Yelü Chucai

Overview

Yelü Chucai (1190–1244), courtesy name Jinqing and art names Layman Zhanran and Old Man of Yuquan, was a Khitan descendant of the Liao imperial house. His Mongol name was Wutusahali, meaning “long-bearded man.” A statesman of the late Jin and the Great Mongol State, he served Genghis Khan, the regency of Tolui, and Ögedei and eventually became Secretariat Director, effectively chief councillor. He was one of the principal advocates of Chinese-style civil administration in the early Mongol empire. Born to a Khitan elite family that had served the Jin, he lost his father young and was educated by his mother, Lady Yang. After entering Mongol service, he opposed proposals to turn North China farmland into pasture, promoted regular taxation, court ritual, protection of Confucian scholars, and restraint of massacre. He was learned in Confucianism, Buddhism, astronomy, calendrics, and mathematical arts and wrote works including Zhanran Jushi Wenji and Xiyou Lu. In 1330 Emperor Wenzong of Yuan posthumously awarded him the titles Grand Preceptor and Supreme Pillar of State, made him Prince of Guangning, and gave him the posthumous name Wenzheng.

Biography

Yelü Chucai descended from the Liao imperial house: his ninth-generation ancestor was Yelü Abaoji and his eighth-generation ancestor Yelü Bei. After the Liao fell, his family entered Jin service from the generation of his grandfather Yelü Deyuan and lived mainly in Yanjing. His father Yelü Lü served as Right Vice Director of the Department of State Affairs under Jin and was respected for learning, including mathematical and cosmological studies.

Yelü Chucai was born in Yanjing on July 24, 1190. His father, then sixty, reportedly predicted that the child would become an exceptional man and serve another state, naming him Chucai and giving him the courtesy name Jinqing from the classical phrase “though Chu has talent, Jin uses it.” His father died the next year. Chucai moved with his mother Lady Yang to Hongzheng in Yizhou, where she supervised his education. By adolescence he studied widely in the classics and was said to possess broad knowledge of astronomy, geography, calendrics, mathematical arts, Buddhism, Daoism, medicine, and divination. His family background and the Chinese cultural environment of Yanjing deeply shaped his Confucian political outlook.

In 1206, because a chief councillor's son could enter official service by examination for a clerkship, Yelü Chucai sat for an official test and gave the best answers among seventeen candidates. He was appointed a clerk and later served as associate administrator of Kaizhou. When Jin emperor Xuanzong moved the capital south to Bianjing in 1214, Chucai's brothers went south, but he stayed in Yanjing and served the offices of the Jin government there.

After Mongol forces captured Yanjing in 1215, Chucai spent several years studying Chan Buddhism at Bao'en Temple under Xingxiu, Master Wansong, and received the Buddhist name Layman Zhanran. This experience influenced his personal philosophy while he retained a strong commitment to Confucian statecraft.

In 1218 Genghis Khan summoned Yelü Chucai north. The khan valued his learning and appearance, calling him Wutusahali, “long-bearded man.” Chucai joined the western campaign against Khwarazm beginning in 1219 and repeatedly advised on conquest, government, and protection of civilians. He also made astronomical observations and wrote poetry during the expedition.

On the return journey in 1224, at the Iron Gate, Chucai used a report of an auspicious beast called the jiaoduan to argue that Heaven favored an end to killing and a return east, helping reinforce the decision to withdraw. During the 1226 campaign against Western Xia he protested unauthorized levies and killings by local officials. When Genghis Khan died in 1227, Chucai continued to serve during Tolui's regency.

At Ögedei's enthronement in 1229, Mongol princes initially continued the custom of sitting as peers with the khan. Chucai persuaded Chagatai, as senior prince, to lead the imperial family in kneeling, thereby formalizing ruler-subject hierarchy and strengthening the new khan's authority.

Yelü Chucai strongly opposed proposals to clear the Han population from agricultural North China and turn the land into pasture. He argued that the existing population and agrarian economy could supply enormous annual revenue in silver, silk, and grain. In 1230 he proposed establishing ten revenue offices centered on Yanjing and other regions, staffing them with Confucian scholars, and creating regular taxation. The revenues demonstrated the value of preserving the settled population.

He also proposed the Eighteen Expedient Measures, covering separation of civil and military authority, protection of the population that produced state revenue, restrictions on unauthorized levies by local officials, punishment of illicit trade in official property, taxation obligations for privileged groups cultivating land, severe penalties for embezzlement, mandatory central review before execution in capital cases, and prohibition of gift-giving to officials. Ögedei adopted most of these provisions.

In 1231 Chucai became Secretariat Director and helped establish the central Secretariat as a civil administrative institution. During the siege of Bianjing in 1232, commander Subutai proposed slaughtering the population after the city fell. Chucai objected that the soldiers had fought for land and people and that empty land without inhabitants was useless; he also pointed out that skilled artisans and wealthy households were concentrated there. Ögedei ordered that, apart from the Wanyan imperial house, the population be spared. The source credits this with preserving 1.47 million lives and influencing later Mongol practice in conquered North China.

After the Jin fell in 1234, Chucai searched for descendants of Confucius, found Kong Yuancuo, had him recognized as Duke Yansheng, and restored the Confucian temple and cemetery. He gathered scholars such as Liang Zhi, Wang Wanqing, and Zhao Zhu to explain the Nine Classics and lecture to the imperial household. In 1237 he proposed examinations in classical interpretation, literary composition, and policy discourse. More than four thousand scholars were selected, including many captives who thereby gained release from enslavement and entered administration.

Economically, Chucai attacked the usurious “lamb interest” loans of Central Asian merchants, under which interest multiplied rapidly and debtors could lose families and property. He proposed capping total interest at the amount of principal and having the state cover debts that borrowers could not repay. More broadly he promoted county administration, household registration, taxation, courts, and separation of civil and military responsibilities so that government in North China became more regular and ordinary people gained some relief.

Ögedei died in 1241 and Töregene Khatun assumed the regency. She favored the Central Asian merchant Abd al-Rahman. Yelü Chucai repeatedly opposed him and resisted attempts to issue orders on blank papers pre-stamped with the imperial seal, insisting that the realm belonged to the late khan and that the court had established laws that could not be bypassed. He was increasingly marginalized and became ill with grief and frustration.

Yelü Chucai died on June 20, 1244, aged fifty-five. The source says Mongols mourned him like a relative, markets at Qaraqorum closed, music ceased for several days, and scholars throughout the realm grieved. After accusations that he had enriched himself in office, an inspection reportedly found only musical instruments and thousands of volumes of books, paintings, inscriptions, and manuscripts.

Chucai wished to be buried near Wengshan Lake below Yuquan Mountain in Yanjing. In 1261 Kublai Khan had his remains moved there. In 1330 Emperor Wenzong conferred the merit title Jingguo Yizhi Yinliang Zuoyun Gongchen, Grand Preceptor, Supreme Pillar of State, Prince of Guangning, and the posthumous name Wenzheng. His son Yelü Zhu later served as Left Chief Councillor of the Secretariat under Kublai.

Major Activities

Yelü Chucai played a central role in adapting the Mongol polity to civil administration in North China. He promoted the Secretariat as the highest civil institution, separation of civilian administration from the commanders of the military decimal organization, and mutual checks between local civil and military authority. His promotion of formal kneeling ritual at Ögedei's accession strengthened the khan's hierarchical authority. These arrangements became part of the institutional background of the later Yuan state.

Chucai replaced irregular exactions with regional revenue offices and regular taxes. He defended the strategic value of the agrarian economy against plans to convert farmland into pasture and standardized revenue from land, commerce, salt, alcohol, and iron production. The source states that annual revenue reached 500,000 taels of silver, 80,000 bolts of silk, and more than 400,000 shi of grain. He also curbed high-interest “lamb interest” loans and sought state relief for debtors unable to repay.

Yelü Chucai opposed indiscriminate massacre and is credited in the source with saving the population of Bianjing. After the Jin fall he restored Confucian institutions, recognized a descendant of Confucius, supported classical teaching, and reopened examinations, helping thousands of scholars escape servitude and enter official life. He was himself a Chan Buddhist disciple of Master Wansong and also studied Daoist thought. He compiled Xuanfeng Qinghui Lu, recording discussions between Qiu Chuji and Genghis Khan on health and longevity.

Chucai's travels extended across Eurasia. Born in Yanjing, he served in Kaizhou and remained in the Jin central region before joining Genghis Khan's western campaigns as far as Samarkand and the Iron Gate. He wrote many poems during the campaign, later included in Zhanran Jushi Wenji. His Xiyou Lu described regions encountered on the expedition. In later life he returned to Yanjing and was buried near Wengshan Lake.

Chucai served Genghis Khan and Ögedei with deep political trust. He persuaded Chagatai to perform the first formal kneeling to Ögedei at the enthronement ceremony. He had direct contact with Qiu Chuji and compiled records of Qiu's exchanges with Genghis Khan. He exchanged poetry and letters with former Jin scholar Yuan Haowen, who recommended Central Plains scholars to him. His teacher Master Wansong had a lasting influence on his thought.

Historical Assessment

Ögedei praised Yelü Chucai as an exceptional minister from the southern lands. Chagatai reportedly called him a true minister of the state. Song Zizhen's funerary inscription credited Chucai with setting grand policy in the chaotic founding period and restoring institutions after disorder, while Cao Zhiqian wrote an elegy mourning his death as a loss to the people. Emperor Wenzong's later conferment of the posthumous name Wenzheng represented one of the highest civil honors.

Ming scholar Zhang Pu praised Chucai, a Khitan serving the Mongols, for using Confucian principles to restrain killing and save countless lives. The Qianlong Emperor wrote in praise of him while restoring his shrine. Gu Sili included his poetry in Selected Yuan Poetry and praised its broad, forceful frontier style. Zhao Yi argued that the basic institutions of the early Mongol state under Genghis and Ögedei were largely established through Chucai's work.

Wang Guowei produced a detailed chronological biography and called him a founder of Mongol civil government. Chen Yuan discussed his role in spreading Chinese culture among Central Asian peoples. General histories edited by Bai Shouyi treat him as one of the most important early Mongol statesmen and credit his measures with laying institutional foundations for the Yuan. Igor de Rachewiltz emphasized the combination of Buddhist ideals and Confucian statecraft in his political thought, while René Grousset called him one of Genghis Khan's outstanding civil advisers.