Wanyan Dan

Biography

Family Background and Early Years

Wanyan Dan was born on the seventh day of the seventh month in the third year of Tianfu (August 14, 1119). He was the eldest legitimate grandson of Emperor Taizu Wanyan Aguda. His father, Wanyan Zongjun, was Taizu's eldest legitimate son and died young; his mother was of the Pucha clan. During Wanyan Dan's childhood, Jin armies campaigned south into the Central Plains and captured Han scholars from the Yanjing region, including Han Fang. Emperor Taizu ordered Han Fang to teach Wanyan Dan. Han Fang was a noted literary figure of late Liao Yanjing, learned in the classics and histories and skilled in poetry and prose. Under his instruction, Wanyan Dan learned to compose poetry and prose in Chinese and adopted literati habits such as burning incense, preparing tea, playing board games, and painting. The Record of the Great Jin State describes him as intelligent from childhood and records that, after being taught by Han Fang and other Chinese scholars, he became capable of poetry and calligraphy, favored refined songs and Confucian dress, and practiced the pursuits of a Chinese literatus. This strongly sinicized education created a deep divide between Wanyan Dan and the veteran founders of the dynasty: he regarded some of the old ministers as uncultured outsiders, while they saw him as essentially a young Han household gentleman.

Designation as Heir and Accession

In 1130, the eighth year of Tianhui, Anban Bojilie Wanyan Gao, also known as Xieye, died, leaving the position of heir vacant. Emperor Taizong Wanyan Wuqimai delayed choosing a successor while rival forces at court maneuvered behind the scenes. In 1132, the tenth year of Tianhui, Left Deputy Marshal Wanyan Zonghan, Right Deputy Marshal Wanyan Zongfu, and Left Supervisor Wanyan Xiyin entered the court and consulted Wanyan Zonggan. They argued that the position of Anban Bojilie had remained vacant too long and that Hela, as the legitimate grandson of the former emperor, ought to be appointed. The four men repeatedly petitioned Taizong, who eventually agreed and in the fourth month issued an edict appointing Wanyan Dan Anban Bojilie. The edict admonished him not to regard his youth as an excuse for childish play and instead to cultivate virtue with reverence.

On the jisi day of the first month in the thirteenth year of Tianhui (February 9, 1135), Emperor Taizong died. The next day Wanyan Dan ascended the throne. At the beginning of his reign he prohibited public and private drinking, sent envoys to Qi, Goryeo, and Western Xia to announce the mourning and his accession, and ordered the Liu Qi regime henceforth to style itself a subject rather than a son, thereby altering the hierarchy between Jin and its dependent state.

Sinicizing Reforms and Consolidation of Power

After taking the throne, Wanyan Dan's foremost problem was factional struggle among the Jurchen aristocracy. Early Jin used the Bojilie system, and succession still retained the tribal practice of transmission within the same generation. Wanyan Dan inherited as the eldest legitimate grandson, passing over the generation of his fathers and thereby breaking with the older practice. This aroused strong dissatisfaction among figures such as Emperor Taizong's eldest son Wanyan Zongpan.

Wanyan Dan's sinicizing reforms received support from his adoptive father Wanyan Zonggan. Zonggan was Emperor Taizu's eldest concubine-born son, admired Han culture, and had participated in institutional construction under Emperor Taizong. After accession, Wanyan Dan gradually abolished the Bojilie system and established a Three Departments structure centered on the Department of State Affairs. In 1136, the fourteenth year of Tianhui, Zongpan, Zonggan, and Zonghan jointly headed the Three Departments, marking the establishment of the new official system. The new bureaucracy placed the Three Preceptors—Grand Preceptor, Grand Tutor, and Grand Protector—and the Three Dukes—Grand Commandant, Minister over the Masses, and Minister of Works—at the head of the Three Departments. The central administration thereby became largely sinicized.

In 1137, the fifteenth year of Tianhui, Wanyan Dan exploited growing tensions between Liu Yu's puppet Qi regime and Jin to abolish Qi by edict, reduce Liu Yu to Prince of Shu, and establish a Branch Department of State Affairs at Bianjing. In the same year Gao Qingyi, a close associate of Wanyan Zonghan, was executed for corruption, and Zonghan died in anger and distress. In 1138, the first year of Tianjuan, Wanyan Zongpan, Wanyan Zongjun, Wanyan Chang, and others dominated the court and strongly advocated peace with Song, ceding territory in Henan and Shaanxi. In 1139, the second year of Tianjuan, Wanyan Dan relied on Wanyan Zongbi and others to execute Zongpan, Zongjun, and Wanyan Chang in succession, after which he gained full control of military and political authority.

In the third month of the second year of Tianjuan, Wanyan Dan ordered officials to draw up detailed ceremonial regulations, beginning large-scale institutional construction. Over the following seven or eight years he developed elaborate systems governing ancestral temples, state altars, sacrifices, imperial honorifics, posthumous titles, court audiences, carriages and robes, guards of honor, and palace restrictions, all designed to manifest the supreme dignity of the emperor. In 1145, the fifth year of Huangtong, he promulgated the Huangtong New Code, consisting of more than a thousand provisions and described as being largely modeled on Great Song law, though with some new provisions of its own. In the same year he abolished hereditary Meng'an Mouke arrangements among Han and Bohai populations in Liaodong and gradually transferred military authority to Jurchens. These measures accelerated the transformation of Jin's institutions and strengthened its rule in North China.

War and Peace with Song

During Wanyan Dan's reign, Jin-Song relations shifted repeatedly from negotiation to renewed war and then to a final settlement. In 1139, the second year of Tianjuan, Jin and Southern Song reached an initial peace agreement under which Southern Song acknowledged Jin's superiority and Jin returned territory in Henan and Shaanxi. The war faction soon regained the upper hand. In the fifth month of 1140, the third year of Tianjuan, Wanyan Dan ordered Wanyan Zongbi to recover Henan and Shaanxi. Zongbi led Jin forces south and successively took Kaifeng and other places, but was defeated by Liu Qi at Shunchang and by Yue Fei's forces at Yancheng and Yingchang. Southern Song's military position briefly improved, but Emperor Gaozong Zhao Gou and Qin Hui sought peace and ordered Yue Fei to withdraw.

In 1141, the first year of Huangtong, Wanyan Zongbi again invaded Southern Song and the two sides faced one another along the Huai River. In the eleventh month, Jin and Song concluded the Shaoxing Peace. Southern Song acknowledged vassal status to Jin and agreed to deliver annually 250,000 taels of silver and 250,000 bolts of silk. The border was fixed along a line from the Huai River to Dasan Pass. In the second month of 1142, the second year of Huangtong, Emperor Gaozong of Song sent an envoy bearing a memorial of submission to Jin, and Jin invested Zhao Gou as emperor of Song. Jin thereby formally established the superior position it claimed in Jin-Song relations.

Late Misrule and Assassination

Wanyan Zonggan died in 1141, the first year of Huangtong, and Wanyan Zongbi died in 1148, the eighth year of Huangtong. Xizong thereby lost his most important senior supporters. In the twelfth month of 1142, Crown Prince Wanyan Ji'an died in infancy, and in 1144 Xizong killed his own son Daoji, Prince of Wei, leaving the succession unsettled. Empress Peiman took the opportunity to intervene in government without restraint, and court officials were at times promoted to high office through attachment to the empress.

From the first year of Huangtong onward, Wanyan Dan began drinking day and night with close attendants. When the chancellors remonstrated, he gave the remonstrators wine and said that he understood their intent, had now drunk, and would restrain himself the next day, only to continue drinking. In 1144 he killed Daoji, Prince of Wei, and in 1147 killed Zongli, Minister of Revenue, at a banquet. In 1146, after Han Qixian died, Wanyan Zongbi, encouraged by Cai Songnian, Cao Wangzhi, Xu Lin, and others, initiated the Huangtong political purge on accusations of factional association. Officials including Tian Jue were executed, leaving the central administration said to be nearly emptied. In 1149, under Wanyan Liang's provocation, Wanyan Dan successively executed his younger brother Wanyan Yuan, Prince of Zuo, Wanyan Chala, Left Guard General Tesi, and others. He then killed Empress Peiman and took Samao, the consort of Prince Zuo, into the palace. Fear spread through court and government.

Wanyan Liang, later known as the Prince of Hailing, exploited Xizong's suspicious temperament to eliminate rivals while secretly conspiring with the imperial son-in-law Tangkuo Bian, palace attendant Daxingguo, guard commander Hutu, Alichuhu, and others. On the dingsi day, the ninth day of the twelfth month in the ninth year of Huangtong (January 9, 1150), Wanyan Liang and his associates entered the sleeping palace and assassinated Wanyan Dan. He died at the age of thirty-one after a reign of fifteen years.

His Birth, His Chinese Education, and His Appointment as Anban Bojilie

Wanyan Dan was the eldest grandson of the founder of Jin, Wanyan Min, and eldest son of the emperor Jingxuan, Wanyan Zongjun, his mother being lady Pucha, and he was born in the third year of Tianfu, 1119. In childhood he studied under the Chinese scholar Han Fang and could compose poems and prose in Chinese, delighting in refined songs and Confucian dress; and by the Da Jin Guo Zhi he was "of surpassing intelligence from boyhood," and his uncles campaigning in the central plain having brought the Yan man Han Fang and Chinese scholars to teach him, "he could write poems and wield the brush, sing refined songs and wear Confucian dress, apportion tea and burn incense, and play chess and the elephant game." In the eighth year of Tianhui the anban bojilie Gao died and Taizong long left the matter undecided; and in the tenth year the left vice marshal Zonghan, the right vice marshal Zongfu and the left army inspector Wanyan Xiyin came to court and told Zonggan that the place of anban bojilie had long been vacant and that if it were not settled in time it might be given to the wrong man, and that Hela, the eldest grandson of the late emperor by the principal wife, should be set up; and they asked Taizong again and again and he consented. On the day gengwu of the fourth month the edict ran that as he was the eldest grandson of the founder he was therefore made anban bojilie, and that he should not think himself too young and give himself to childish play but should reverence his virtue. The office of anban bojilie was one that Taizong himself had held, and on coming to the throne he had given it to his brother Gao; and Gao dying, the emperor decided that it should mark the succession, and so conferred it. In the thirteenth year of Tianhui, 1135, he came to the throne, keeping Taizong's era name of Tianhui and afterwards changing it to Tianjuan and then Huangtong.

His Reform of the Offices, Rites and Music, and the Examinations after the Chinese Model

On coming to the throne he carried out a great reform on the Chinese model. By the Zhongxing Xiaoji he raised his residence to the prefecture of Huining and made it the supreme capital, and changed the offices: the court of the imperial clan got judges, co-judges and joint signatories; the palace commission got left and right commissioners and a joint manager; the six ministries at first had the three vice ministers of civil office, revenue and rites, then three ministers who also held war, justice and works, and presently all six had ministers, with the gentlemen of the boards, the left and right bureaux and all the sections complete; the national history office got a director-general held by a chancellor and then an historian; the censorate got a censor-in-chief, a vice censor-in-chief and attendant censors, though the chief censor was not appointed, the vice censor-in-chief having charge only of the records of litigation and of judging cases; the remonstrance bureau got left and right remonstrating grand masters and the omissions and admonishers, all held concurrently by other officers; the Hanlin academy got a recipient of edicts, academicians for reading and lecturing, direct academicians, expectant officers and compilers, though the recipient of edicts was not appointed; the palace front office got a chief inspector, left and right deputy inspectors and left and right guard generals; the office for encouraging agriculture got a commissioner and deputy; the bureau of records got a compiler and annotator; the court of state ceremonial got a chief and assistant; and the secretariat got a director and assistant and all below. In rites and music he first built a temple to Confucius at the supreme capital: in the third year of Tianjuan, 1140, he decreed a search for the descendants of Confucius and made Kong Fan an attendant of the heir and hereditary duke Yansheng to conduct the sacrifices; and he himself then read the Analects, the Documents, the Zuo Commentary to the Spring and Autumn, the several histories, the General Calendar and the Tang Code, often until the second watch. In the third month of the first year of Huangtong, 1141, he went in person to sacrifice at the temple of Confucius, bowed facing north and told his attendants with a sigh that in youth he had given himself to pleasure and not to learning and that as the years passed he regretted it deeply, that in doing good a man could not but strive, and that though Confucius had held no place his way was to be honoured and looked up to for ten thousand generations. In the examinations he greatly improved the Jin system, ending the old practice by which the examinations of north and south followed the Liao and Song systems respectively, and providing that north and south of the Yellow River the examinations should take men in the two subjects of rhapsody and the meaning of the classics, with the three levels of the provincial, prefectural and metropolitan examinations, and with the Song devices of fair copying and the like to prevent fraud, and with additional subjects of policy questions, the illumination of the classics, the law and the boy-classics, rhapsody and the classics being the regular subjects whose successful candidates were called presented scholars, and law and boy-classics the miscellaneous subjects whose successful candidates were called provincial graduates, with a military examination established in the Huangtong years. By the Songmo Jiwen the detail is this: the Jin examinations began with the counties of each prefecture, those offering poems and rhapsodies writing also a discourse in one day and those offering the classics also policy and discourse in three days, called the provincial examination, the magistrate of the county being examiner; only those guilty of some irregularity were rejected, and the first on the list was called the provincial head or the "untied" head; in the spring of the next year there was a classified examination by three routes — from the north of the river to the Jurchen at Yan, the west of the pass and Hedong at Yunzhong, and the south of the river at Bian — called the prefectural examination; and in the autumn all the graduates of the several routes were gathered at Yan, called the metropolitan examination, one in six being taken, the first being called the "edict head" or the chief graduate and divided into the three classes of upper, middle and lower. The examiners were appointed by imperial decree and the grades issued by the secretariat, with one chief examiner and two joint examiners, and with the sealing of names, fair copying and gate watching, the examination hall being of four pillars hung with coloured cloth and called the "hall of perfect fairness," the examiners mounting it to watch the candidates; "if any took fees he was dismissed from office without further appointment and beaten with the sand bag, nor were kinsmen excused," and great stress was laid on calligraphy, "every character with a slight fault of stroke or component being called an irregularity."

Law, the Building of the Supreme Capital, and the Peace with Song

In his reign the law was completed on the basis of the Chinese reforms: in the tenth month of the first year of Tianjuan, 1138, princes and those below were forbidden to wear swords in the palace, and the law of the guards was first set up; in the third year of Tianjuan, 1140, Jin retook the land of Henan and decreed to the people of Henan that the punishments used among them should follow the old Song text, the cruel instruments of the gaolers being abolished in the way of leniency; and in the Huangtong years the court decreed that the ministers should take the old system of the dynasty together with the law of Sui and Tang and consult that of Liao and Song, and compile it into a book called the Huangtong Statutes, promulgated within and without. In the building of the capital the second stage of work at the supreme capital was the "cool hall," another group of palace buildings in the imperial city not inferior in scale to the "court hall," finished in the fourth month of the second year of Huangtong, 1142; and with these groups of halls completed the emperor had his court of government, the emperor and empress their apartments and the books and records their store, so that after Xizong's enlargement the supreme capital was not only splendid in its buildings but had roads and post roads running in every direction. Towards Song, in the eleventh month of the fifteenth year of Tianhui, 1137, he decreed the abolition of Liu Yu's state of Qi and peace was made; in the first month of the second year of Tianjuan, 1139, the peace was concluded, the Southern Song becoming a vassal of Jin in place of Qi and acknowledging itself a subject, while Jin returned Henan and Shaanxi; but the war party soon prevailed, and in the fifth month of the third year of Tianjuan, 1140, he decreed that Wuzhu should recover Henan and Shaanxi; and in the first year of Huangtong, 1141, Zongbi led troops south for the last time, displaying his strength on the Huai and threatening to cross the river, and by terror forced the Southern Song to sue for peace again, the treaty providing that the middle course of the Huai should be the boundary, that the two prefectures of Tang and Deng should be ceded and that two hundred and fifty thousand taels of silver and as many bolts of silk should be sent yearly; and in the second year of Huangtong envoys were sent to invest the Song sovereign. He also in the eighth month of the third year of Tianjuan fixed the ranks of princesses, commandery princesses and their husbands; in the eleventh month made Kong Fan, descendant in the forty-ninth generation of Confucius, hereditary duke Yansheng; and fixed the titles of ladies of rank, allowed Xia to set up customs markets and gave frontier land to Xia; and he decreed that military business in the prefectures should be decided by the marshals' offices and civil suits about money and grain by the branch secretariat.

Han Qixian, the Case of Tian Jue, and the Death of Xiyin

In carrying out his reforms the chancellorship of Han Qixian was of great importance: he was widely read in the classics and histories and knew the precedents of former dynasties, "taking now the old and now the new, always striking the mean"; as chancellor "he wished always to choose men for office and made it his own charge to foster and encourage those who came after him," so that "he raised up the class of scholars and distinguished men, and for a time the courts and secretariats were full of gentlemen," Zonghan and Zonggan holding him in high respect and the age calling him a worthy chancellor; he was enfeoffed prince of Pu in the first year of Huangtong and died in the sixth at sixty-five. Yet the case of Tian Jue that followed touched many: by the Jin Shi, while Han Qixian was chancellor he raised up the worthy of the time and set them in key posts, and Tian Jue and Meng Hao were both in the secretariat, Jue as vice minister of civil office and Hao as gentleman of the left bureau; and "having charge of selection he weighed men well and distinguished the worthy from the unworthy, and all he brought in were gentlemen," whereas Cai Songnian, Cao Wangzhi and Xu Lin were petty men who sought to attach themselves to him and were refused, and all three therefore bore him a grudge and were always belittling him to Zongbi, "and all who were on good terms with Jue were called his faction." When Han Qixian fell ill and Zongbi came to ask after him, Tian Jue, hearing of Zongbi's approach, hid himself to avoid him; and Zongbi asking who could succeed the chancellor, Qixian named Jue, whereupon Zongbi, having first taken in Cai Songnian's slander, said that such men should be put to death, and Jue, hearing it, broke out in a sweat. After Qixian's death Jue was sent out as military commissioner of Henghai; and afterwards the candidate Gong Yijian, whose name had been struck off, came under the general pardon to the board of civil office to be considered for the general favour, and the clerks told Jue of it, whereupon he signed the document with the dates reversed. Xu Lin was in charge of the general favour in the secretariat, and Zhang Zizhou, vice minister of works in the branch secretariat, who had long been at odds with Jue, coming to the capital on business, learned something of the matter and set Xu Lin to expose it, charging Jue with acting on his own authority in the government; and on trial by imperial order Jue with Xi Yi, Xing Juzhan, Wang Zhi, Gao Fengting, Wang Xiao, Zhao Yixing and Gong Yijian were condemned to death, and their wives and children with Meng Hao and thirty-four others of their acquaintance were banished to the sea coast and not included in the pardon, "and all the realm thought it unjust." By the Guiqian Zhi the affair arose from private grudges: Cai Songnian, Cao Wangzhi and Xu Lin, being in low office, wished to attach themselves to the circle of Tian Jue and were refused with the words that Songnian had lost his honour, Wangzhi was a commonplace clerk and Lin a petty man, at which the three hated them bitterly, went to the household of the grand preceptor Zongbi and told him that Tian Jue and the rest made and unmade men for their own profit and would harm the court; and Zongbi believed them. When Han Qixian lay dying Zongbi came to inquire, and the chancellor, charging him with his affairs, said that Tian Jue could succeed him, at which Zongbi angrily said that the fellow should be executed and the chancellor was confused, and rose and went out, and Jue, hearing it, sweated through his clothes; and presently the chancellor died and Jue and the rest lost their footing, and the three urged Zongbi to bring the matter of faction before the throne. Xizong asked what the faction men had done, and Zongbi answered that the faction had bound themselves together to rebel, whereupon the emperor said that if it were so they should all be put to death; and so Tian Jue and the rest were thrown into prison and their partisans hunted down in every quarter, and "whenever one was taken his face was first lacquered before interrogation so that they should not know one another," and under every kind of torture Jue and Juzhan died in prison, while Songnian, Wangzhi and Lin were all promoted. In the eighth month of the ninth year of Huangtong, 1149, he also put to death the left chancellor Wanyan Xiyin, the right assistant Xiao Qing, and Xiyin's son the general of manifest martiality Pada and the keeper of the seals Mandai; and in the same year, having proclaimed a pardon because of celestial changes, he had the Hanlin academician Zhang Jun draft the edict, and the assistant in the government Xiao Yi picked out its words as slanderous, whereupon the emperor in anger killed Zhang Jun and also put to death the keeper of the arsenal Yelü Bajin and others.

The Political Situation after Zongbi's Death and His Drunken Slaughter

After the death of the grand preceptor, director of the three secretariats, commander-in-chief and prince of Yue Zongbi in the tenth month of the eighth year of Huangtong, 1148, Xizong was the more at a loss, and the empress Peiman took a greater part in the government without scruple, so that many at court gained the chancellorship and other high offices by her means, the political struggle at court was sharp, and the chancellors and ministers from the director of the three secretariats downward were shifted about continually, so that the government was very unstable. By the biography of the empresses in the Jin Shi, Zongbi being dead and many of the old ministers also gone, the empress took part in the government without scruple and court officers often got the chancellorship through her; and when the left chancellor Liang had his birthday, Xizong sent Daxingguo to give him a portrait of Sima Guang, a jade falcon and a horse from the stables, and the empress also sent birthday gifts of her own, at which Xizong in anger had Daxingguo beaten and took back what had been given, "and Hailing, who had designs of his own, grew the more fearful, and the change within the walls took its rise from this." The attendant Gao Shouxing, being moved by rule to garrison south of Yan, complained to the empress, who so angered Xizong that he killed the left bureau director Sanhe, and had the assistant in the government Bingde beaten, while Shouxing after all was not moved. Under so many contradictions and so much pressure Xizong grew ever more uncertain in temper and murderous, so that all men fell away from him: the Hanlin academician Zhang Jun, the left bureau director Sanhe and other officers, his brothers Wanyan Yuan and Wanyan Chala and other kinsmen, the empress Peiman and many of the consorts were all killed, and the ministers were in great terror. He also neglected government for drink: the Jin Shi records that "from the year before he was given up to wine, drinking with his close ministers and sometimes on into the night," and that when the chancellors came to remonstrate he would ply them with wine, saying that he knew their mind but that he had drunk today and would abstain tomorrow, and then drank again; and it records that in his drunkenness he killed the minister of revenue Zongli. The biography of the empresses closes by saying that in Xizong's reign Zonghan, Zonggan and Zongbi held the government in turn and the emperor sat silent in court; that though in the early years the state had much to do, the plans of the throne won its ends, Qi was brought to submission, the men of Song asked to be subjects, and officials were clean, government simple and the people at their work; but that after Zongbi's death the old ministers too were mostly gone, the empress took part in the government without scruple and court officers often got the chancellorship through her, and that after Ji'an's death no heir was set up for years and the empress much constrained Xizong, who, unable to be at peace within, in his idleness gave himself to wine, to rage and to killing with his own hand.

His Murder and His Posthumous Titles

In the tenth month of the ninth year of Huangtong, 1149, he killed the guardian of the northern capital, the prince of Zuo Wanyan Yuan, with his brother the military commissioner of Anwu, Chala, and the general of the left guard Tesi, and proclaimed a pardon; in the eleventh month he killed the empress Peiman, brought the princess of Zuo into the palace, and killed Alian and Dalian, sons of the late prince of Deng; on the day guisi he hunted at Hulahun Tuwen and sent to kill the consort of virtue lady Wugulun with lady Jiagu and lady Zhang; on the first day of the twelfth month he returned from the hunt and on the sixth killed the consort lady Peiman in the bedchamber. And the assistant in the government Wanyan Liang, in the general terror of the ministers, plotted rebellion with his close friend the commandant of cavalry Tangkuo Bian, the bedchamber attendant Daxingguo, and the guardsmen of ten Hutu and Alichuhu; and on the day dingsi, Hutu and Alichuhu being on duty within, he had the secretariat clerk Li Laoseng tell Daxingguo; and at the second watch Daxingguo stole the tally, forged an edict and opened the palace gate to summon Bian and the rest, and Liang with his sword and his sister's husband Tesi entered with Bian to the palace gate, where the guards, Bian being a commandant of cavalry, suspected nothing and let them in; and at the gate of the hall the guardsmen took alarm and drew their blades but dared not move; and Hutu and Alichuhu came before the emperor, who sought the sword that always lay on his couch and did not know that Daxingguo had moved it elsewhere, and Hutu and Alichuhu came forward and murdered him, and Liang then came up and cut him with his own hand so that the blood spattered his face and clothes. The emperor died at thirty-one. The left chancellor Bingde and the rest then seated Liang, bowed around him and shouted ten thousand years and set him up as emperor; and Xizong was reduced to the title of prince of the eastern dusk and buried in the tomb of the empress Peiman. In the third year of Zhenyuan he was reburied at Liaoxiang dian on Dafang mountain in the same domain as the other princes; in the early Dading years he was given the posthumous name Wuling with the temple name Minzong and the tomb called Siling, with a separate temple; in the nineteenth year he was raised into the ancestral temple with the added posthumous name of the emperor who laid the foundation, continued the martial work, was grave and tranquil and filial and complete; in the twenty-seventh year the temple name was changed to Xizong; and in the twenty-eighth year, the Siling being too small, he was reburied at Emei valley with the same name of Siling.

Major Activities

Sinicizing Reforms

Wanyan Dan was a key figure in Jin's adoption of Han-style institutions. He abolished the early Jin Bojilie system and established a Three Departments system centered on the Department of State Affairs. In 1139 he ordered officials to draw up detailed ceremonial regulations, and during the following seven or eight years extensive rules were created for ancestral temples, state altars, sacrifices, honorifics, posthumous titles, court audiences, carriages and robes, guards of honor, and palace administration. In 1145 he promulgated the Huangtong New Code, comprising more than a thousand provisions and described as largely modeled on Song law while also including original regulations. In the same year he abolished hereditary Meng'an Mouke arrangements among Han and Bohai populations in Liaodong, divided the Meng'an Mouke into upper, middle, and lower grades, and transferred military power toward the Jurchens. These reforms accelerated institutional transformation and supported Jin's longer-term rule in North China.

Jin-Song Peace Settlement

Wanyan Dan's reign saw a major shift in Jin-Song relations. In 1139 he concluded an initial peace with Southern Song and Jin returned Henan and Shaanxi territory. In 1140 he ordered Wanyan Zongbi to recover those regions. In the eleventh month of 1141 Jin and Song concluded the Shaoxing Peace: Southern Song acknowledged vassal status, promised annual deliveries of 250,000 taels of silver and 250,000 bolts of silk, and accepted a border running from the Huai River to Dasan Pass. In the second month of 1142 Emperor Gaozong sent a memorial of submission, and Jin invested Zhao Gou as emperor of Song. The agreement established the political relationship described in the source and was followed by nearly two decades of peace between the two states.

Abolition of Qi and Consolidation of Rule

In 1137 Wanyan Dan abolished Liu Yu's puppet Qi regime, reduced Liu Yu to Prince of Shu, and created a Branch Department of State Affairs at Bianjing. After the abolition of Qi, he established military-agricultural colonies, moving Khitan and Jurchen people from the northeast into the Central Plains to live among Han populations and assigning official farmland by household for cultivation. The source states that such colonies existed from south of the Yanshan region to north of the Huai and Long regions, sometimes numbering as many as sixty thousand people, with fortified settlements built among villages. These measures strengthened Jin control over the Central Plains and also increased contact between Jurchen and Han populations.

Huangtong Political Purge

In 1146, after Right Chancellor Han Qixian died, Wanyan Zongbi, encouraged by Cai Songnian, Cao Wangzhi, Xu Lin, and others, initiated a purge on accusations of factional association. Tian Jue, Xi Yi, Xing Juzhan, Wang Zhi, Gao Fengting, Wang Xiao, Zhao Yixing, Gong Yijian, and others were executed. Their wives and children, together with thirty-four people associated with them, including Meng Hao, were exiled to islands and were not to benefit from amnesties. The source describes the resulting central government as nearly emptied. Wanyan Dan accepted Zongbi's judgment; when Zongbi reported that the alleged faction had conspired to rebel, the emperor replied that if so they should all be executed.

The Judgements of Later Ages, the Meaning of His Chinese Reforms, and His Peace with Song

Later judgements of him are for the most part two-sided. The Jin Shi says that "in Xizong's time the four quarters had nothing to do, and he honoured the princes and ministers of the imperial house and entrusted them with the government, so that his rule of maintaining the inheritance and keeping to the pattern is worth regarding." The edict of the nineteenth year of Dading conferring his posthumous name traced his life thus: that he was the eldest grandson of the founder and received Taizong's testament, held the sacred vessel fifteen years, ruled with folded arms and reliance on others, entrusted affairs to kinsmen and meritorious ministers, abolished the state of Qi to lighten taxes and labour service, softened the men of Song and put an end to arms, so that the age attained great peace and the people rose to benevolence and long life, and the writing and the wheel-ruts were made one from north to south and the frontier watchposts from east to west; but that in his later years he used cruel punishments almost at will, wronging his brothers and his empress and killing good workmen, though his cruelty did not reach the people and his fault could still be remonstrated with, and that such faults were not unknown among the ancients. The Da Jin Guo Zhi both calls him "of surpassing intelligence from boyhood" and says that after his accession "the Chinese ministers about him grew into a fashion of flattery, the guards became haughty, the inner palace abounded in beauty, and the old meritorious generals and ministers were much estranged and pushed aside, so that evil minds rose suddenly among his own flesh and blood," and adds that "Xizong used cruel punishments without limit and killed on mere suspicion, so that Nianhan was the first to lose his military power and died of resentment, and the rest were none of them spared the destruction of their clans, the descendants of the founder and Taizong being almost all killed off." The Guochao Gongshi, in turn, records the edict of Taizong of the Qing after reading the annals of Emperor Shizong of Jin in the first year of Chongde, saying that the founder and Taizong of Jin had clear and detailed laws fit to be handed down for long ages, but that in the reigns of Xizong Hela and Wanyan Liang they were all abolished, with indulgence in wine and women and pleasure without measure, in imitation of the vulgar habits of the Chinese — so that his Chinese reforms were themselves weighed by later ages. As to his dealings with Song: the peace of the first year of Huangtong fixed the Huai as the boundary and brought in the annual payment, so that north and south could "rest from arms and give the people ease, each keeping its own territory," and in the second year of Huangtong envoys were sent to invest the Song sovereign; and of the Northern Song women he took into the palace, by the Song Fu Ji and the Shenyin Yu four were made consorts of the second rank, six were made ladies and one had no title. As those two records run only to the year 1142 and are moreover defective, there may have been other women of the Northern Song imperial house so enfeoffed, and whether those already enfeoffed were later advanced can no longer be known.

Personal Relations

• Wanyan Aguda: grandfather, Emperor Taizu of Jin; Wanyan Zongjun: father, posthumously Emperor Jingxuan; Pucha clan: mother; Wanyan Zonggan: adoptive father, eldest concubine-born son of Emperor Taizu; Peiman clan: empress, Empress Daoping; Wanyan Ji'an: son, Crown Prince Yingdao; Wanyan Daoji: son, Prince of Wei; Wanyan Yuan: younger brother, Prince of Zuo; Wanyan Chala: younger brother; Samao: consort of Prince Zuo, later taken as a consort by Wanyan Dan.
• Han Fang: teacher of Chinese learning, later Participant in Determining Governmental Matters; Wanyan Xu: remonstrated against drinking and later served as Left Chancellor.
• Wanyan Zonghan: senior minister who later lost power; Wanyan Zongpan: political rival who was executed; Wanyan Zongbi: senior minister, also known as Jin Wuzhu; Wanyan Zonggan: adoptive father and regent; Wanyan Xiyin: senior minister who was later killed; Han Qixian: Han chancellor; Yuwen Xuzhong: Han official who was executed; Tian Jue: Han official who was executed; Wanyan Liang: assassin, later Prince of Hailing; Tangkuo Bian: imperial son-in-law who participated in the assassination; Peiman clan: empress who intervened in government.
• Wanyan Zongpan: rival in imperial politics, executed; Wanyan Zongjun: executed; Wanyan Chang: executed; Wanyan Yuan: younger brother, executed; Wanyan Chala: younger brother, executed; Peiman clan: empress, executed; Wanyan Liang: assassin.

Historical Assessment

Jin and Contemporary Assessments

After usurping the throne, Wanyan Liang demoted Wanyan Dan to Prince of Donghun. In 1161, the first year of Dading under Emperor Shizong, Wanyan Dan's imperial status was restored and he received the posthumous title Emperor Wuling and the temple name Minzong. In 1179 his posthumous title was expanded to Emperor Hongji Zanwu Zhuangjing Xiaocheng. In 1187 his temple name was changed to Xizong. Emperor Shizong's restoration of his imperial status and enshrinement in the imperial ancestral temple indicate the Jin court's official recognition of his historical position and of the institutional reforms associated with his reign.

Song and Yuan Periods

The Yuan-compiled History of Jin states that in Xizong's time the realm was at peace, that he treated imperial relatives and senior ministers with respect and entrusted them with state affairs, and that his preservation and continuation of the dynasty's institutions were worthy of notice. It then criticizes his final years for heavy drinking and arbitrary killing, saying that people lived in fear and that his failure first to see slander and later to recognize the traitor near him gradually brought disaster upon him rather than producing it in a single day. This assessment acknowledges the achievements of his early reign while attributing his assassination largely to the conduct of his later years.

Ming and Qing Periods

Ming and Qing scholars often evaluated Wanyan Dan from the perspective of dynastic legitimacy and institutional change. Ming scholar Wang Qi, in the Continuation of the Comprehensive Examination of Documents, described Xizong as admiring Chinese customs and applying Han laws, making him a key figure in Jin's transition from tribal institutions toward a dynastic bureaucratic order. Qing scholar Zhao Yi, discussing Jin institutional change in Notes on the Twenty-Two Histories, regarded Xizong's reforms as establishing the broad framework of the dynasty.

Modern Assessments

Modern scholarship tends to assess Wanyan Dan more comprehensively. The Outline History of China edited by Jian Bozan credits his sinicizing reforms with accelerating institutional transformation in Jin while criticizing the heavy drinking and arbitrary killings of his later years. The General History of China edited by Bai Shouyi argues that the tragedy of Wanyan Dan lay in attempting to govern through Han-style institutions while himself being Jurchen: he never fully entered Han cultural society yet also lost support among older Jurchen aristocrats, leaving him isolated before his assassination. Zhang Boquan's A Concise History of Jin regards him as playing a transitional role in the transformation of Jurchen society.