained Jurchen-centered while absorbing institutional elements from Liao and Song. Its establishment marked the transition of the Jurchen from a tribal confederation to a state.

War that Destroyed Liao

From Ningjiang Prefecture to the capture of Yanjing, Aguda needed only about eight years to bring Liao close to destruction. At Hubudagang, he used twenty thousand elite troops to defeat the main army personally commanded by Emperor Tianzuo, a celebrated example in the source of defeating a larger force with a smaller one. Strategically he undermined Liao authority, won over Bohai and Liao-registered Jurchen communities, and gradually consumed Liao territory.

Creation of the Jurchen Script

In 1119, the third year of Tianfu, Aguda ordered Wanyan Xiyin to create a Jurchen writing system. Drawing on Chinese characters and Khitan script, Xiyin devised the Jurchen large script, which was promulgated throughout the state. This was an important milestone in Jurchen cultural development and later Jin cultural administration and identity.

Establishment of the Meng'an Mouke System

During the unification of the Jurchen and the war against Liao, Aguda established and developed the Meng'an Mouke system. Meng'an and mouke units functioned as military organizations and as local administrative structures, farming in peacetime and mobilizing for war. The system supplied troops and military strength while also forming a basis for administering Jurchen and attached populations.

Alliance with Song

In 1120, Aguda concluded the “Alliance Conducted at Sea” with Song for a joint campaign against Liao. Jin returned Yanjing and other agreed prefectures but retained Pingzhou. The agreement reshaped the political balance of East Asia and also formed part of the background to later Jin-Song conflict.

His Institutional Innovations

After taking Ningjiangzhou Aguda carried out a series of reforms of the Jurchen tribal system, establishing a structure of rule and social organisation suited to a slave-owning state. He first reformed the meng-an mou-ke system, which came from the tribal hunting organisation and had developed into a military one in war; in the year after his succession he decreed that every three hundred households of the several routes should form a mou-ke, exactly as in the appointment of officers in the commanderies and counties, joining the Jurchen village organisation to the meng-an and mou-ke so as to make a new local unit at once administrative, military and productive. After the founding of Jin this system, uniting army and government, was further perfected and, as the base of society, played a great part in consolidating and developing the Jin slave system. He next established at the centre the bojilie system, a supreme administrative council with the character of joint rule by the great slave-owning nobles of the Jurchen clans, appointing his full brother Wanyan Wuqimai and others to it; the system retained traces of the tribal council and was still used in Taizong's time. He was careful to select talent from among the surrendered Liao officials and the literati of the various peoples and to bring them into government, especially valuing scholars who understood letters and reason, and he reformed backward customs of his own people, forbidding marriage within the same surname. In writing, the Jin had no script at first and, their power growing, used the Khitan script in dealings with neighbours; and Taizu ordered Wanyan Xiyin to make a national script, who modelled it on Chinese regular characters, adapting the Khitan system to the language of the people, and in the eighth month of the third year of Tianfu the book of characters was finished, at which "Taizu rejoiced greatly and ordered it published throughout the realm," so that it became the official script of Jin, called the great Jurchen characters, while another set made under Xizong from Khitan and Chinese elements were called the small characters. In the war of conquest Aguda took a series of measures suited to the ground to steady the old Liao lands: in the tenth and eleventh months of the sixth year of Tianfu he decreed again and again that all who had fled before the armies should be pardoned whatever their crime, that those who brought their followers over should be given office, that slaves who came over before their masters should be freed as commoners, and that officers civil and military who submitted should be pardoned and keep their offices, so that Yanjing and many of the prefectures about it submitted without a battle; and in the first month of the seventh year of Tianfu he ordered his generals not to let the soldiers molest the people and so hinder farming, warning sharply that the least offence would be punished without pardon. He attended also to the settling of refugees and to the redemption of the enslaved, ordering the officers of the old Liao lands to comfort the people and those returning, not to harass them, and to relieve those in want of food and clothing, while commoners taken in war and sold might redeem themselves as commoners. He divided local government by the several routes, setting up the southern route in Liaodong and the Xianzhou route at Xianzhou, each with a commander or army supervisor over the local troops and the various peoples, while the Jurchen of the Liao registers and the Bohai of the eastern capital prefectures kept the meng-an and mou-ke system, being ordered to farm as well as guard, the first instance of those units fighting and tilling and of troops pasturing horses between campaigns.

His Diplomacy toward Xia and Koryo

After the founding of Jin, Xia, the ally of Liao, did not abandon the dying dynasty but continued to recognise it as suzerain and several times sent troops to its aid. Since Jin could not destroy Liao while ignoring Xia's army, Aguda and his advisers were cautious in dealing with Xia's aid: early in the sixth year of Tianfu the Jin armies approached the Xia border while Xia also gathered troops on it, claiming to hold the prefectures, land and people by order of the benighted sovereign, and the Jin, restraining themselves, avoided a clash and withdrew to await a better time; but Xia, taking this for weakness, pushed its territory east of the Yellow river and in the same year sent thirty thousand troops to aid Liao, the Xia army first winning and then losing and being all but destroyed at Yegu by Wolu and Lou Shi, their commander taken. The defeat at Yegu showed Xia the strength of Jin and it resolved to abandon Liao for Jin; and Aguda, having beaten Xia's attack there, took the chance to send his son Zong Wang to the Yin mountains to win them over, who sent envoys to Xia setting out the interests and proposing terms, that Xia should serve Jin as it had served Liao, that if the Tianzuo emperor fled to Xia he should be seized and handed over, and that if Xia agreed Jin would reward it with land. The two states soon agreed, and early in the second year of Tianhui, 1124, Xia agreed to be a vassal as it had been to Liao, and Zonghan by Aguda's order ceded the land north of Xiazhai and south of the Yin mountains to Xia, Taizong sending envoys with the oath, the settlement being called the peace of Tianhui; and from that time Jin and Xia stood in the relation of sovereign and subject. With Koryo, which refused Liao's request for a joint stand against Jin, Aguda, claiming to be Liao's successor, sent a detachment under Jiagu Sahe and gave up the two cities of Yuanlai and Baozhou to Koryo, whose king renamed Baozhou Yizhou and made the Yalu the boundary with a garrison; and Jin long resented it, so that from the first year of Tianfu, 1117, relations changed from those of brothers to those of superior and vassal, and in the second month of the third year of Tianfu Jin sent envoys to Koryo declaring that from Shangjing in the north to the sea in the south all the tribes and peoples had been settled, at which Koryo responded at once; in the eighth month of that year when the Koryo officer Cao Shunju came on a mission Jin refused to receive him, so that Koryo was already in Jin's grip, and after Taizong destroyed the Northern Song Koryo at last became a vassal sending tribute.

His Character and Anecdotes

By the Record of the Khitan State, in the last years of the Daozong of Liao the great Jurchen chief Aguda came to court with Wushi in his train; and a Liao nobleman playing backgammon with him, having thrown badly and moved his pieces unlawfully, Aguda in great anger drew a small dagger to stab him, and Wushi, saving the situation, seized the sheath while Aguda struck at the nobleman's chest with the hilt and did not kill him; and the emperor in a rage, his attendants urging that so fierce a man be killed, said that he was showing good faith to win over the distant and could not kill him, though his attendants urged the examples of Wang Yan letting Shi Le go and Zhang Shougui pardoning An Lushan, and warned that Aguda, a petty barbarian of the north, having dared to insult a noble minister, would bring trouble on the frontier if not punished; but the emperor would not. And by the History of Liao, when the Tianzuo emperor fished at the Huntong river and the Jurchen chiefs within a thousand li came to court by custom, at the banquet of the first fish, when the wine was half drunk, the emperor at the railing ordered the chiefs to dance in turn, and Aguda alone excused himself as unable and would not obey though urged again and again; and another day the emperor told the privy councillor Xiao Fengxian in secret that at the recent feast Aguda had shown a proud and heroic spirit and looked about him unlike other men, and that he might be killed on the pretext of frontier affairs or would leave trouble hereafter; and Xiao Fengxian, not daring to agree, said that he was a rough man ignorant of the rites and had committed no great crime, and that to kill him without cause would do great harm, and so the emperor let it be.

Personal Relations

• Grandfather: Wanyan Wugunai, Emperor Jingzu of Jin
• Father: Wanyan Helibo, Emperor Shizu of Jin
• Mother: Lady Nalan, Empress Yijian
• Uncles: Wanyan Polashu, Emperor Suzong of Jin; Wanyan Yingge, Emperor Muzong of Jin
• Elder brother: Wanyan Uyašu, Emperor Kangzong of Jin
• Eldest son: Wanyan Zonggan, Prince of Liao, later posthumously honored as Dezong under Emperor Hailing
• Second son: Wanyan Zongwang, Prince Huansu of Song
• Fourth son: Wanyan Zongbi, Prince of Liang, also known as Jin Wuzhu
• Fifth son: Wanyan Zongyao, Emperor Ruizong of Jin
• Legitimate eldest son: Wanyan Zongjun, Emperor Huizong of Jin
• Empresses: Empress Shengmu of the Tangkuo clan; Empress Guangyi of the Peiman clan; Empress Qinxian of the Heshilie clan; Empress Xuanxian of the Pusan clan
• Wanyan Sagai: Guolun Bojilie and important adviser
• Wanyan Xiyin: important strategist and creator of the Jurchen script
• Wanyan Zonghan: Yilai Bojilie and major commander in the war against Liao
• Wanyan Loushi: general who persuaded Liao-registered Jurchen to submit and distinguished himself in the conquest of Liao
• Wanyan Huandu: senior commander under Helibo who disagreed with Aguda over famine policy
• Yelü Yanxi, Emperor Tianzuo of Liao: Aguda's principal opponent
• Zhao Ji, Emperor Huizong of Song: counterpart in the Alliance Conducted at Sea
• Yejong of Goryeo: opponent in the Helandian conflict

Historical Assessment

Jin and Contemporary Assessments

• After Aguda's death, Wanyan Wuqimai, Emperor Taizong, posthumously honored him as Great Sage Emperor and gave him the temple name Taizu, affirming his founding role.
• Emperor Xizong later expanded his posthumous title to Emperor Yingqian Xingyun Zhaode Dinggong Renming Zhuangxiao Dasheng Wuyuan.
• The official History of Jin praises Taizu as farsighted and strategically gifted, broad-minded, skilled at recognizing talent, and able to inspire willing service.

Song and Yuan Periods

• The Yuan compilers of the History of Jin wrote that within a few years Taizu's calculations left nothing unaccounted for, his armies moved without delay, and he established the great enterprise and transmitted it to his descendants, concluding with admiration for his heroic achievement.
• Although Song later became Jin's enemy, Song sources also preserved accounts of Aguda's military ability and his attitude toward agreements, including original records of Jin-Song negotiations in the Collected Documents on the Treaties with the North in Three Reigns.
• Yuan scholar Hao Jing, writing about Jin's rise and fall, compared Aguda's achievement in raising a small tribal population to power and his skill in employing men with that of Liao founder Yelü Abaoji.

Ming and Qing Periods

• Ming scholar Wang Shizhen praised Aguda for rising with a very small following between the White Mountains and Black Waters and, within a decade, destroying Liao and overwhelming Song, regarding his talent and strategy as extraordinary.
• The Qing Imperially Commissioned Explanation of Terms in the History of Jin examined Aguda's name and rendered it “Aguda” according to Qing-era philological practice, reflecting Qing interest in Jin history.
• Qing historian Zhao Yi, in Notes on the Twenty-Two Histories, discussed Jin institutions and attributed the origins of the Meng'an Mouke system to Aguda, praising the institutional innovation.

Modern and Contemporary Assessments

• Fan Wenlan described Aguda as an outstanding Jurchen leader whose unification of the Jurchen and establishment of Jin advanced the historical development of the northeast.
• Jian Bozan argued that Aguda's anti-Liao movement had the character of resistance to ethnic oppression and that the Meng'an Mouke system significantly shaped Jin society.
• Japanese historian Toyama Gunji, in Studies on the History of the Jin Dynasty, gave high marks to Aguda's military strategy and political institutions and regarded him as an exceptional figure in the history of northern peoples.