Li Yuanhao

Biography

Family Background and Early Life

Li Yuanhao was born on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month in the sixth year of Xianping (June 7, 1003) in Lingzhou, in a Tangut aristocratic family. The following year his grandfather Li Jiqian was struck by an arrow and fatally wounded in fighting against Pan Luozhi, leader of the Tibetan Liugu tribes. Li Yuanhao's father Li Deming then succeeded as military commissioner-in-waiting of the Dingnan command based at Xiazhou, in present-day Jingbian County, Shaanxi. Li Deming subsequently pursued a policy of alliance with Liao and peaceful relations with Song, allowing the Tangut regime of the Xiazhou Li house to expand rapidly in a relatively peaceful environment.

Even as a child, Li Yuanhao did not fully understand or accept his father's conciliatory policy toward Song, particularly its emphasis on economic exchange. On one occasion Li Deming sent an envoy to Song to exchange horses for goods. Dissatisfied with what the envoy brought back, he angrily had the man executed. Li Yuanhao objected, arguing that a military people depended on horses and that exchanging them for unnecessary goods was already unwise; if envoys were then killed for carrying out the mission, no one would be willing to serve. Li Deming was impressed that his only son, still barely in his teens, could reason in this way and valued him highly.

The Chinese source describes the young Li Yuanhao as round-faced, sharp-eyed, and hook-nosed, of middling height but powerfully built. He favored red long-sleeved clothing, a black cap, and bow and arrows. He often traveled with more than one hundred cavalrymen, two standard bearers in front, and guards carrying a blue parasol behind. He read military texts from an early age, including works titled Song of Field Warfare and Taiyi Jinjian Jue, and was said to be proficient in Chinese and Tibetan writing, familiar with Buddhism, and especially interested in legal works concerning statecraft. These interests were later presented as foundations of his civil and military ability.

Song frontier officers also circulated stories about his appearance and bearing. The frontier commander Cao Wei, stationed in Shaanxi, wished to see him and repeatedly sent men to learn his movements. Hearing that Li Yuanhao often visited border markets, Cao Wei waited several times but failed to meet him. He eventually had someone secretly sketch Li Yuanhao. On seeing the portrait, Cao Wei reportedly exclaimed that he was “a true hero” and predicted that he would one day become a major threat on the Song frontier.

Conquest of Hexi and Succession

In the fifth lunar month of 1028, the sixth year of Tiansheng under Emperor Renzong of Song, Li Deming sent Li Yuanhao to attack Ganzhou, present-day Zhangye in Gansu. The Ganzhou Uyghur khan Yeluohe fled. After taking Ganzhou, Li Yuanhao used diversionary tactics and a surprise force to strike Xiliang, present-day Wuwei. Cao Xianshun, ruler of Guazhou and head of a Shazhou Uyghur branch subordinate to Ganzhou, submitted to Li Deming and returned to Guazhou, in present-day Anxi, Gansu. At this time Li Yuanhao was established as heir, and his mother Lady Weimu was elevated as consort.

In 1029 Li Deming sought a marriage for Yuanhao from the Liao court. Emperor Xingzong of Liao gave a woman of the imperial clan the title Princess Xingping and married her to him.

In 1032, the first year of Mingdao under Emperor Renzong of Song, Li Deming died and Yuanhao succeeded. He actively prepared for independent imperial rule. To secure his rear and punish Gusiluo's Tibetan regime for its alignment with Song, he attacked the He-Huang Tibetan regions in the seventh lunar month and captured Maoniu City, in present-day Datong County, Qinghai.

Institutional Reform and Founding of the State

After Li Deming's death, Emperor Xingzong of Liao, Yelü Zongzhen, invoked the marital alliance and sent Xiao Congshun, Director of the Southern Court of Palace Communications and military governor of Shuofang, together with Zheng Wenyu, surveillance commissioner of Panzhou, to Xingzhou to invest Li Yuanhao as King of Western Xia. The Song court sent Yang Gao, a director in the Ministry of Works, and Zhu Yunzhong, deputy commissioner for ceremonial reception, to confer on him a long series of Song titles including military commissioner of Dingnan and Prince of Xiping. Li Yuanhao showed little interest in either court's investiture. When receiving Song envoys he refused to perform full vassal ritual. He remained standing at a distance rather than kneeling for Emperor Renzong's edict and, after reluctantly accepting it, reportedly complained to his ministers that his predecessors had made a great mistake by possessing such a state yet still bowing as subjects to another ruler. At a banquet for the Song envoys he arranged for the sound of weapons being forged and sharpened to ring out behind the hall, creating deliberate psychological pressure, and also complicated ceremonial arrangements in ways intended to provoke the Song court.

Before formally claiming the imperial title, Li Yuanhao introduced a series of cultural measures. He first abandoned the Li and Zhao surnames that Tang and Song courts had historically bestowed on the Tangut ruling Tuoba clan and adopted the surname Weiming, changing his own name to Weiming Nangxiao and using the title wuzu. In 1032 he adopted the Xiandao era name, avoiding the character in his father's personal name; in the following year he proclaimed Kaiyun and then Guangyun.

In the third lunar month of 1032 he issued a hairstyle order to Tangut groups under his rule. He shaved the top of his own head, pierced his ears, and wore heavy earrings, and ordered his subjects to follow within three days on pain of death. The Chinese source states that Tangut subjects quickly adopted the hairstyle. Clothing was also regulated: Li Yuanhao wore a narrow white robe and felt cap lined in red with a red knotted ribbon hanging from the back, while officials' dress varied by rank and commoners were limited to blue-green clothing, visually distinguishing status.

Soon after succeeding, he also began promoting a writing system for the Tangut language—the Tangut script. He personally planned and supervised the project amid ongoing military activity and ordered the official Yeli Renrong and others to systematize it into a twelve-volume body of models. Some sources called it the “Fan script.” Li Yuanhao ordered it promulgated as the state script, used it for official records, and created an academy for instruction and dissemination. Diplomatic documents sent to Liao and Song were written in two scripts.

Li Yuanhao likewise rejected what he regarded as excessive Tang and Song influence on Tangut ritual and music. He told ministers that rulers created rites and music for the convenience of the people; Tangut custom, in his formulation, valued loyalty and practical preparation for war, whereas he had no use for the elaborate rites and complex music of Tang and Song. He therefore simplified ceremonial practice, reducing nine bows to three and five musical tones to one for occasions such as ceremonies of good and ill fortune, reception of guests, ancestral sacrifice, and banquets. The Chinese source states that he ordered compliance on pain of death.

Political and military institutions were also developed before the imperial proclamation. The governmental structure largely imitated Central Plains models. In the fifth lunar month of 1033 Xingzhou was elevated to Xingqing Prefecture and fixed as the capital. Li Yuanhao established central and local offices broadly comparable to those of Song, including the Secretariat, Bureau of Military Affairs, fiscal commissions, Censorate, Kaifeng-style metropolitan administration, palace-guard offices, accounting and revenue offices, agricultural offices, herds administration, imperial stables, personnel-review offices, and institutions responsible for court manufactures.

He placed equally great emphasis on the army. After securing the Hexi Corridor, he reorganized military forces on the basis of existing tribal structures, regulating military age, forms of levy, the duties of regular soldiers and support personnel, weapons and equipment, and different branches centered on infantry and cavalry with additional artillery, captive-taking troops, and imperial guards. Regional military commands known in the Chinese source as jianjun si combined command functions with territorial defense. Drawing on Song military organization, he divided the realm into left and right wings and established twelve regional commands, each with a named force, fixed station, and officers such as chief commander, deputy commander, and military supervisor. Troops were distributed throughout the state, with particular emphasis on defending Xingqing and the frontiers with Song and Liao. In Tibetan and Uyghur regions of Suzhou and Ganzhou, prefectural administration was strengthened and heavy forces deployed. Within six years of Li Yuanhao's succession, the Chinese source portrays a Tangut state extending from the Yellow River in the east to Yumen in the west, from Xiaoguan in the south to the northern desert.

On the eleventh day of the tenth lunar month in the first year of Tianshoulifayanzuo, corresponding to 1038, Li Yuanhao, supported by close officials such as Yeli Renrong and Yang Shousu, erected an altar south of Xingqing Prefecture and formally proclaimed himself emperor. He named the state Great Xia, later called Western Xia, and proclaimed the Tianshoulifayanzuo era. He granted titles to officials, posthumously honored his grandfather and parents, made Empress Xiancheng of the Yeli clan his empress, and established his son Ningming as crown prince. He also went to Xiliang Prefecture to sacrifice to the gods.

Western Xia–Song War

In the first lunar month of the following year, Li Yuanhao sent an envoy and memorial to Emperor Renzong of Song in the formal capacity of a subject. The memorial recounted his ancestors' relationship with Central Plains dynasties, praised their service, defended the legitimacy of his state and imperial proclamation, and requested formal Song recognition of his imperial title. Song refused, issued an order stripping the surnames and titles previously granted to the Tangut rulers, and suspended border trade. Notices on the Song-Xia frontier offered high office and major rewards for Li Yuanhao's capture or head.

After learning Song's position, Li Yuanhao repeatedly sent scouts to the frontier, gathered military intelligence, and tried to induce Tangut and Han communities inside Song territory to defect. He openly suspended diplomatic exchanges with Song and sent insulting letters accusing Song of bad faith and mocking the corruption and weakness of its armies. He also invoked Liao power as a threat while still suggesting that Xia remained willing to restore peaceful relations. The Chinese source interprets these letters as an attempt to provoke Song and shift responsibility for the coming war onto the Song court.

From 1040, the third year of Tianshoulifayanzuo, through 1042, Li Yuanhao launched three large campaigns against Song.

Battle of Sanchuankou: In 1040 Yuanhao attacked the Fuyan circuit and ambushed the forces of Liu Ping and Shi Yuansun at Sanchuankou, capturing both Song generals. Western Xia troops then pressed toward Yanzhou but failed to take the city because of its defenses and weather conditions. The defeat prompted Song to reorganize defenses in Shaanxi, employ Han Qi and Fan Zhongyan in strengthening fortified settlements and militia training, and seek greater coordination among regional commands.

Battle of Haoshuichuan: In 1041 Yuanhao campaigned toward Weizhou. By means of feigned surrender and inducement, he drew Ren Fu's force into Haoshuichuan. Song troops were surrounded in confined terrain; Ren Fu and several other generals were killed. The Song court then debated aggressive versus defensive strategies and ultimately emphasized fortified positions and restrictions on Xia supply and trade.

Battle of Dingchuanzhai: In 1042 Yuanhao attacked the Jingyuan circuit. The Song general Ge Huaimin failed to join allied forces according to plan, was surrounded near Dingchuanzhai, and suffered a major defeat in which he was killed. Western Xia troops advanced toward Weizhou but again did not capture the prefectural city.

The three victories established Yuanhao's military reputation but also exposed Western Xia's inability to sustain occupation of Song territory in Guanzhong because of limited manpower and supplies. Long warfare burdened both sides' finances and frontier populations. Song restricted Xia access to tea, silk, and other goods through border markets, affecting prices and supplies within Western Xia, while repeated Xia raids drove up Song military expenditure in Shaanxi. Yuanhao therefore began seeking peace through diplomatic envoys.

Qingli Peace Accord and War with Liao

The Qingli Peace Accord of 1044 provided that Yuanhao would use vassal language in documents to Song, while Song would invest him as “Ruler of the Xia State” and provide annual payments of fifty thousand taels of silver, 130,000 bolts of silk, and twenty thousand jin of tea, in addition to festival gifts. Border-market trade resumed, while Western Xia retained its internal imperial title and era names.

Before the founding of Western Xia, the Tangut regime had already formed investiture and marriage ties with Liao. In 1031, the Liao court married Princess Xingping to Yuanhao. After he became emperor, he continued trying to maneuver between Song and Liao, but relations with Liao deteriorated as Tangut groups under Liao authority clashed with Western Xia and Xia accepted some people fleeing Liao territory.

In 1044 Emperor Xingzong of Liao personally led an army into Western Xia. Yuanhao retreated as the Liao force advanced deeply into his territory, burned grazing land along the route, avoided a decisive confrontation, and simultaneously sent envoys to seek peace. When the Liao army continued to advance, the two sides fought in the Helan Mountains. Changes in wind, supply conditions, and battle formation turned the situation against Liao and Western Xia won. Yuanhao did not use the victory to expand the conflict. Instead he released captives and restored nominal tributary relations with Liao. The Liao-Xia war and the Song-Xia peace agreement of the same year together encouraged him to stop fighting two major powers simultaneously.

Later Years and Assassination

During the founding of the state and the wars that followed, Yuanhao used harsh methods to control imperial relatives, empress clans, and generals. Members of his mother's Lady Weimu were purged early; brothers of the Yeli clan who had participated in the founding and in the war against Song were later killed amid suspicion. These measures weakened older aristocratic forces that might have balanced imperial authority, while allowing empress clans and officials controlling palace and military positions to intervene more frequently in succession arrangements.

Among Yuanhao's sons, Ningming died young and Ninglingge was later made crown prince. Yuanhao originally intended Ninglingge to marry Lady Moyi, but after seeing her beauty he took her for himself, deposed Empress Xiancheng of the Yeli clan, and made Lady Moyi the new empress. Ninglingge resented his father both because his maternal relatives had been destroyed and because his intended bride had been taken. In the first lunar month of the eleventh year of Tianshoulifayanzuo, Ninglingge attacked Yuanhao after the emperor had been drinking. Yuanhao avoided the blow but suffered a severe wound to the nose and died from the injury on the second day of the first lunar month (January 19, 1048).

The powerful Mozang Epang immediately executed Ninglingge for patricide and supported the infant Li Liangzuo, son of his sister Lady Mozang, as emperor. Yuanhao's efforts to centralize monarchical power therefore did not prevent an empress clan from assuming the regency. Because the adult heir and major aristocratic figures had successively been eliminated, the Mozang clan was able to dominate the new court.

Founding the Empire, the Memorial to Song, and the Insolent Letter

After six years of preparation following his accession, on the eleventh day of the tenth month of 1038 Li Yuanhao took the imperial throne, set up by Yeli Renrong, Yang Shousu and others, with the dynastic name Daxia and the era name Tianshou Lifa Yanzuo; he at once enfeoffed his ministers widely, gave his grandfather Li Jiqian and his parents posthumous names, temple names and tomb names, made the Lady Yeli empress Xiancheng and set up his son Ningling Ming as heir apparent. He then memorialized the Song court, recounting and extolling his ancestors' relations with the Chinese dynasties and their services, to show the legitimacy of his founding an empire and to demand that Song formally recognize his imperial title. The response may be imagined: Song would not recognize him, issued an edict "stripping him of the surname and offices granted him," halted the border markets and posted notices along the frontier offering heavy rewards in money and high office to anyone who seized Li Yuanhao or brought in his head. Having sounded out the Song attitude, Li Yuanhao sent agents in numbers to the frontier to spy out military affairs and to stir up the Tanguts and Chinese within Song to attach themselves to Xia; he openly broke off the exchange of envoys with Song, and sent Song an "insolent letter" in which he accused Song of bad faith, mocked the corruption and incompetence of its armies, threatened it with the power of Liao and yet added that Xia still wished for friendship. The letter was meant to provoke Song into war and to lay the blame for it on Song; and war between Xia and Song became unavoidable.

The "Stern Slaughter," the Poison of Slander, and the Failings of His Last Years

Li Yuanhao was by nature violent, suspicious and fond of killing, and this temper did his cause much needless harm. After his accession, to clear away rivals and prevent the maternal kin from usurping power he carried out a policy of "stern slaughter," paving the way for founding the empire and taking the throne. In the tenth month of 1034 the chief of his mother's clan, Weimu Shanxi, plotted to kill him; the plot was discovered and the whole clan was drowned in the river, and Li Yuanhao had his mother the empress dowager Weimu poisoned with drugged wine and put the entire Weimu clan to death. Suspicious in nature, he used feints well in war but was himself easy prey to the slander of his enemies: his trusted ministers the brothers Yeli Wangrong and Yeli Yuqi, elder brothers of the empress Yeli, commanded respectively the Mingtang left wing and the Tiandu right wing of Xia, Yeli Wangrong being called prince Yeli and Yeli Yuqi prince Tiandu; both were good commanders of resource, and the "mountain frontier" troops they led were famed for hard fighting, so that much of the planning in the victories over the Song generals at Sanchuankou and Haoshuichuan was theirs. The Song frontier commanders hated them and wished them destroyed, and the Song general Chong Shiheng by a clever stratagem of slander made Yuanhao put the two to death with little trouble. In 1047, when Emperor Renzong of Song again granted him the surname Zhao, he, not being a Zhao, changed back to Li; and in his last years he gave himself up to wine and women, building palaces at Tiandu mountain for a newly taken consort, which roused the resentment of the Yeli family, after which he put Yeli Yuqi and two other families to death.

Li Yuanhao was lustful and kept many wives and concubines, being especially fond of seizing other men's wives; by one account he married seven times and by another five, while in fact there were as many as eight. After he killed the Yeli brothers their clan was deprived of office and resentful; and when Ningling Ge lost his wife and the empress Yeli was deposed, mother and son feared for their lives day and night. The powerful minister Mozang Epang, understanding their minds, secretly urged Ningling Ge to rebel, and Ningling Ge believed him; with the Yeli clansman Lang Lie and others, on the night of the full moon, he entered the palace while Yuanhao lay drunk and stabbed him, not fatally; the rescuers came, Lang Lie and the others were killed fighting, and Ningling Ge, having cut off Yuanhao's nose, got out, and with the pursuers close behind he escaped. The next day Yuanhao died at the age of forty-six, having usurped the title for seventeen years and changed his era name five times, and was given the posthumous name emperor Wulie, the temple name Jingzong and the tomb name Tailing. The Song History records that he reigned seventeen years, changing the era to Kaiyun for one year, Guangyun for two, Daqing for two and Tianshou Lifa Yanzuo for eleven. His era names began in 1032, when on the pretext of avoiding his father's name he changed the Song era Mingdao to Xiandao for a second year; the next year he changed it to Kaiyun, and when it was pointed out that "Kaiyun" had been the name of the fallen Later Jin, he changed it to Guangyun, and from then on he abandoned Song's era names for those of his own Xia. A later writer observed that "since Deming made submission at the frontier the western border had rested; Yuanhao was violent and fierce and plotted to usurp the title, and with the strength of the empire against one small region he was never once checked — yet he was undone by a woman's beauty and disaster came from his own son: he could rebel against his lord, and his son could kill his father; such is the way of heaven."

Major Activities

Promotion of the Tangut Script

After succeeding his father, Li Yuanhao promoted the creation of a writing system for the Tangut language. Even amid constant military affairs he personally planned and supervised the project, ordering Yeli Renrong and others to organize it into twelve volumes. Some historical sources called it the “Fan script.” Yuanhao ordered the script promulgated as the state script, used for official records, and created an academy to teach and spread it. Documents exchanged with Liao and Song were written bilingually. The script used dense strokes and predominantly square character structures but possessed its own principles of character formation and grammar. After promulgation it was used to translate texts, prepare official documents, and carve inscriptions, and Tangut schools were established. Its use made Tangut a language of state administration, religion, and law and became one of the longest-lasting measures associated with Yuanhao's state-building.

Government and Military Institutions

Li Yuanhao established a central and local administrative system broadly modeled on Song institutions, including civil and military offices such as the Secretariat, military administration, financial offices, the Censorate, metropolitan government, palace guards, accounting, revenue collection, agriculture, herds, imperial stables, personnel review, and court manufactures.

Militarily, he built a more regular system on top of existing tribal organization, specifying military age, levy organization, duties of regular and support soldiers, equipment and facilities, and multiple service branches centered on infantry and cavalry with additional specialist units. Regional military commands combined field command with territorial defense. Following Song-inspired divisional concepts, the realm was divided into left and right wings and twelve commands, each with its own force name, station, and senior commanders.

Hairstyle Order and Clothing Reform

In the third lunar month of 1032, Li Yuanhao issued an order requiring Tangut subjects to adopt a distinctive hairstyle. He shaved the top of his own head, pierced his ears, and wore heavy earrings, and required compliance within three days on pain of death. Clothing was likewise regulated by status: Li Yuanhao wore a narrow white robe and felt cap with red lining and a red knotted ribbon, officials wore rank-specific dress, and commoners were restricted to blue-green garments. The Chinese source interprets these measures as strengthening Tangut identity, distinguishing rank, and reshaping the political community.

Three Major Victories over Song

Between 1040 and 1042 Li Yuanhao launched three major campaigns against Song. At the Battle of Sanchuankou in 1040 he defeated a Song army and captured Liu Ping and Shi Yuansun; at the Battle of Haoshuichuan in 1041 the Song commander Ren Fu was killed; and at the Battle of Dingchuanzhai in 1042 Ge Huaimin was killed. The victories established Yuanhao's military prestige but also showed the limits of Western Xia manpower and supply for sustained occupation of Song territory.

Defeat of Emperor Xingzong's Liao Expedition

In 1044 Emperor Xingzong of Liao personally led an army into Western Xia. Yuanhao withdrew ahead of it, burned grazing land, avoided an early decisive battle, and sent envoys requesting peace. When the Liao army pressed forward, fighting in the Helan Mountains turned against it because of wind, supply problems, and changes in formation. Western Xia won. Yuanhao then released captives and restored nominal tributary relations rather than expanding the war.

Qingli Peace Accord

Under the Qingli Peace Accord of 1044, Yuanhao used the language of a Song vassal in formal correspondence, while Song invested him as ruler of Xia and provided annual payments of silver, silk, and tea, together with festival gifts. Border trade resumed, and Western Xia retained its internal imperial title and era names. The agreement contributed to a tripartite political balance among Song, Liao, and Western Xia.

The Two Bureaucracies, Court Dress and Court Ceremonial

Even before founding the empire Li Yuanhao began building up political institutions on the Chinese model. In the fifth month of 1033 he raised Xingzhou to be the prefecture of Xingqing and fixed his capital there, "enlarged the palace city and built halls, all the names being imitated from what was handed down in China," and raised the garrison towns of Hong, Ding, Wei, Long and Huai to prefectures. The old Tangut custom was that the head of the greatest tent clan was the chief, with no more than the offices of frontier commissioner, defense commissioner, capital adjutant and commandant; now for the first time he established civil and military ranks, their system mostly the same as Song's. He set up two bureaucracies, Tangut and Chinese: the Chinese included the Secretariat, the Bureau of Military Affairs, the Three Treasuries, the Censorate, the Kaifeng prefecture, the guards office, the office of official assessment, the office of receipts, the bureau of agriculture, the bureau of herds, the flying dragon park, the bureau of audit and the bureau of culture, and "from the secretariat and the chancellorship, the bureau of military affairs, the grand masters, the attendants and the grand commandants down, office was divided between Tanguts and Chinese"; later he changed Song's twenty-four bureaus into sixteen, handling the six branches of business, and set up a president of the Secretariat on the Song model to oversee them. The offices reserved for Tanguts included the ningling, moningling, dinglu, dingnu, sugui, zuru, lüze and shuming, all bearing Tangut names. He also fixed court dress for the officials to mark their ranks: civil officers wore the soft cap, boots and tablet, in purple or crimson robes, much as in Song; military officers of the several ranks wore caps of chased gold, chased silver or black lacquer, purple robes and gilt silver belts, with hanging straps and boots, all with shaven heads, in purple spiral-cut robes with belts below, carrying the knot-cutting awl and short sword and bow and arrows, mounted on saddles of salamander skin with red tassels; everyday dress was purple or black ground with embroidered ball flowers in spiral-cut robes with a belt; and commoners were allowed only blue-green clothes, to mark high from low. Court ceremonial he likewise took from Song: officials to attend ordinarily every six days and at the imperial rising every nine, with the Tangut chancellor leading the ranks, the officials coming forward in order to salute and dance and perform three bows, and any who held the tablet askew, stood or walked out of line, or bungled their genuflexions to be punished.

A People-in-Arms Military System and the Twelve Military Commands

A Tangut clan was reckoned one tent, small clans having a few hundred tents and great ones more than a thousand, and the military organization in which soldier and civilian were one was the chief social body. Li Yuanhao fixed the age of service at fifteen to sixty, when men came out to support the army and in peace worked the land, bringing their own weapons and food and mustering when called; his rule was that "of every two men one is taken as a regular soldier and each one carrying the burden makes one squad," the burden-bearers being the camp labourers, four men making two squads and the rest being reckoned empty men. The strong were enrolled as regulars and the weak as auxiliaries, some five hundred thousand tribal soldiers in all; he also formed a "captive-taking army" of a hundred thousand for seizing population, thirty thousand of them picked and seventy thousand auxiliaries; and he chose five thousand sons of great clans skilled with bow and horse for rotating duty, called the six squads of the inner park, to guard the royal house in three shifts with two piculs of rice a month, a body that was also a hostage corps by which the clan chiefs and nobles could be held. Troops were called up by a silver tablet summoning the clan chiefs to receive their orders in person, and a chief leading his own clansmen was called a "liu." According to the regions where the clans' men were settled he set up twelve military commands — the Shenyong of the left wing, Xiangyou of Shizhou, Jianing of Youzhou, Jingsai of Weizhou, Baotai of Xishou, Henan of Zhuoluo, the Chaosun of the right wing, Gansu of Ganzhou, Xiping of Guazhou, Zhenyan of Heishui, Qiangzhen of Baima and Weifu of Heishan — each with a commander, a deputy and a supervising commissioner, held by nobles and great clans, with some dozens of commandants, drill officers and guards of the left and right, Tangut and Chinese alike. In disposition, seventy thousand were kept from the north of the river to the Wula mountains against the Khitan; fifty thousand at Hongzhou, Baibao, Anyanzhou, Luoluo, Tiandu and Weijing mountain against Huan, Qing, Zhenrong and Yuanzhou; fifty thousand on the Youzhou road of the left wing against Fu, Yan, Lin and Fu; thirty thousand on the Ganzhou road of the right wing against the Western Barbarians and the Uyghurs; with fifty thousand at Helan, fifty thousand at Lingzhou and seventy thousand at Xingzhou and the prefecture of Xingqing as the central garrison, more than five hundred thousand in all; besides three thousand iron cavalry in ten divisions, hard fighting being entrusted to the Shange, that is the Hengshan Qiang, whom the Pingxia troops could not match.

Water Conservancy, Herding and Iron

The economy of Xia developed comparatively fast in Li Yuanhao's time, which cannot be separated from his efforts to strengthen economic ties with the central plain, to take over its economic institutions and to change the old structure of Xia's economy. The heartland of Xia lay on the rich plains on both banks of the upper Yellow river, of which the saying "the Yellow river enriches Ningxia" has been the historic praise; after founding the empire Yuanhao, besides clearing the old canals, built a waterworks more than two hundred li long from the Bronze Gorge to what is now Pingluo county, which later ages called the "August Emperor's canal" or "Li's canal," whose traces remain to this day, making the country around the capital of Xingqing one of the chief grain-producing bases of Xia, and he set up a bureau of agriculture in the state machinery to oversee farming. The Tanguts had always based their economy on herding, and after taking the Gansu and Liang regions of the Hexi corridor, famed since antiquity as the first in the world for stock, the base of the pastoral economy grew stronger still; the famous "Tangut horses" and other beasts and animal products were the chief goods of exchange with the Chinese districts, and after founding the empire he set up a bureau of herds to manage all the herding of the realm. At Xiazhou he also established an iron works to develop smelting and forging, so that the armour then made in the realm was cold-forged, hard and shining, "which no strong crossbow can pierce," and Chinese writers sighed that with the resources of the court and the skill of the realm they were no match for one small Qiang, the reason being that the other was single-minded and exact while they were diffuse and careless. In foreign policy he departed both from Li Jiqian's steady alliance with Liao against Song and from Li Deming's peace with both, adapting to circumstance and holding the balance against Song and Liao "according to which of the two was the stronger"; so that after heavily defeating the Liao army he could at once sue for peace as a victor, and on seeing that Liao was profiting at Xia's expense by bargaining with Song he could at once decide to make peace with Song, giving way even on the question of status that he had insisted on so long.

Personal Relations

• Grandfather: Li Jiqian, posthumously Emperor Taizu of Xia
• Father: Li Deming, posthumously Emperor Taizong of Xia
• Mother: Lady Weimu
• Sons: Li Ningming (crown prince, died young); Ninglingge (crown prince, attacked Yuanhao and was executed); Li Liangzuo (young son who later became Emperor Yizong of Western Xia)
• Wives and consorts: Princess Xingping of the Liao imperial clan; Empress Xiancheng of the Yeli clan; Lady Moyi (later empress); Lady Mozang (mother of Li Liangzuo)
• Yeli Renrong: official associated with the creation and promulgation of the Tangut script
• Zhang Yuan: frustrated Song scholar who entered Western Xia service and participated in military and political affairs
• Yang Shousu: close official who supported Yuanhao's imperial proclamation
• Emperor Renzong of Song: refused to recognize Yuanhao's imperial title; the two states went to war
• Emperor Xingzong of Liao, Yelü Zongzhen: personally campaigned against Western Xia in 1044 and was defeated
• Gusiluo: Tibetan ruler of the He-Huang region who fought Yuanhao repeatedly

Historical Assessment

Song Period / Contemporary

• The History of Song, vol. 485, describes Yuanhao as round-faced and high-nosed, more than five chi tall, fond in youth of long crimson sleeves and a black cap, carrying bow and arrows, and traveling on horseback with standards and more than one hundred riders. It also records that he understood Buddhist learning, could use both Tangut and Chinese writing, kept legal works on his desk, and often carried military manuals, presenting him as capable in both civil and martial affairs.
• After seeing a portrait of Yuanhao, the Song general Cao Wei reportedly exclaimed, “A true hero!” and predicted that he would become a major frontier threat.
• Xixia Shushi, vol. 11, preserves the story of his youthful remonstrance with his father and describes him as forceful, resolute, and capable of broad strategy.

Song and Yuan Periods

• Shen Kuo's Dream Pool Essays, vol. 25, records Yuanhao's arrogant reception of Song envoys and the deliberate sound of weapons being sharpened behind the banquet hall, reflecting Song perceptions that he harbored independent ambitions.
• The Yuan-compiled History of Song placed Yuanhao in the “Account of the Xia State.” It recognized the factual establishment of his imperial regime while narrating the conflict largely through a Song dynastic framework.

Ming and Qing Periods

• Wu Guangcheng's Qing-period Xixia Shushi systematically assembled Western Xia historical material and discussed Yuanhao's reforms, state founding, and wars in detail, describing him as forceful, resolute, and strategically ambitious.
• Ming and Qing writers often evaluated Yuanhao through distinctions between Chinese and non-Chinese political legitimacy, acknowledging his talent while criticizing his assumption of the imperial title.

Modern Period

• Modern scholarship generally regards Li Yuanhao as an outstanding Tangut ruler whose promotion of a writing system, creation of governmental institutions, and emphasis on Tangut political identity laid foundations for the Western Xia state.
• Some scholars stress that Yuanhao's reforms did not simply reject Chinese culture; rather, they selectively combined institutions from Central Plains states with local Tangut traditions, a major feature of Western Xia state formation.
• Studies of the Song-Xia war note that the three victories established Yuanhao's military prestige but also exposed Western Xia's inability to maintain long-term occupation of Song prefectures because of manpower and supply constraints, making diplomatic settlement necessary for achieving political objectives.