Yelü Hongji

Biography

Family Background and Early Years

Yelü Hongji was born on September 14, 1032, the seventh day of the eighth lunar month in the second year of the Jingfu era, while his father Emperor Xingzong Yelü Zongzhen was traveling near the source of the La River. The History of Liao records the birth while the emperor was encamped there. Hongji was Xingzong’s eldest son and his mother was Empress Renyi Xiao Tali.

He received a substantial education from an early age. In 1037, at age six, he was enfeoffed as Prince of Liang. In 1042 he was promoted to Prince of Yan and placed in charge of Censorate affairs. In 1043 he was assigned responsibility over the Northern and Southern Privy Councils, given the title shangshu ling, and promoted to Prince of Yan-Zhao. During this period Emperor Xingzong appointed Confucian officials such as Xiao Weixin, Yao Jingxing, and Yelü Liang as his teachers and attendants, instructing him in poetry and ritual and giving him a systematic education in Chinese classical culture.

In 1052 Yelü Hongji was appointed Grand Marshal of All the Armies and placed in charge of the tiyin office, formally beginning to participate in government. The History of Liao describes him as calm, stern, and resolute, and says that Emperor Xingzong treated him with particular gravity at court.

Accession and Early Government

On August 26, 1055, Emperor Xingzong fell gravely ill and summoned Yelü Hongji to explain the basic principles of government. Two days later Xingzong died at the traveling palace, leaving instructions that Hongji should succeed him. Yelü Hongji ascended the throne before his father’s coffin. Overcome by grief, he did not hold court for several days and resumed government only after repeated petitions from officials. On the sixteenth day of the eighth lunar month, he adopted Qingning as the era name and proclaimed a general amnesty.

At the beginning of his reign, Yelü Hongji showed an intention to govern actively. He sent envoys to the circuits to equalize tax burdens, encouraged agriculture and sericulture, and sought to reduce hardship among the population. He opened channels for remonstrance and advice, promoted Confucian learning, issued editions of the Five Classics, Records of the Grand Historian, and Book of Han, and established an Imperial Academy to support education. He also employed capable officials in fiscal administration, cast coins bearing several era names, and repeatedly dispatched troops to stabilize the frontiers.

At the same time, Yelü Hongji showed exceptional favor to his imperial uncle Yelü Chongyuan. He made Chongyuan Imperial Grand Uncle and later Grand Marshal of All the Armies, and granted him extraordinary honors. Chongyuan nevertheless retained ambitions for the throne, culminating in his rebellion in 1063.

The Rebellion of Yelü Chongyuan and a Political Turning Point

In the seventh month of 1063, Yelü Chongyuan feigned illness and planned to lure Yelü Hongji into visiting him during a hunt so that Chongyuan and his son Yelü Nielugu could assassinate the emperor and seize the throne. Yelü Liang learned of the plot and reported it through the empress dowager. Hongji initially refused to believe the accusation. Yelü Liang advised him to summon Nielugu; when the latter resisted and attempted to kill the imperial messenger, the messenger cut through the tent wall and escaped to report the incident. Only then did Yelü Hongji accept that the plot was real.

Hongji immediately sent troops to suppress the rebellion. Yelü Nielugu rode into battle but was shot and killed by palace retainers. Yelü Chongyuan fled into the desert and committed suicide. The emperor then punished the rebel faction, executing or exiling many of its members. Although the uprising was put down, it exposed serious divisions within the Liao ruling elite.

Earlier in the Qingning era, Yelü Hongji had already allowed the slander of Xiao Ge to influence him against Northern Privy Commissioner Xiao Ala, whom he had executed. Xiao Ala was remembered as loyal, capable, and experienced in administration, and later opinion held that the rebellions of Chongyuan and the political rise of Yelü Yixin might not have occurred had Xiao Ala remained alive. This episode foreshadowed the later deterioration of government.

Buddhist Devotion and Yelü Yixin’s Dominance

Yelü Hongji was deeply devoted to Buddhism. During his reign large numbers of Buddhist temples and pagodas were constructed, and contemporary accounts described vast distributions of food to monks and mass ordinations. This extensive patronage consumed substantial labor and wealth and intensified social pressures.

In 1075 Yelü Yixin, seeking greater power, accused Empress Yide Xiao Guanyin of an illicit relationship with the performer Zhao Weiyi. Yelü Hongji did not fully investigate the charge and compelled the empress to commit suicide, while Zhao Weiyi, Gao Changming, and others were also killed. The episode became known as the “Ten Fragrances Lyrics” injustice. In 1077 Yelü Yixin then accused Crown Prince Yelü Jun of plotting to seize the throne. Hongji ignored the prince’s repeated defenses and imprisoned him. Yelü Yixin soon sent men to kill the crown prince and falsely reported that he had died of illness.

Yelü Yixin and Zhang Xiaojie then dominated the court. Officials who flattered them were promoted, while upright critics were demoted, exiled, or killed. The political atmosphere deteriorated, and corruption spread. Zhang Xiaojie, who remained in high office for a long period, became notorious for greed.

Late Recognition and Rehabilitation

In 1079 Yelü Yixin attempted to use one of Yelü Hongji’s hunting trips as an opportunity to eliminate the emperor’s grandson Yelü Yanxi. Ministers warned the emperor, who ordered the imperial grandson to accompany him on the autumn hunt and thereby prevented the scheme. Before this, a woman surnamed Li had presented a song that persuaded Yelü Hongji to bring the crown prince’s children into the palace for protection.

By 1081 Hongji finally realized that he had been deceived and removed Yelü Yixin and members of his faction from power. In 1083 he posthumously named Yelü Jun Crown Prince Zhaohuai and reburied him at Yufeng Mountain with imperial rites. In the same year Yelü Yixin was exposed while attempting to flee toward the Song with privately held weapons and was strangled.

The broader condition of the Liao, however, continued to worsen. In 1092 a campaign by the northwestern commander Yelü Helusaogu against the northern Zubu inadvertently struck the Kereit chieftain Mogusi and triggered a major rebellion that lasted for eight years. The Jurchens were also rising at this time and increasingly threatened the Liao frontier.

In the twelfth month of 1100 Yelü Hongji fell ill. On January 31, 1101, he forced himself to receive officials and foreign envoys in the Qingfeng Hall for New Year’s congratulations. He then traveled to the Huntong River and died at a traveling palace there on February 12, 1101, aged seventy. He left instructions that his grandson, the Prince of Yan Yelü Yanxi, should succeed him. In the sixth month he received the posthumous name Emperor Rensheng Daxiao Wen and the temple name Daozong, and he was buried with Empress Xuanyi Xiao Guanyin at Qingling.

His Appointments in the Early Qingning Years and the Death of Xiao Ala

After his accession Yelü Hongji entrusted power successively to the powerful and wicked ministers Yelü Chongyuan and Yelü Yixin, so that the struggles within the ruling group grew sharper. In the Qingning years he favoured Xiao Ge and Xiao Tugu Ci, who were close to Chongyuan, and in anger killed Xiao Ala, who opposed them, so that many of Chongyuan's partisans were recommended to office and his power grew greater. Xiao Ge, whose courtesy name was Hutujin, was the son of the imperial kinsman's house secretary Heshang; in the first year of Qingning he was again made commissioner of the southern privy council and enfeoffed as prince of Chu, and was then moved to the northern college to share the government with the imperial kinsman Xiao Ala. Xiao Ge handled business much in his own interest and Xiao Ala was always correcting him, so that the two fell out, and Xiao Ge had Xiao Ala sent out as guardian of the eastern capital. It happened that at the southern suburban sacrifice Xiao Ala came to court by rule, and when Yelü Hongji asked his ministers about the affairs of the time Xiao Ala set out the ills of the day in very sharp terms; whereupon Xiao Ge, seeing the emperor displeased, slandered him, saying that Xiao Ala presumed on favour and had a mind to slight his lord, which was not the conduct of a subject; and Yelü Hongji was furious and had Xiao Ala strangled below the steps of the hall. The empress dowager could not save him and wept aloud that Xiao Ala had done no crime to be killed so suddenly, and Yelü Hongji gave liberal gifts for the funeral and buried him at the Red Mountain of Qianling. Afterwards, learning of Xiao Ge's wicked devices, he let his favour wane, so that in the eighth year Xiao Ge retired as prince of Zheng and in the autumn of the ninth was put to death by slicing for his son's marriage into Chongyuan's house and his share in the plot. The other who shared the government with Xiao Ala was Xiao Tugu Ci, of the Chute tribe, who in the early Qingning years was a northern college scribe and then deputy commissioner of the northern privy council; ready of speech and quick to read a face, his answers fitted the imperial mind, and the empress dowager once said that in great matters none but Yelü Huage and Xiao Tugu Ci could decide, so that his favour grew daily and he came to act as commissioner of the northern privy council. But being more than commonly wicked, fond of gathering wealth, self-willed and given to changing the law, within a few months as commissioner most of those he recommended were Chongyuan's partisans, and for this he was reduced to commoner. Xiao Ala was by temper loyal and decisive, versed in affairs and able in state finance, and men held that if Xiao Ala had lived there would have been no rebellion of Chongyuan or misrule of Yixin; his wrongful death is a chief hinge of the later decline of the government.

How the Chongyuan Plot Was Reported and Dealt With

Yelü Liang, learning that Chongyuan and his son Nielugu were plotting, dared not memorialize at once because the emperor was deep in affection for his kin, but spoke secretly to the empress dowager; and the grand empress dowager, feigning illness, summoned the emperor and told him of it, whereupon he asked Yelü Liang whether he wished to divide his own flesh and blood. Yelü Liang answered that if he spoke falsely he would gladly suffer the axe, and that if the emperor did not prepare in time he might fall into the rebels' design; he proposed that if Nielugu were summoned and did not come, the matter could be judged. Yelü Hongji took his advice and sent a messenger to summon Nielugu; and when the messenger reached the gate Nielugu meant to kill him and held him in his tent, but the messenger cut through the tent-curtain with his sword and got out, rode to the travelling palace and reported the facts, and only then did the emperor believe. In the fighting Nielugu spurred out to give battle and was shot dead by the attendant Xiangwen of Bohai Ashi and the guardsman Su; the families of the rebels were then exterminated, Chongyuan fled into the desert and killed himself, and Tiebu, pleading that he had been coerced by Chongyuan and the rest, was stripped of rank, reduced to commoner and banished to Zhenzhou. The rebellion was put down, but it laid bare the sharpness of the divisions within the Liao ruling group.

The Reversals of the Yixin Affair and the Deposing of the Heir

In the fifth year of Xianyong Yelü Yixin was made grand preceptor, with an edict allowing him to act at his own discretion when there was war in any quarter, so that "his power shook court and country and gifts and bribes came to his gate without cease," and those who flattered him were promoted while the loyal and upright were driven out. In the second year of Dakang the commissioner of the northern privy council, the prince of Wei Yelü Yixin, was sent out as guardian of the central capital, the occasion being a secret memorial by the scribe Xiao Yanshou that Yixin, since the heir had taken part in government, was inwardly doubtful and afraid, that he had joined hands with the chancellor Zhang Xiaojie, and that his designs could not be trusted and he should not be left in a vital place. Yixin, sent out, wept and told men that he had done no wrong but had been sent away on slander, and his partisans Xiao Xiamo and the rest carried the words to the emperor, who repented; and before long Xiao Yanshou was sent out as military commissioner of Shunyi, and the emperor had his close ministers consider the recall of Yixin, at which no one among the northern officers dared speak, save Yelü Sala, who said that Yixin had been sent out on Xiao Yanshou's memorial, and that if his words were wrong he should be punished and if right he must not be recalled; yet the remonstrance went unheeded and Yixin was recalled as commissioner of the northern privy council. Yixin, thereafter uneasy, wished to destroy the heir as well, and seizing an occasion memorialized that sovereign and consort were as heaven and earth in their places and that the palace could not be left vacant, praising to the skies the beauty and virtue of the sister of his partisan the commandant of cavalry Xiao Xiamo; the emperor believed him, took her into the palace and soon made her empress. At that time the guardsman Xiao Hugu, knowing Yixin's villainy, lay in wait under a bridge to kill him, but a sudden storm broke the bridge and the plan failed. In the third year of Dakang Yixin memorialized that the right guard grand protector Chala and others had accused eight men including the acting commissioner of the northern privy council Xiao Susa of plotting to set up the heir, and the emperor, finding no substance, punished no one, only sending Susa and two others out to other posts and giving six guardsmen including Sabo a hundred strokes each and banishing them. An edict soon followed promising heavy reward to those who reported treasonable plots. In the sixth month Yixin had the tablet-stamp attendant Xiao Eduwo falsely accuse himself of having shared in Susa's plot, with a list of names, and the emperor ordered Yixin with Yelü Zhongxi, Xiao Yuliye, Yelü Xiaojie, Yang Zunxu, Yange, Chaozhi and Xiao Shisan to try the case, had the heir beaten with rods and shut up in the palace; within days he killed three night-duty officers, then two including the chief of the palace commission Tabuye, then ten including the military commissioner of Shiping Sala, and sent envoys to kill the guardian of the supreme capital Susa and the banished guardsmen Sabo and the rest, then killed Yelü Tabuye and his brother Chenliu, and at last reduced the heir to commoner and imprisoned him in the supreme capital. Xiao Yanshou, though driven out, was ever anxious for the state, and men of the time had a saying of him that "to pasture sheep with a wolf, how can it last long"; and in the third year of Dakang Yixin accused him of sharing in a plot to depose and set up, had him brought back and killed at forty-nine.

The Scale of His Buddhist Patronage, His Relief Measures, and His Coinage

Yelü Hongji's Buddhist faith has figures attached to it: in the seventh month of the fourth year of Dakang the several circuits reported that three hundred and sixty thousand monks and nuns had been fed; in the first month of the eighth year, when the Xiangwen of the Wugu-Dilie tribe Yelü Chao and others reported a victory on the northern frontier, monks were fed at Nanjing and Zhongjing because the fighting had killed many; and in the third month of the same year the authorities reported that over three thousand people in the three prefectures of Chun, Tai and Ningjiang wished to become monks and nuns and take full ordination, which was granted. Men of the time said of him that he loved the Buddhist law and could expound its books himself, that every summer he would gather the clergy of the several capitals with his ministers, take the text and lecture in person, and that monasteries were built wherever he went and ordination given to great numbers, so that the clergy became unrestrained, lent money at profit, encroached on the common people and made their lives very bitter. Alongside this there is a long record of relief in the Da'an years: in the third year money and grain were issued to relieve the poor of Nanjing and their rents remitted, grain was issued against the famine at Zhongjing, the law requiring compensation from households that had taken in fugitives was abolished because so many people had scattered, a year's rent was remitted to the poor of Jinzhou and again to those of the supreme capital, cloth was given to the poor of Zhongjing and half the tribute of the several circuits remitted, and grain from the ministry of revenue was issued to relieve the refugees of the circuits and the famine at Yizhou; in the fourth year the taxes of fugitives and poor households at the supreme capital were remitted, and because of famine at the supreme capital and Nanjing free men were allowed to sell themselves, prisoners at the western capital were specially pardoned, relief was given to the famine at the supreme capital and Ping, Jin and Lai, and the poor of Su, Ji, Fu, Lu and Tie were relieved with their rents and taxes remitted. As to coinage, four kinds of money were struck in Daozong's reign, the Xianyong, Dakang, Da'an and Shoulong, each renamed with a change of era; Yang Zunxu was ordered to call in old money owed by fugitive households at the ministry of revenue and got more than four hundred thousand strings, and was made a privy councillor; and Liu Shen as commissioner of revenue took in more than three hundred thousand strings of surplus a year and was raised to commissioner of the southern privy council. The historians say that though there was not then the store that rots the strings so that they cannot be counted, it may be called wealth; but towards the end expenditure was vast and the minting unchanged, so that "the state's funds did not suffice."

The Making of the Northwestern Rebellion, the Frontier Settlement with Song, and Relations with Xia

In the northwest the court first made Yelü Renxian commissioner of the northwestern circuit, giving him the eagle-button seal and a sword, the emperor telling him that removed from the court he could not wait for approval at every step, might lose his chance, and should act at his discretion; and Renxian set strict scouts, held the enemy's roads, was conciliatory to those who submitted and put all matters in order, so that when Taliqan came raiding again he struck back and pursued him more than eighty li, and when the main army came up broke him again, the other tribes Balisi and Tumo, coming to his help, dared not fight when they found him repeatedly beaten and surrendered, and the northern frontier was at peace. But since the time when Xiao Dilu was commissioner, the court had been given to appeasement and chosen yielding men, so that the tribes grew insolent by degrees. In the eighth year of Da'an Helu Saogu lured the northern Zubu chief Mogusi against Yedugua, took many prisoners and was made president of the left; and afterwards, when he attacked Yedugua again, he struck Mogusi by mistake, "and for this the northern Zubu rebelled." The inspector Zhang Jiu was sent against him and failed, the two Shiwei with the six court divisions, the Teman herds and the palace households all being lost to the enemy; and Helu Saogu, not reporting the truth, was stripped of office and beaten with heavy rods. His successor Yelü Tabuye was yet more yielding and frontier defence still more decayed; and as it was Tabuye who had recommended Mogusi as chief, so it was to him that Mogusi was now lured: he came falsely surrendering, and Tabuye went to meet him among the desert sands southwest of Zhenzhou forbidding his men to move, and when the enemy came, his subordinate officers Yelü Wansi and Xu Lie, seeing their edge, fled without fighting, Tabuye was killed at fifty-eight, and was given the posthumous rank of palace attendant and the name Zhenmin, while the Zubu tribes grew stronger for the rebellion. From the Shoulong years the court used Yelü Wotela and others as generals, levied troops from all the circuits and even asked Xia for soldiers, and subdued the Yedugua, Meiliji and other tribes one by one, until in the sixth year of Shoulong Wotela brought Mogusi in, was made grand protector and given the honorific of the loyal assistant, and the northwestern troubles were settled. Towards Song, Yelü Hongji at one time meant to attack: he summoned Jing Xing and asked how it was that the men of Song were so fond of frontier trouble, and Jing Xing answered that since the emperor Shengzong had drawn distant peoples by awe and virtue Song had paid tribute, and that to use arms over small matters would be to break the late emperor's compact, with which he agreed and the matter dropped. In the tenth year of Xianyong he sent the scribe Xiao Xi to Song, complaining that Song was extending its fortress at Xiongzhou and building stockades and settling people on the Liao side of the Ying, Shuo and Wei prefectures, and demanding that both sides send officers to inspect the ground together; and Emperor Shenzong of Song, while agreeing to demolish the new tower and arrow-windows at Xiongzhou, sent envoys twice to the Hedong frontier to inspect the boundary with the Liao side, without settling anything, until Xiao Xi, contrary to rule, stayed on in Song territory and would not return, and Shenzong at last gave way and satisfied Liao's demands, and the next year both sides again sent envoys to divide the newly fixed boundary afresh and dig ditches, set up boundary markers and establish posts. The negotiation had lasted three years, and both in talk and in marking the line there was much deliberate delay; its real aim was not the land but the probing of Song's military movements, so as to secure Liao and take corresponding measures. With Xia, Liao kept on fairly good terms: Xia sent tribute from the time of Liangzuo down to Ganshun, offering Buddhist scriptures and prisoners taken from Song; and when Northern Song invaded Xia and Xia's arms went badly, from 1081 onwards Xia begged Yelü Hongji repeatedly for relief troops, but Liao repeatedly refused Xia's requests for troops to be sent directly against Song, on occasion moving troops only to the frontier and stopping there, and only in the fourth year of Shoulong sending Yelü Yan, whose surname had been Li, to Northern Song to make peace for Xia. Ganshun begged for help again and again, and the Liao sovereign only sent a despatch to Xiongzhou demanding the return of Xia's territory and would not send troops; whereupon the Liang clan made its own petition with many resentful words, at which the Liao sovereign, displeased, announced that he was assembling men and horses to succour Xia and still stopped at the frontier; and as he had long hated the Liang clan's usurping of authority, and the petition was resentful and insolent, he sent men into the country to poison her and ordered Ganshun to take the government himself.

His Last Year and the Circumstances of His Death

On the first day of the first month of 1101 Yelü Hongji, forcing himself up despite illness, held court in the Qingfeng hall to receive the congratulations of the hundred officials and the envoys of the several states; and that night "there was a white vapour like silk, coming down from heaven; black clouds rose in the northwest, flying swiftly with a sound; and in the north vapours of blue, red, black and white mingled and fell." On the second day he went to the Huntong river, and on the thirteenth he died in the travelling palace at seventy, leaving an edict that the prince of Yan, Yelü Yanxi, should succeed; and in the sixth month he was given the posthumous name of the benevolent, sage, greatly filial and accomplished emperor, with the temple name Daozong.

Major Activities

Suppression of Yelü Chongyuan’s Rebellion

In 1063 Yelü Chongyuan and his son Yelü Nielugu rebelled. After Yelü Liang exposed the plot, Yelü Hongji responded quickly. Nielugu was killed in battle and Chongyuan committed suicide, bringing the largest mid-Liao imperial clan rebellion to an end and temporarily restoring stability within the ruling house.

The “Ten Fragrances Lyrics” Injustice and the Yelü Yixin Crisis

In 1075 Yelü Yixin falsely accused Empress Xiao Guanyin of adultery, and Yelü Hongji ordered her death without fully verifying the charge. In 1077 Yelü Yixin again fabricated accusations, this time against Crown Prince Yelü Jun, who was imprisoned and soon secretly killed. Yelü Yixin used these cases to purge opponents and damage the administration. Only in 1081 did the emperor recognize the truth and dismiss him; in 1083 Yelü Yixin was executed and the crown prince was posthumously rehabilitated.

Education and Economic Measures

Early in his reign Yelü Hongji encouraged remonstrance and Confucian learning, circulated the Five Classics, Records of the Grand Historian, and Book of Han, and promoted education through the Imperial Academy. He sent envoys to equalize taxation, encouraged agriculture and sericulture, used capable financial officials, and cast coins including Qingning Tongbao, Dakang Tongbao, Da'an Yuanbao, and Shouchang Yuanbao.

Northwestern Warfare

In 1092 the northwestern commander Yelü Helusaogu launched a campaign against the northern Zubu and mistakenly attacked the Kereit chieftain Mogusi, causing a large-scale uprising. The rebellion continued for eight years and was not finally suppressed until 1100, when Yelü Wotela captured Mogusi and presented him at court.

Buddhist Patronage and Dynastic Decline

Yelü Hongji’s intense Buddhist devotion led to extensive temple and pagoda construction, large-scale support of monks, and numerous ordinations. Combined with political corruption and unequal taxation, these expenditures consumed social resources and contributed to a gradual weakening of Liao power, while the Jurchens rose on the northeastern frontier.

His Attitude to Han Culture, His Poetry, and the Qingning Collection

Yelü Hongji's attitude to the culture and the men of the central plain took quite concrete forms: whenever he spoke of Emperor Renzong of Song he would put his hand to his forehead, and fasted on the anniversary of Renzong's death without fail; and in the autumn of 1057 he sent men to ask for Renzong's portrait, at which some at the Song court suspected sorcery, but Renzong said that he had treated the northerners generously and it could not be so, and sent it with the censor-in-chief Zhang Bian, the Liao sovereign going out in full state to meet it and bowing twice in awe at the sight. He also had a thousand taels of silver cast into two Buddha images with the words "may I be born in a later life in the central land" inscribed on their backs, and enshrined them in the Kaitai monastery; and on the meaning of that phrase scholars hold three different views — that it meant Northern Song, that it meant Qidan, and that it meant the birthplace of the Buddha — so that no single reading should be drawn from it. In the reading of the classics his attitude also left a record: when the lecturer came to the passage in the Analects about the pole star abiding in its place while the other stars pay court to it, Yelü Hongji said that he had heard that the central land lay under the north pole, and asked whether this was that place; and when the lecturer came to the passage about the barbarians having their rulers, and hurried over it not daring to expound it, he said that the Xunyu and Xianyun of ancient times had been without ritual or law and were therefore called barbarians, but that he himself cultivated letters and was as polished as the central land and saw no reason to object, and made the lecturer go through it. Towards the Jurchen, at the end of his reign Aguda came to court and played double-sixes with a Liao noble, who, losing the throw, moved his piece improperly, at which Aguda in a rage drew a small dirk to stab him, and Wushi seized the scabbard with his hand so that Aguda got only the hilt and struck his chest without killing him. Yelü Hongji was angry, and his attendants, because of Aguda's ferocity, all urged that he be put to death, but he said that he was showing good faith to men from afar and could not kill him; and when some cited Wang Yan's release of Shi Le and Zhang Shougui's pardon of An Lushan, which brought later harm, he would not listen either, and in the end sent Aguda home. In letters he was on terms of "poetic friendship" with his ministers and often gave poems to his consorts' kin and to great officers; his style was much influenced by Tang poetry and attentive to tone and mood, reflecting the Qidan nobility's admiration for Tang letters and their active absorption of Han culture, and his poems were collected as the Qingning Collection, now lost. Such pieces as the one on the chrysanthemum, with the line about what is still felt in the sleeve, are elegant and full of flavour, carrying the overtone that a gift of flowers leaves a fragrance in the sleeve, and are famous poems of Liao, of considerable influence on later men, Zhang Ken of the Yuan having reworked one of them.

The Achievements and Failures of Fifty Years: Two Layers of Traceable Record

Taking the edicts and the events together, his achievements and failures each have a concrete record. On the side of achievement: at the beginning of his reign he sought frank counsel, inquired into the art of government, encouraged farming and learning and relieved calamity and distress, sending envoys by circuits to equalize taxes, repair weapons, encourage farming and sericulture and suppress robbery, and ordering that in the prefectures and commanderies the officials and their subordinates should judge prisoners as in the tribes; and in the Da'an years he issued money and grain year after year to relieve the poor of Nanjing, Zhongjing, the supreme capital, Jinzhou, Pingzhou, Laizhou and the five prefectures of Su, Ji, Fu, Lu and Tie, remitting rents and taxes again and again, specially pardoning prisoners condemned to labour and relaxing the law on compensation from households that took in fugitives. He also kept a long peace with Song, of whom the record says that "having been long on the throne he well knew what was to his advantage," and that with the long friendship between the courts "the households of the frontier peoples, Chinese and Qidan alike, rested and grew, and all men dwelt at peace and had no liking for war." On the side of failure three things stand out. The first is that once slander and the rewarding of informers were established, "the wicked rose together," harm reached his own flesh and blood, "the foundation of the throne was gradually imperilled," the upright sank and the tribes turned restless, so that "there was no year without the use of arms." The second is the cost of his Buddhist patronage and the abuses of the clergy, three hundred and sixty thousand monks fed in one year and three thousand heads shaved in one day, so that "he laboured at small kindnesses and took no account of the great root." The third is the structural problem of finance and frontier defence: towards the end expenditure was vast and the state's funds did not suffice, while in the northwest, since the time of Xiao Dilu, only yielding men had been employed, and after long appeasement the tribes grew insolent, Helu Saogu struck Mogusi by mistake and Tabuye died of a false surrender, the rebellion lasting eight years until Wotela took Mogusi, by which time the accumulated weaknesses of the frontier could not be retrieved. As to consequences, the courtesy he showed at Song's request in 1057 and his decision to "show good faith to men from afar" in Aguda's case have both been treated by later historians as hinges in the rise of the Jurchen; and that the two-hundred-year inheritance of Liao faced the Jurchen challenge soon after his death is a point repeatedly raised in later assessments.

Personal Relations

• Father: Emperor Xingzong of Liao, Yelü Zongzhen
• Mother: Empress Renyi Xiao Tali
• Empresses and consorts: Xiao Guanyin (Empress Xuanyi, wrongfully ordered to die), Xiao Tansi (later reduced to Consort Hui), Xiao Wotelan
• Son: Crown Prince Zhaohuai Yelü Jun, wrongfully killed
• Daughters: Yelü Sagezhi, Yelü Jiuli, Yelü Teli
• Grandson: Emperor Tianzuo of Liao, Yelü Yanxi
• Imperial uncle: Yelü Chongyuan, rebel leader
• Xiao Weixin, Yao Jingxing, and Yelü Liang: teachers and attendants appointed by Emperor Xingzong
• Xiao Ala: Northern Privy Commissioner, killed after Xiao Ge’s slander
• Xiao Yanshou: secretly reported Yelü Yixin’s misconduct and was later exiled and killed
• Yelü Yixin: Northern Privy Commissioner and powerful minister, later executed
• Zhang Xiaojie: chief minister and associate of Yelü Yixin
• Xiao Ge: powerful official who clashed with Xiao Ala
• Yelü Nielugu: son of Yelü Chongyuan and participant in the rebellion
• Yelü Chongyuan: imperial uncle who launched a rebellion
• Yelü Yixin: powerful minister who framed the empress and crown prince

Historical Assessment

Liao / Contemporary

Liao historical records described the later court as deeply corrupt. The History of Liao recorded Yelü Yixin’s enormous influence and the constant flow of gifts to his household, as well as Zhang Xiaojie’s greed. Contemporary sayings also expressed anger at Yelü Yixin’s dominance and the emperor’s choice of ministers.

Song and Yuan Periods

The Yuan-commissioned History of Liao gave a sharply mixed assessment of Yelü Hongji. It praised the early reign for seeking frank advice, consulting on government, encouraging agriculture and learning, and relieving disasters, but condemned the later period for rewarding denunciations, allowing slanderers and opportunists to dominate, harming members of the imperial family, and exhausting the state through warfare and Buddhist patronage. Song-period accounts likewise emphasized his Buddhist devotion and the political disasters associated with Yelü Yixin.

Ming and Qing Periods

Ming scholar Wang Qi criticized the heavy expenditure on Buddhism during Daozong’s reign. Qing scholar Li E gathered extensive material on the period and examined the “Ten Fragrances Lyrics” affair in detail, expressing sympathy for Xiao Guanyin. Qing historian Zhao Yi argued that imperial authority had fallen into the hands of ministers and that the decline of the state was closely connected to the emperor’s own failure to control Yelü Yixin.

Modern and Contemporary

Chen Shu regarded the Daozong reign as a decisive transition from prosperity to decline, emphasizing Buddhist expenditure and Yelü Yixin’s dominance as two major causes. Li Xihou and Bai Bin likewise stressed Yelü Hongji’s inability to distinguish loyal from treacherous ministers. Modern scholarship generally treats his forty-six-year reign as one in which useful reforms and policies in the earlier decades gave way to serious political failure in the later period. The fictionalized Yelü Hongji in Jin Yong’s novel Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils has also strongly influenced popular perceptions of the historical figure.