Yelü Deguang

Biography

Family Background and Early Years

Yelü Deguang was born on the twenty-third day of the tenth lunar month in 902, November 25 by the Gregorian calendar, in the Donglou area of the Great Tribal territory, southwest of present-day Bairin Left Banner in Inner Mongolia. The place was later established as Jiangsheng Prefecture. His father Yelü Abaoji was a noble of the Khitan Diela tribe who later unified the Khitan tribes and founded the Liao. His mother, Shulü Ping, came from a Uyghur-descended aristocratic family and was a highly influential political figure in the early dynasty. Deguang was Emperor Taizu’s second son. His elder brother was Yelü Bei and his younger brother Yelü Lihu.

His Khitan name was Yaogu and his courtesy name Dejin. The Chinese source states that he later adopted the Han-style name Deguang out of admiration for Chinese culture. The Old History of the Five Dynasties records that his original name was Yaokuji and that he later changed it after becoming interested in Chinese writing. Historical descriptions portrayed him as dignified in appearance, lenient in disposition, and frequently involved in major military and state decisions from an early age.

Grand Marshal Period

In 922 Yelü Deguang, then twenty years old, was appointed Grand Marshal of All the Armies by his father and began a long military career. In 923 he led the Six Armies south, captured Pingzhou, in present-day Lulong, and took the Later Tang officers Zhao Siwen and Zhang Chong prisoner. On the return journey he defeated forces at Jiangan Mountain and compelled surrounding groups to submit. He later campaigned around Zhenzhou and Dingzhou, while Later Tang defenders generally remained behind their walls.

South of Youzhou, Yelü Deguang defeated a force sent by the Later Tang commander Fu Cunshen and captured a number of officers. He also took Quyang and Beiping. When his troops reached Yizhou on the return march, a subordinate warned that the army had traveled far and that both men and horses were exhausted; Deguang therefore abandoned the siege and returned, a decision that Emperor Taizu approved.

Deguang later joined his father on western campaigns, fought various tribes, suppressed Tangut groups along the riverlands, seized several Shanxi strongholds, and took the Uyghur city of Shanyu. In 926 he joined Emperor Taizu’s eastern expedition against Balhae. Together with his elder brother Yelü Bei, he served as vanguard, surrounded the Balhae capital Huhan City at night, and forced the last Balhae king to surrender. He then helped suppress prefectures that rebelled after initially submitting.

Accession and Consolidation of Power

On September 6, 926, Emperor Taizu died while returning from the Balhae campaign. Empress Shulü Ping assumed overall control of government. She favored her second son Yelü Deguang and intended to place him on the throne. According to the Chinese source, she had Yelü Deguang and Yelü Bei stand on horseback before the tent and invited the Khitan chiefs to “take the reins of the one fit to be established.” Understanding her intention, the chiefs gathered around Deguang. Yelü Bei also accepted the situation and supported his younger brother.

On December 11, 927, Yelü Deguang formally ascended the throne and performed the firewood enthronement rite. Officials presented the honorific Sisheng Emperor and a general amnesty was proclaimed. He continued using the Tianxian era name rather than immediately changing it. He honored his grandmother Xiao Yanmujin as grand empress dowager and his mother Shulü Ping as Empress Dowager Yingtian and established Xiao Wen as empress.

After accession, Yelü Deguang took steps to secure his rule. He steadily reduced the power of the Dongdan kingdom under his elder brother Yelü Bei, transferred part of its population, and repeatedly visited Bei’s residence to monitor his actions. In 930 Yelü Bei crossed the sea with members of his household and his book collection and defected to Later Tang. Deguang thereafter exercised undisputed authority within the Khitan state. At the same time, because Empress Dowager Shulü favored the younger brother Yelü Lihu, Deguang gave Lihu prominent titles and often left him to guard Shangjing during military campaigns.

Aid to Later Jin and the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun

In 936 Shi Jingtang, military governor of Hedong under Later Tang, rebelled at Jinyang and was besieged by forces sent by the Later Tang emperor Li Congke. Shi appealed to the Khitan for assistance and promised to acknowledge subordinate status, treat Yelü Deguang as a father, and cede the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun. Deguang responded by personally leading fifty thousand cavalry south. He defeated the Later Tang army outside Jinyang and relieved the siege, then invested Shi Jingtang as emperor of the new Later Jin state. He subsequently helped Shi’s forces move south and destroy Later Tang.

In 938 Later Jin formally transferred the registers and territory of the Sixteen Prefectures to the Khitan. The acquisition extended Liao territory far south of the traditional frontier and created direct contact with states of the Central Plains. Deguang made Youzhou the Southern Capital, elevated Yunzhou as the Western Capital, and developed the region as a strategic base for further operations to the south.

Destruction of Later Jin and Entry into the Central Plains

After Shi Jingtang’s death, Later Jin emperor Shi Chonggui changed the relationship with the Khitan, continuing to address Deguang as a grandfather but refusing to call himself a subject. Yelü Deguang used this as justification for war. In 946 he launched a large-scale southern campaign. On January 10, 947, Liao forces captured Bianjing, present-day Kaifeng, and took Shi Chonggui and the empress dowager prisoner, ending Later Jin.

On January 25, 947, Yelü Deguang entered Bianjing with the ceremonial trappings of an emperor of the Central Plains and received congratulations from officials in the Chongyuan Hall. On February 24 he issued an edict changing the state name from Great Khitan to Great Liao and changed the era name from Huitong to Datong.

Liao rule in the Central Plains, however, proved unstable. Khitan forces relied on requisitioning and plunder to provision themselves, causing intense resentment. Local resistance and armed uprisings spread, and prefectures began to defect. Deguang concluded that he could not maintain control and reportedly expressed surprise at how difficult the Central Plains population was to govern. On April 24, 947, he left Bianjing and began withdrawing north.

Illness and Death on the Northern Return

During the retreat, Yelü Deguang developed a severe fever in Lincheng. On May 15, 947, he died at Shahulin in Luancheng, in the area of present-day Shijiazhuang, aged forty-six. The Chinese source records that the Khitan preserved the body by removing the internal organs and packing the corpse with salt for transport northward; Central Plains observers mockingly referred to the preserved body as “imperial dried meat.” He was buried later that year at Huailing, in present-day Bairin Right Banner, Inner Mongolia.

The Legend of His Birth and His Early Campaigns

Yelü Deguang was born on the twenty-third day of the tenth month of the second year of Tianfu (25 November 902), at the Eastern Tower of the Great Tribe, later made the Department of Descending Holiness. According to the geographical treatise of the History of Liao, the Empress Yingtian, Shulü Ping, dreamed of a god in a golden crown and plain robes, holding a weapon, of full and handsome countenance, followed by twelve strange beasts, one of which, a black hare, leaped into her bosom, so that she conceived and bore Taizong; at his birth "black clouds covered the tent, fire lit the chamber and a sound was heard like thunder", and the tribes marvelled. His courtesy name was Dejin and his boyhood name Yaogu; as he grew he was "grave of countenance but generous of nature, and the affairs of army and state were much decided by him". In the first year of Tianzan (922) he was made grand marshal of the armies of the world and ordered to command the six armies southward; the next year he took Pingzhou and captured Zhao Siwen and Zhang Chong, made Pingzhou the Lulong army with a military commissioner, camped at Jianke hill against the rebellious Xi chief Hu Sun, took him and had him shot with a ghost arrow, executing three hundred of his party and drowning them in the Gou river, and established the Duogui tribe of the Xi. In the fourth month he was ordered against Youzhou, camped east of it, defeated the troops sent out by the commissioner Fu Cunshen and took his officer Pei Xin and his son; in the intercalary month he reached Zhenzhou, took Quyang and Beiping. At Yizhou, when the people of Yi formed up beyond the moat and Li Jingzhang came out to surrender saying the city had no will to fight, the grand marshal would have built siege engines, but his deputy Tulübu advised that "our army has come far and men and horses are weary; we cannot stay long", and he desisted; reporting the advice on his return, he was richly rewarded by Taizu. He then went west with Taizu to the shifting sands, his fame spreading, broke the Yujueli tribes, settled the Dangxiang of the riverbank, took the towns of Shanxi and the shanyu's city of the Uighurs, and in the first year of Tianxian (926) took part in the eastern campaign against Bohai, storming the city of Fuyu. When Taizu wished to take a census, Yelü Bei advised that "to count the people as soon as the land is taken will unsettle them; if we press our advantage and go straight to the city of Huhan we shall surely take it", and Taizu agreed; Bei and the grand marshal Deguang led the van and invested Huhan by night, and the last king Dazhuanzhuan, at his wits' end, surrendered, only to rebel again and be destroyed. Later the surrendered prefectures rebelled and bandits swarmed; Nanhai and Dingli rebelled and Deguang reduced them in the sixth month; in the seventh month the prefect of Tiezhou, Wei Jun, rebelled, and he took Tiezhou.

The Succession

Taizu died at Fuyu in the seventh month of the first year of Tianxian, and the empress took over the government. Favoring her second son, she had Deguang and Yelü Bei ride out and stand before the tent and told the chiefs that she loved both sons and knew not whom to choose, bidding them "choose him you would have and take his bridle"; the chiefs, understanding her, contended for Deguang's bridle, crying that they would serve the marshal and heir. Yelü Bei too, knowing her mind, told the nobles that "the grand marshal's merit and virtue reach gods and men, and within and without the realm all turn to him; he should preside over the altars of state", and with the ministers asked the empress dowager to let him yield. On the renxu day of the eleventh month of the second year of Tianxian Deguang took the throne, performed the firewood-register rite, was given the honorific "Emperor Continuing the Sage", and proclaimed an amnesty; when the offices asked to change the era he refused, keeping Tianxian. He honoured his grandmother as grand empress dowager and his mother Shulü Ping as Empress Dowager Yingtian, and made his consort Lady Xiao empress. In the third month of the third year of Tianxian, when Wang Du, military commissioner of Yiwu of the Later Tang, offered Dingzhou and the Tang emperor sent an army against him, he sent Tieli to the rescue; Tieli was killed and Nie ligun, Chala and dozens more were taken, and he regretted that "the troops were sent at the wrong time", richly rewarding the families of the fallen. In the eleventh month he went south against the Tang himself; in the twelfth he sacrificed to Heaven and Earth, and hearing that the Tang emperor had again sent envoys, and that his attendants thought Tang's repeated embassies showed fear, he halted at Xingguo and withdrew when the Tang envoys came. He then ordered Yelü Yuzhi to move the people of Dongdan to fill Dongping, and allowed the rich to support those too poor to move, thereby worsening relations with his brother; and because his mother favoured his third brother Lihu he employed him greatly, reviewing the six armies in the tenth month of the fourth year and ordering Lihu into Yunzhong. In the eighth month of the fifth year he went south himself, reached Yunzhou and took Heyin, plundered Lingqiu where the elders brought oxen and wine, and invested Yangcheng of Wuzhou, which surrendered, as did Wazhi city, whose able-bodied captives were enrolled in the army.

Saving Jin and the Sixteen Prefectures

In the eleventh year of Tianxian (936) Shi Jingtang, military commissioner of Hedong under the Later Tang, was attacked by his sovereign and sent Zhao Ying to ask aid; Yelü Deguang told his mother that "Li Congke murdered his sovereign and made himself emperor, and gods and men are angry; the punishment of Heaven should be executed", and when Zhao Degou also sent envoys and Sang Weihan came in haste from Hedong, he agreed to send an army. In the eighth month he went in person to relieve Jingtang; in the tenth he enfeoffed him as Prince of Jin and visited his house, where Jingtang and his wife Li led their kin to raise cups to him. He besieged Jinyang, sending picked troops to hold the passes and cut off relief, while Li Congke sent Zhao Yanshou with twenty thousand to Tuansbai valley and Fan Yanguang with twenty thousand to Liaozhou. On the dingyou day of the eleventh month he enfeoffed Jingtang as Great Jin Emperor; from the wuxu to the wushen day his scouts reported an army to the south and then to the west, and before it could form he pressed close, so that Zhang Jingda and Yang Guangyuan were routed, their abandoned arms piled like hills and tens of thousands beheaded. He then marched south, and the last Tang emperor, at his wits' end, summoned Yelü Bei to die with him; Bei refused, and was killed by order, after which the emperor burned himself with all his house, ending the Later Tang. In the first year of Huitong (938), Liu Xu and Lu Zhong offered him the honorific "Emperor of Sage Penetration", an amnesty was proclaimed and the era changed to Huitong; that month the Later Jin sent Zhao Ying to congratulate him and to present the sixteen prefectures of You, Ji, Ying, Mo, Zhuo, Tan, Shun, Gui, Ru, Xin, Wu, Yun, Ying, Shuo, Huan and Wei with their registers and maps. He therefore made the imperial capital the Supreme Capital, its prefecture Linhuang, raised Youzhou to be the Southern Capital and the Southern Capital to be the Eastern, and raised the northern and southern courts and the Yishi commander to princely rank, turning scribes into magistrates and magistrates into prefects and prefects into military commissioners, and setting the two-part administration of Han and Khitan.

The Breach with the Later Jin and Its Destruction

In the sixth month of the fifth year of Huitong (942) Shi Jingtang died and his son Shi Chonggui succeeded, sending envoys to announce the mourning, whereupon he suspended court seven days and sent condolences; in the seventh month Jin sent Liang Yan and Zhu Chongjie to thank him, styling themselves grandson but not vassal. Jing Yanguang answered the Khitan usher Qiao Rong that "the late emperor was set up by your court, but the present ruler was set up by our own state; to be neighbour and grandson is possible, to send a memorial as vassal is not", and Qiao Rong reported it, whereupon he conceived the intent to march south. In the twelfth month he went to the Southern Capital to discuss the campaign, sending Zhao Yanshou, Zhao Yanzhao, Anduan and Jieli by the roads of Cang, Heng, Yi and Ding with the main army behind. In the second month of the seventh year of Huitong he attacked Bozhou, whose prefect Zhou Ru surrendered the city; the Jin commissioner Yang Guangyuan secretly told the Khitan they might cross at Majiakou, and the Jin generals were sent to hold the fords; the Khitan surrounded a Jin detachment at Qicheng, and when the Jin emperor came to the rescue the Khitan withdrew, and at Majiakou the crossing was pressed and the Khitan had the worse of it. In the third month Zhao Yanshou advised that "the Jin armies have built stockades along the river and dare not fight; if the great army goes straight to Chanyuan and seizes its bridge, Jin may be taken", and on that day the Jin army lay at Chanyuan with Gao Xingzhou at Qicheng; he ordered Zhao Yanshou and Zhao Yanzhao with tens of thousands of horse out to Gao's right and led his picked troops to the left, and at dusk threw his strong cavalry against Gao's centre, so that Jin could not fight. When a spy reported the Jin eastern wing weak and its stockades insecure, he attacked it in haste and the enemy broke and fled; afterwards at Baituanwei village the Jin formed a camp of abatis in a high wind, and he had the iron kite troops dismount, tear up the abatis and close with the short weapon, setting fire and raising dust with the wind to help them; Zhang Yanze, Yao Yuanfu and Huangfu Yu fought hard, the wind grew fiercer and the day dark as night, and Fu Yanqing with ten thousand horse struck the Khitan flank, so that they were worsted, and he withdrew more than ten li in his Xi chariot, taking a camel to escape when the pursuit pressed, and on returning to the Southern Capital had hundreds of strokes given to those who had not fought well. In the ninth year of Huitong (946) he used the stratagem of giving what he would take, sending Zhao Yanshou in pretended surrender to draw the Jin out; when the Jin emperor moved to take Ying and Mo and so threaten Youzhou, and in the eleventh month Du Chongwei led three hundred thousand to Yingzhou where the vanguard Liang Hanzhang was killed, the Khitan counter-attacked, Du Chongwei in fear retired to Wuqiang, the Khitan pursued to Hengzhou and held the Zhongdu bridge across the Hutuo, then threw a flying column round to Luancheng to cut the Jin supply line; Du Chongwei, already disloyal and now taken front and rear, brought the generals over, and in the twelfth month he and Li Shouzhen and Zhang Yanze came with two hundred thousand to surrender, which he received sitting his horse on a great mound, making Du Chongwei grand tutor and defender of Yedu, and then with the surrendered general Zhang Yanze as his vanguard drove fast into Daliang, where the last Jin emperor was forced to submit and the Later Jin ended.

Entering Bian, the Three Faults and Death on the Road North

On the first day of the first month of the first year of Datong (947) he entered Bian with the imperial equipage and received the congratulations of the officials in the Chongyuan Hall; mounting the tower, he had the interpreter tell the fleeing people that "I too am a man; you need not fear. I shall let you rest. It was not my wish to come south; it was the Han troops who brought me here." He then had Zhang Yanze executed in the market, reduced Shi Chonggui to the Marquis Who Betrayed Righteousness and sent him to Huanglongfu with his palace women and eunuchs, and called the Jin ministers together, saying that "from now on we shall not repair arms nor buy war-horses; taxes shall be light and labour spared, and the realm will be at peace", changing into Chinese dress, with audiences as of old. Asked how he would choose one man to rule so wide a realm, the ministers answered that there were not two suns in the sky, and twice over; so on the first day of the second month he wore the imperial cap and crimson gauze robe, ascended the throne, set out the instruments of music and the guard, and decreed the tenth year of Huitong of Great Liao with a general amnesty, founding the state as Great Liao and changing the era to Datong, raising Zhenzhou to be the Central Capital and making Zhao Yanshou grand chancellor, privy counsellor and defender of the Central Capital. That month Liu Zhiyuan made himself emperor in Hedong as the Han, and he appointed Geng Chongmei, Gao Tangying and Cui Tingxun to key posts. Yet rebellion spread: Wang Qiong rose at Chanzhou and besieged the Khitan general Yelü Langwu, and rebels in the east took Song, Bo and Mi, so that he was afraid, lamenting that "I did not know the Chinese were so hard to govern", and, pleading that he would visit his mother, left Xiao Han in charge at the eastern capital and departed from Kaifeng on the seventeenth day of the third month with thousands of the Jin artisans, palace women, officers and men. Seeing the villages empty, he had proclamations posted to call back the people, yet did not forbid his cavalry to plunder; and because the defender of Xiangzhou wavered, he stormed the city with Khitan and Chinese troops, killing every male, driving the women north and tossing infants on spears for sport, some hundred thousand dying. Passing Linming and seeing the ruins, he said with a laugh that "it is Lord Yan who is chief in fault for bringing China to this", adding to Zhang Li that he too had a hand in it. Crossing the Liyang ford in the fourth month he told his attendants that "this campaign had three faults: I let the troops plunder the fodder, I exacted the people's private wealth, and I did not promptly send the commissioners back to their commands"; and writing to his brother he said that, thinking night and day, the method of control lay only in "trusting the officials, harmonising the army and soothing the people", adding that seventy-six places had submitted with a million and ninety thousand households, and that but for the heat and unwholesome air of Bianzhou a single year would have brought peace. He fell ill at Gaoyi and died at Luancheng on the dingchou day at forty-six. His people cut open his belly, filled it with several pecks of salt and carried him north, and the Chinese called him "the emperor's dried meat"; he was buried in the ninth month at Fengshan, his tomb called Huailing, with the temple name Taizong, the posthumous name Emperor Xiaowu being given in 998 and that of Emperor Xiaowu Huiwen in 1052.

Major Activities

Political Institutions

Yelü Deguang carried out important political reforms. In 938 he formalized the Northern and Southern Administrations, a dual administrative system. Northern officials governed Khitan populations largely through Khitan institutions, while Southern officials governed Han populations using institutions modeled on Chinese administration. This dual framework became a core feature of Liao governance. He also reformed offices and court ritual and created positions for managing metal and monetary production.

Military Campaigns

Yelü Deguang spent much of his life in war. Before becoming emperor he campaigned with his father in the south around Youzhou, Zhenzhou, and Dingzhou, in the west against Tuyuhun, Uyghur, and other groups, and in the east against Balhae. After accession he intervened in the affairs of the Central Plains, aided Shi Jingtang in destroying Later Tang in 936, and destroyed Later Jin in 946. His campaigns greatly expanded Liao territory and made the dynasty one of the strongest powers in East Asia at the time.

The Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun

The acquisition of the Sixteen Prefectures through Yelü Deguang’s alliance with Shi Jingtang had long-term strategic importance. It gave Liao control over agricultural lands and major fortified points south of the Great Wall and reshaped the balance between northern and Central Plains states. The region remained a central object of conflict for later dynasties.

Adoption of the State Name Great Liao

In the second lunar month of 947, while in Bianjing, Yelü Deguang ordered the state name changed from Great Khitan to Great Liao and adopted Datong as the era name. The Chinese source treats the change as an important turning point that reflected the evolution of the Khitan state toward a polity combining steppe and Chinese administrative institutions.

Relations with Contemporaries

Yelü Deguang established a distinctive ruler-subject relationship with Shi Jingtang. Shi obtained Khitan military support in exchange for submission, territorial concessions, and tribute, and Deguang invested him as emperor of Later Jin. When Shi Chonggui later altered Later Jin’s policy toward Liao, Deguang invaded and destroyed the state. He also employed Han officials such as Han Yanhui, Han Zhigu, Zhao Yanshou, and Zhang Li, who contributed to administrative reforms modeled on Chinese institutions.

The Two Administrations, the Five Capitals and Taxation

His most conspicuous political achievement was bringing in Han methods, reforming the administration and applying "rule according to custom", founding the dual system of the Liao. He carried into Liao the whole body of Chinese official institutions, which with those of Taizu's time gave the Liao their own distinctive ethnic administration in the course of partial sinicisation; he preserved intact the institutions of the You-Yun region, changed a number of Khitan titles into Chinese and added new offices after the Chinese model. The reformed central government had two halves: tribal administration for the Khitan and other northern nomads, and prefectures and counties for the Han and Bohai, under the policy that "the Khitan do not govern the Han nor the Han the Khitan". In the Huitong years he also adopted the government of separate capitals: the Supreme Capital, the Southern Capital at Youzhou and the Eastern Capital were the centres respectively of the pastoral Khitan and of the Han and Bohai farmers, and when Shengzong built the Central Capital and Xingzong raised Yunzhong to be the Western Capital the five capitals were complete, the realm being divided into five circuits with a hundred and fifty-six prefectures, armies and towns, two hundred and nine counties, fifty-two tribes and sixty dependent states. For taxation, provision for state expenditure began under Taizu with Han Yanhui, and Taizong had the households and able-bodied men of the five capitals registered to fix the taxes, the figures being now lost. These institutions were inherited and developed by the Jin. In the economy he valued herding, reviewing the state herds on the outskirts at once on taking the throne and creating the livestock commissions; he valued salt and iron, setting up a salt office at Xianghe after gaining the sixteen prefectures and appointing a grand master of the five foundries; in agriculture, the conquest of Bohai and the moving of its people to Dongping extended the farming lands, and the sixteen prefectures became Liao's greatest granary, while new cities such as Haozhou, Yuanzhou, Fuzhou, Guidezhou, Suizhou, Shuangzhou and Yuzhou added new centres of cultivation. He ruled that a Khitan given a Chinese post should follow Chinese custom, and allowed Khitan and Han to intermarry; he also punished a prince for unequal levies and abolished irregular exactions.

Han Officials, the Examinations and the Law

He employed many Han officials and first opened the examinations. Early in Huitong he made Zhao Yanshou privy counsellor and chancellor, and Zhao, grateful, worked hard to govern the You-Yun region, leading the van against Jin in 943 and, promised the throne of China, "always putting himself first in breaking the enemy". It is recorded that in 941 Wang Qi passed the examination and became reader to the Prince of Shou'an, which shows that examinations were already held in the Huitong years in the You-Yun region, though the system was incomplete; from 976 the board of rites at the Southern Capital was restored and, after the Tang model, examinations were held throughout the realm. Khitan were long forbidden to sit, and in the Chongxi years when Pu Lu, learned in the classics, passed, the examiner reported that "by the state's rules there is no provision for Khitan to sit the examination", and his father was given two hundred strokes for letting him do so. In law, with the mass of Han people in the sixteen prefectures the legal status of the Han was for the first time confirmed: under the two administrations Chinese law was applied to Han and Bohai rather than Khitan custom, but "when a Khitan and a Han struck one another to death the penalties were unequal", Khitan being judged by steppe custom.

Buddhism, the Calendar and Chinese Antiquities

He honoured Buddhism and built the Anguo Temple at the Supreme Capital. Liao's first calendar was the Yiwei Yuanli which he brought from the Later Jin, used until 994. He had his first sight of Chinese imperial dress and escort, and from then on "the Son of Heaven's robes and carriages first appeared in Liao"; on the first month of 947 he received the congratulations of the officials in the Chinese manner in the Chongyuan Hall, exclaiming that "so splendid are the Han ceremonial objects; that I should sit in this hall, is it not to be a true Son of Heaven?" The "seal of the transmission of the realm", bearing the eight characters "mandated by Heaven, long life and prosperity", was held by rulers since the Han to prove legitimacy, and possessing it he took himself for a true Son of Heaven. Driven out by resistance in the fourth month of 947, he took care before leaving to gather Chinese arts and books: craftsmen, artisans, maps, calendars, stone classics, bronze figures, clepsydras, court music scores, bells, ceremonial and armour were all sent to the Supreme Capital, so that afterwards "the antiquities of Tang and Jin were used by Liao".

Korea, the Xi and the Neighbours

After the fall of Bohai, Korea reversed its earlier support of the Liao campaigns and took up the cause of the Bohai remnant; aware of this but with no open breach, he feigned ignorance and sent envoys as before, and in 939 sent word of his Jin investiture to the Southern Tang and Korea. In 942, to smooth the attack on Jin, he sent envoys to Korea to sound and soothe them, with fifty camels as gifts; Korea's reaction was unexpectedly fierce, starving the camels and exiling the envoys, and diplomatic relations ended. Scholars note that the three embassies of his reign were none of them ordinary exchanges, each having a particular purpose. Toward the Xi he established the Duogui tribe and set a supervising commandant over the Xi princely house, a Khitan officer to direct their military affairs.

The Sources on His Death, and Legends

On his death the sources may be set side by side. The Comprehensive Mirror records that he fell ill at Lincheng, grew worse at Luancheng, "suffered from heat, heaped ice on breast, belly, hands and feet, and even ate it", and died at Shahulin on the bingzi day; the Old History of the Five Dynasties records that "Deguang had had a cold-and-fever illness for several days and had ordered men to bring wine and dried meat and pray at the place where he fell ill"; and the Abridged Taiping Guangji preserved in Korea contains a chapter "The Hu King" from Wang Renyu's Yutang Xianhua, absent from the present text, saying that he went north from Bian, fell ill passing through Xingzhou in the fourth month, grew worse at Luancheng on the sixteenth and died on the twenty-first, and that on going south he had "ordered several prefectures between Chen and Zheng to store ice", so that when the fever came he had ice brought from the nearby prefectures and "heaped it on hands, feet, heart and armpits until he died". The three agree that the illness was brief and marked by high fever, which medical historians liken to a warm-disease epidemic. The geographical treatise of the History of Liao gives a legend: after his death and burial at Huailing, some ten riders hunting fifty li west of Zuzhou saw Taizong on a white horse chase a white fox alone and kill it with one arrow, and then vanish, leaving only the fox and the arrow; that was the day he died at Luancheng, and later a temple was built there and a painting made at the Phoenix Gate of the prefecture showing him galloping and piercing the fox. Such tales are later embroidery and must be distinguished from the official records.

The Huailing Tomb and the Afterlife

Huailing lies three kilometres from the old city of Huaizhou and holds the two emperors Taizong and Muzong, cut into the mountain, and is a nationally protected site. The cemetery is five kilometres east to west and two and a half north to south, walled by mountains on three sides with stone walls blocking the gaps; the great gate at the valley mouth is ruined, only two large mounds remaining; a stone wall divides the outer from the inner park, the outer holding the remains of two great halls; six stone walls run from the mouth to the graves, the tombs and offering halls standing in the inner park. Both tombs were robbed long ago, their vaults badly collapsed, the halls surviving only as platforms, with quantities of finely made Liao building members scattered on the ground. He died in the fourth month of the first year of Datong, was buried in the ninth month at Fengshan in the tomb called Huailing with the temple name Taizong, was given the posthumous name Xiaowu in 998 and the fuller name Xiaowu Huiwen in 1052.

The Scholarly Debate on the Succession

Chinese and Liao sources differ on his accession. The Comprehensive Mirror relates that in the ninth month of the first year of Tianxian the tribal chiefs, at the empress's wish, "elected" Deguang king, and that the defeated Yelü Bei took the extreme step of fleeing to the Later Tang; the History of Liao relates instead that in the eleventh month of the second year Yelü Bei "yielded the throne" to Deguang in perfect harmony. Scholars divide: some hold the History of Liao to be glossing over, as Yao Congwu, who judged that "the yielding of the throne does not accord with Liao custom, and what is said here seems a decorative phrase or a misunderstanding born of Han custom in the recorder", with Chen Shu and Li Guizhi also finding the account tendentious and arguing on Chinese sources that his accession was the result of election; others, such as Cai Meibiao, hold the Liao record more reliable and, on that basis, propound the theory of succession as grand marshal. The two views, though opposed, agree that there was but one accession. Other research notes that while Chinese sources attribute it to the empress's partiality, the evidence shows Deguang and Shulü Ping were not on good terms, that his confidants suffered at her hands and that men at odds with her were promoted after his accession; the eldest son Yelü Bei, deeply sinicised, was hard to control, whereas Deguang held the army and was favoured by the tribes, so that the empress chose to raise him in order to enjoy the fruit later.

Personal Relations

• Father: Emperor Taizu of Liao, Yelü Abaoji
• Mother: Empress Chunqin Shulü Ping
• Elder brother: Yelü Bei, Prince of Dongdan
• Younger brothers: Yelü Lihu and Yelü Yaliguo
• Sister: Yelü Zhigu
• Empress: Xiao Wen
• Sons: Emperor Muzong Yelü Jing, Yelü Yansage, Yelü Tiande, Yelü Dili, Yelü Bishe
• Daughter: Yelü Lübugu, whose daughter Xiao Chuo later became empress of Emperor Jingzong and Empress Dowager Chengtian
• Shi Jingtang: founder of Later Jin, invested by Yelü Deguang and acknowledged subordinate status
• Shi Chonggui: Later Jin emperor who changed the relationship with Liao and was defeated and captured
• Zhao Yanshou: former Later Tang general who later held senior Liao offices
• Han Yanhui: Han official and important early Liao adviser
• Han Zhigu: Han official who held senior secretariat offices
• Zhang Li: Han official who served in high central government posts
• Yelü Bei: elder brother with whom succession rivalry developed; later defected to Later Tang
• Li Congke: last emperor of Later Tang, defeated by the coalition of Shi Jingtang and Khitan forces

Historical Assessment

Liao / Contemporary

Liao historical tradition described Yelü Deguang as dignified in appearance, broadly lenient in temperament, and capable of making major military and political decisions. Empress Shulü considered his reputation and merit sufficient to justify his accession over his elder brother. Later Jin’s eventual submission to him also reflected the military power he commanded.

Song and Yuan Periods

Sima Guang’s Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government recorded the plunder and unrest that followed Yelü Deguang’s entry into Bianjing and criticized the violence of Liao occupation in the Central Plains. Ye Longli’s History of the Khitan State treated Shi Jingtang’s cession of the Sixteen Prefectures as a profound strategic disaster for the Central Plains. By contrast, the Yuan-commissioned History of Liao praised Taizong for consolidating the state, establishing a dynastic title and institutions, defeating Later Jin, and showing an ability to recognize his own mistakes after entering Bianjing.

Ming and Qing Periods

Ming thinker Wang Fuzhi criticized the consequences of Yelü Deguang’s alliance with Shi Jingtang and the cession of the Sixteen Prefectures, arguing that the episode greatly strengthened Khitan power and deepened the problems of the Central Plains. Qing historian Zhao Yi, however, emphasized the institutional importance of the Northern and Southern Administrations, under which Khitan and Han populations were governed through different administrative traditions. Qing scholars such as Li E also examined the change of state name and the formation of Liao institutions in detail.

Modern and Contemporary

Chen Shu regarded Yelü Deguang as a pivotal figure linking the founding generation with the mature Liao state and considered the Northern and Southern Administrations crucial to long-term stability. Cai Meibiao’s General History of China likewise emphasized his role in territorial expansion and institutional development while noting the failure to adapt effectively to governing the Central Plains after the conquest of Later Jin. Li Xihou argued that the acquisition of the Sixteen Prefectures was a key stage in the transformation of the Khitan state but also drew the Liao into prolonged conflict with Central Plains regimes.