Biography
Family Background and Early Years
Yelü Yanxi was born on the nineteenth day of the fourth lunar month in 1075. He was the grandson of Emperor Daozong Yelü Hongji and the son of Crown Prince Zhaohuai Yelü Jun and Xiao Guyu. Under Daozong, Yelü Yixin and Zhang Xiaojie gained enormous influence. Yixin framed Empress Xiao Guanyin and then Crown Prince Yelü Jun. In the eleventh month of 1077 Yixin sent men to the Supreme Capital to murder Yelü Jun, who was only twenty. When Daozong considered summoning the prince's consort after hearing of his death, Yixin also had her killed.
In 1079, while Daozong prepared to hunt, Yixin proposed leaving the imperial grandson Yelü Yanxi in the capital in order to eliminate him. Xiao Wuna warned the emperor, who took the child along and thereby frustrated the attempt. In 1080 Daozong made Yanxi Prince of Liang, acting Grand Commandant, and Secretariat Director, assigned six strong guards to protect him, and ordered Xiao Wuna to teach him. In 1083 Yanxi became Prince of Yan. Sources say he wished to avenge his father's death and therefore sought support from Han Chinese officials and looked toward Song for security. In 1091 he was made commander-in-chief of all forces, put over both northern and southern privy institutions, and given the office of Shangshu Ling, establishing him as heir.
Accession and Rehabilitation of His Parents
Daozong died on the thirteenth day of the first lunar month of 1101. Yelü Yanxi succeeded under the testament and received the honorific Tianzuo Emperor. On the first day of the second month he adopted the Qiantong era and proclaimed a general amnesty.
One of his first priorities was to rehabilitate his grandmother and father and punish Yelü Yixin's associates. Officials and families harmed through Yixin's accusations had offices and property restored or were recalled from exile. In 1102 he ordered Yixin's faction punished, their descendants sent to the frontier, and the graves of Yixin and Delite opened so the corpses could be mutilated. He posthumously honored his father as Emperor Daxiao Shunsheng with the temple name Shunzong and his mother as Empress Zhenshun.
Yet Tianzuo's purge was inconsistent. He appointed Yelü Asi, Yixin's maternal half-brother, and Xiao Fengxian, brother of Tianzuo's empress and Yuanfei, even though both were accused in the source of corruption and accepting bribes from men involved in his father's murder. Yelü Asi was eventually granted the title Yuyue, and Xiao Fengxian became Northern Administration Privy Commissioner and Prince of Lanling. Tianzuo also removed the loyal Xiao Wuna from high office because he disliked his blunt remonstrance, ultimately reducing him to a military governorship.
Neglect of Government and Hunting
Tianzuo spent much of his reign traveling and hunting and was portrayed in the source as extravagant and inattentive to government. In 1102 he hunted along the Yazi River and in Chunzhou, stopped hunting only because of heavy rain, then resumed at Heiling. In 1103 he traveled to the Hunton River. In 1104 he went to Yuerluo and Mulingshan and later hunted at Nanshan. In 1107 he fished on the Yazi River, stayed at Dayuluo, visited Qianling, and hunted in the Yiwulü Mountains.
At the same time aristocratic conflict intensified, popular uprisings appeared, and tribal leaders rebelled. Tianzuo ignored warnings about the growing Jurchen danger. After being demoted near the Jurchen frontier, Xiao Wuna repeatedly reported that the Jurchens were accumulating grain, training troops, and raising horses and urged a preemptive strike before they openly rebelled. Tianzuo did not act.
Jurchen Rise and the Fall of Liao
On the tenth day of the second lunar month of 1112 Tianzuo gathered nearby Jurchen chiefs at Chunzhou for the First-Fish Banquet. While drunk, he ordered the chiefs to dance. Wanyan Aguda alone refused despite repeated commands. Tianzuo noticed Aguda's imposing bearing and initially suggested secretly killing him. Xiao Fengxian dismissed Aguda as a rude barbarian from a tiny polity who could do little harm, and Tianzuo accepted the advice. He even rewarded other Jurchen nobles for displays of hunting skill.
Aguda then increasingly ignored Liao orders and absorbed neighboring Jurchen groups. In 1114 he openly rebelled. When urgent reports arrived, Tianzuo was hunting deer and treated the danger lightly, sending only a small Bohai force. After Ningjiangzhou fell, officials urged a large mobilization, warning that Liao troops were long untrained and that a reverse might cause subject tribes to defect. Tianzuo instead accepted assurances that limited forces were sufficient. The resulting defeat at Chuhedian strengthened the Jurchens and weakened Liao cohesion.
Aguda founded the Jin dynasty in 1115. Tianzuo announced that he would personally campaign, but continued hunting and sent envoys with imperious demands for Aguda's submission. After Jin captured Huanglong Prefecture, Tianzuo finally led a large army. The Liao troops were fearful and unstable; the emperor fled early in the fighting, and the army collapsed. He withdrew to Changchunzhou after an extremely rapid retreat. A further reverse at Hubudagang deprived Liao of strategic initiative.
Tianzuo sought peace, but negotiations failed. Jin demanded recognition of the state name Great Jin, a senior-fraternal relationship, and imperial titulature for Aguda. Tianzuo offered a lesser title and ceremonial status, which Aguda rejected. Meanwhile rebellions and defections multiplied within Liao. Yelü Zhangnu rebelled at the Supreme Capital; the Eastern Capital later rose in rebellion; in 1116 Jin seized the Eastern Capital and Shenzhou. By 1120 the Supreme Capital had fallen and much of Liao territory was lost.
Final Years and Captivity
By 1121 Liao had lost about half its territory and was also consumed by succession conflict. In 1122 Tianzuo listened to Xiao Fengxian and ordered the death of his eldest son Yelü Aolüwo, Prince of Jin, a popular prince whose death drove more Liao elites toward Jin. Jin captured the Western Capital Datong Prefecture. Believing Tianzuo dead or trapped, officials at the Southern Capital enthroned Yelü Chun and established Northern Liao. Some Liao ministers sought contacts with Northern Song while others considered submission to Jin. Juyong Pass and then the Southern Capital fell.
By 1124 Tianzuo had lost most of the empire and moved beyond the desert; most of his children and household had been killed or captured. On March 26, 1125, he was captured at Yingzhou by Jin commanders including Wanyan Loushi and later sent to the Jin Supreme Capital, where he was reduced to Prince of Haibin. The standard account says he died of illness in 1128. In 1141 he was posthumously redesignated Prince of Yu, and in 1145 he was buried near Qianling.
A Southern Song popular narrative, *Da Song Xuanhe Yishi*, gives a different story: in 1156 Emperor Wanyan Liang allegedly ordered the Song captive Zhao Huan and Yelü Yanxi to play polo; Zhao was trampled after falling from his horse, while Yelü Yanxi tried to escape and was shot with arrows. This differs from the standard histories and remains doubtful.
His Family and the Struggle over the Succession
Yelü Yanxi was the grandson of Emperor Daozong of Liao and son of the Zhao-huai crown prince Yelü Jun. His boyhood lay under a palace conspiracy: Daozong, listening to the slander of Yelü Yixin, believed the empress guilty of adultery with an actor and had her put to death, her body being sent back to the Xiao family; and Yixin, to prevent the crown prince from harming him once he took the throne, contrived his destruction. In the eleventh month of 1077 "Yelü Yixin, commissioner of the northern privy council, sent his private men to murder the commoner Jun at the upper capital," Yelü Jun being then only twenty. The defender of the upper capital, Xiao Tade, falsely reported that Yelü Jun had died of illness; Daozong grieved and wished to summon his consort, and Yixin secretly sent men to kill her as well. According to the History of Liao, Yixin had Xiao Eduwo, a lord of the tally seal, testify falsely that "your servant was in the plot, meaning to kill Yelü Yixin and the rest and then set up the crown prince"; Daozong believed it, confined the crown prince in a separate chamber and had Yelü Yange try the case; the crown prince set out his wrongs, saying, "I am the heir; what more could I seek? You should clear me," but Yange, being of Yixin's party, "altered his words into a confession," and Daozong, in a rage, reduced him to commoner status; the prince was ordered onto a cart, the guards closed the door on him, and he was moved to the upper capital and imprisoned in a walled cell, whereupon Yixin sent Dalugu and Saba to kill him. In 1079, when Daozong went out hunting, Yixin asked that the imperial grandson Yelü Yanxi be left behind so that he might be murdered in the interval; officers of the northern court warned Daozong to look to the grandson's safety, and he, waking to the danger, took the boy with him and so escaped an assassination. On the twenty-seventh day of the third month of 1080 Daozong enfeoffed Yelü Yanxi as prince of Liang with the offices of defender of the grand commandant and concurrent director of the secretariat, and had six strong men guard him closely and Xiao Wuna instruct him; on the fifth of the eleventh month of 1083 he was advanced to prince of Yan. In these years he was bent on avenging his father's death upon the Khitan ministers who had contrived it, "and so wished to lean on the Chinese and attach himself to the Song court as a means of securing himself." In 1091 he was given the affairs of the northern and southern privy councils and made director of the secretariat and grand marshal of the empire. On the thirteenth day of the first month of 1101 Daozong died, and Yelü Yanxi took the throne before the coffin by testament, receiving the honorific title of Emperor Tianzuo and changing the era to Qiantong in the second month.
The Reversal of the Old Cases and His Failures in Appointments
His first act was to avenge his grandmother and father: he ordered that those slandered by Yelü Yixin have their offices and titles restored, their confiscated property returned and their exiles recalled, and in the fourth month of 1102 further ordered the destruction of Yixin's party, the exile of their sons and grandsons, and the opening of the tombs of Yixin and Delite, the breaking of their coffins and mutilation of their corpses, their families being divided among the households of the murdered. On the seventeenth of the tenth month he gave his father the posthumous name of emperor Daxiaoshunsheng with the temple name Shunzong, and his mother Xiao Guyu that of empress Zhensun. The empress Xuan-yi and prince Jun were thus vindicated and the ministers wronged by Yixin restored. In handling the case, however, he made grave errors of appointment: he employed Yelü Asi, Yixin's own brother, and Xiao Fengxian — Xiao Fengxian being brother to the emperor's empress and his secondary consort, "a crafty man" — both of them corrupt, who took bribes from Xiao Dalugu and Yelü Tabuye, the very men who had killed his father, and "let most of them off," so that they went free; and the emperor, unable to tell the loyal from the treacherous, instead made Yelü Asi a "Yuyue" and Xiao Fengxian commissioner of the northern privy council and prince of Lanling, taking them as his trusted ministers. At the same time Xiao Wuna, who had served him with undivided loyalty and done his utmost to guide him, offended him by his uprightness and blunt remonstrance and was degraded to military governor of Liaoxing; "men of honest and simple nature, who kept to the rules and guarded their posts, were likewise dismissed, and loyal ministers came to no good end." The historians therefore say that "the emperor's failures in appointment directly brought about the instability of the late Liao government and the general disorder of men's minds."
Hunting, Neglect of Government and Internal Disaffection
His reign was given over to hunting, luxury and the neglect of government, and the annals record this densely: in the first month of 1102 he visited the Yazi river and in the second went to Chunzhou; in the sixth, rain stopped the hunt and he halted at Sanshuiyuan; in the seventh he hunted at Heiling and "gave the hunters' horses rain-gear." In the first month of 1104 he visited the Yu'er marsh and hunted at Muling, and hunted at Nanshan in the seventh; in the first month of 1107 he fished on the Yazi river, halted at the Great Fish marsh in the second, went to Heiling in the seventh and in the tenth made offerings at the Qianling tomb and hunted on Mount Yiwulü. With the hunting went ever fiercer quarrels among the imperial kin, risings of the people one after another, and revolts of tribal chiefs, so that Liao rule moved toward collapse. Toward the threat from outside he ignored the warnings of those who understood it: Xiao Wuna, degraded to prefect of Ningjiang for his blunt advice and whose jurisdiction touched the Anchuhu river where the Jurchen were rising, saw their power expanding fast and memorialized that "since Xiao Haili fled into Jurchen territory they have held the court cheap, and troops should be added against the unforeseen," to which the emperor paid no heed; in 1111, as administrator of Huanglongfu, he found further evidence that the Jurchen were "working hard at farming and storing grain, drilling troops and pasturing horses," and memorialized again that "my seat borders on the Jurchen, and what I see of their doings shows no small ambition; we should strike before they move," several memorials going unanswered.
The Fish-Head Banquet and the Collapse of Liao
On the tenth day of the second month of 1112 the emperor went to Chunzhou and summoned the Jurchen chiefs within a thousand li to court, when it happened to be the "fish-head banquet": with the wine half drunk he ordered the chiefs to dance in turn, "and only Aguda excused himself as unable, and though he was urged again and again would not." The emperor noticed that Aguda was "proud and heroic in spirit, with a restless eye," and secretly told Xiao Fengxian, commissioner of the privy council, that he might be killed on a frontier pretext; but Fengxian argued that "he is a rude man who does not know ritual, and to kill him without great fault might wound the hearts of those turning toward us; and even if he has designs, what can he do?" — words that suited the emperor and made him relax his guard again. Later, so far from taking precautions, he was delighted by the skill of Aguda's brothers Wugimai, Nianhan and Hushe in "calling the deer, stabbing the tiger and grappling the bear" on hunts, and gave them ranks and titles. From the ninth month Aguda ceased to obey summons and "raised troops, first absorbing the neighbouring tribes"; when the Jurchen Zhao San and Ahuchan resisted and he seized their families, and the two went to Xianzhou to complain and the office sent the case to the northern privy council, the emperor took it for an ordinary matter and left it to the local officials to settle, letting Aguda complete his preparations unimpeded. In the spring of 1114 Aguda rose openly against Liao, and when the northeastern command reported his advance the emperor was out hunting deer and "took no notice of it." Xiao Taosuwo urged him to "raise troops from all the circuits and overawe them, and so perhaps subdue them," but the emperor took this for cowardice and trusted Xiao Fengxian's empty boast that "troops from north of the Huashui alone will be enough to hold them," sending Xiao Sixian to camp at Chuhedian, where he was heavily defeated — "and so it came about exactly as Xiao Taosuwo had said: after this battle the Jurchen had ten thousand men and could no longer be controlled," Liao's tribal divisions falling away and the war going from bad to worse. On the first day of the first month of 1115 Aguda founded the Jin state; the emperor issued an edict proclaiming a personal campaign and "took no real action," the edict being followed by silence and more hunting. From the first to the sixth month he sent Yelü Zhangjianu, Xiao Cila and others as envoys to the Jurchen, but in his edicts he could not set aside the imperial dignity and bluntly named Aguda, threatening him with submission, so that the negotiations had no hope of success. In the ninth month, when the Jin took Huanglongfu, the sudden worsening at last shook him and he led a great army in person, but the Khitan officers and men were afraid and their morale unsteady, and he himself "was the first to flee from the field," so that the army scattered, the Jurchen pressed on with high morale and seized great tracts of Liao territory. According to the History of the Khitan, "in one day and one night Tianzuo fled five hundred li and fell back on Changchunzhou; the Jurchen, following up their victory, absorbed the fifty-four prefectures of Bohai, Liaoyang and the rest," after which, with no ground to stand on, he turned back to put down rebellion, was overtaken by the Jin at Hubudagang and his army was broken.