Yelü Zongzhen

Biography

Family Background and Early Years

Yelü Zongzhen was born on the twenty-third day of the second lunar month in 1016, the eldest son of Emperor Shengzong Yelü Longxu and Yuanfei Xiao Noujin. Because Empress Qitian Xiao Pusage had no son, she raised Zongzhen as her own. He was described as intelligent, physically imposing, broad-minded, skilled in riding and archery, fond of Confucian learning, knowledgeable about music, and talented at painting. At age three he was made Prince of Liang; in 1021 he became crown prince; and in 1030 he began participating in central government through the northern and southern privy institutions.

Accession and the Empress Dowager's Domination

When Shengzong died in 1031, Crown Prince Yelü Zongzhen ascended the throne before the coffin. Three days later his birth mother Xiao Noujin made herself empress dowager and assumed regency. A general amnesty followed and the Jingfu era was proclaimed.

Xiao Noujin then purged opponents. Guards Fengjianu, Xisun, and others falsely accused Northern Administration chief councillor Xiao Zhuobu and imperial in-law Xiao Pidi of rebellion; the empress dowager ordered their deaths and many were implicated. Empress Qitian Xiao Pusage was also targeted. Xingzong protested that she had served Shengzong for forty years and raised him, and ought to have become empress dowager rather than be punished, but Xiao Noujin ignored him, moved Xiao Pusage to the Supreme Capital, and later had her killed while Xingzong was away on a spring hunt.

Xiao Noujin also sought to control the emperor's daily conduct. When Xingzong gave an entertainer imperial wine and a jeweled belt, a eunuch informed on him and the empress dowager had the entertainer beaten. Xingzong then ordered the eunuch killed, provoking a formal judicial investigation demanded by his mother. He complained that although emperor he was being interrogated like a prisoner. Relations between mother and son worsened.

Fearing loss of power if Xingzong ruled personally, Xiao Noujin and the brothers of Xiao Xiaoxian planned to depose him in favor of his younger brother Yelü Chongyuan. Chongyuan, only thirteen, told Xingzong of the plan, allowing the emperor to prepare a counterstroke.

Coup and Personal Rule

In the fifth month of 1034 Xiao Noujin and Xingzong went to a summer traveling palace while many of her supporters remained in the Central Capital. Xingzong first detained Xiao Xiaoxian and forced him to confess the deposition plot, then surrounded the palace with five hundred guards. Yelü Xisun and others entered the empress dowager's quarters, killed dozens of attendants, and placed her in a prison cart for confinement at Qingzhou. The next day Xingzong reduced her to commoner status, ending her faction's control.

During personal rule Xingzong appointed Xiao Xiaomu, Yelü Renxian, Yang Ji, and others to high office. Their recruitment of capable men, concern for public affairs, and frank remonstrance brought a period of relative stability. In 1039 he accepted Xiao Xiaomu's proposal to register the population and equalize labor services. Later, however, Xingzong favored the flattering Xiao Ge and made him Northern Administration Privy Commissioner despite warnings, including Yelü Yixian's charge that Xiao Ge was deceitful and would harm the state if entrusted with high power.

Foreign Campaigns and Relations with Song and Western Xia

Western Xia had long maintained a pro-Liao and anti-Song orientation, but relations deteriorated under Li Yuanhao. Tangut groups along the border defected from Liao to Xia, and Yuanhao's poor relations with Princess Xingping, a Liao marriage princess, followed by the delayed report of her death angered Xingzong.

In the ninth month of 1044 Xingzong personally led about 100,000 troops against Western Xia, while Xiao Hui, imperial brother Yelü Chongyuan, Xiao Xiaoyou, and others advanced in separate columns. Liao forces were drawn deep into enemy territory and suffered a major defeat at Hequ, with heavy casualties and many close attendants captured. Xingzong retreated to Yunzhou. That same year he elevated Yunzhou to the Western Capital, Datong Prefecture, completing the five-capital system.

In 1049, after Li Yuanhao's death left a young ruler and political uncertainty, Xingzong again attacked Western Xia. Early progress was favorable, but Xiao Hui's force was defeated. Xingzong therefore withdrew with Yuanhao's widow of the Moyi clan, Western Xia officials, and large numbers of captured livestock.

Toward Song, Xingzong exploited the Song-Xia war in 1042 to demand increased annual payments of silver and silk. He also proposed that Liao and Song refer to themselves as Northern and Southern Courts following the precedent of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, but Song officials rejected the terminology.

Later Years and Death

In 1047, moved by a Buddhist scripture, Xingzong brought the nearly seventy-year-old Xiao Noujin back and supported her. She showed no remorse, however, and the accumulated hostility between mother and son remained so deep that even on shared outings they kept many li apart.

Xingzong was grateful to his younger brother Yelü Chongyuan and once lost several cities to him in gambling. While drunk he even promised that after his death Chongyuan would succeed him. His own son Yelü Hongji was never formally made crown prince, but instead held the title commander-in-chief of all forces. This helped create conditions for Chongyuan's later attempted usurpation under Emperor Daozong.

In 1055 Xingzong fell gravely ill while at an autumn hunting area. On the second day of the eighth lunar month he summoned Yelü Hongji and explained principles of government, released the falcons of the imperial aviaries, and burned fishing equipment. Two days later he died at the traveling palace, aged forty, leaving an order that Yelü Hongji succeed him. He received the temple name Xingzong and the posthumous name Emperor Shensheng Xiaozhang and was buried at Qingling.

His Family and Early Years

Yelü Zongzhen, courtesy name Yibujin, also written Zhubugun and Mubugu, childhood name Zhigu, was the seventh emperor of the Liao and eldest son of the Shengzong, Yelü Longxu, his mother the consort Yuan, lady Xiao Noujin. By the annals of the Xingzong, the empress Qitian, Xiao Pusabao, having no son, brought Yelü Zongzhen up herself as her own; and he was "clever as a child and of great stature as a man, with a dragon's face and the corners of the sun, open and magnanimous; a good horseman and archer, fond of Confucian learning and versed in music," and a painter besides. At three he was enfeoffed as prince of Liang, in the first year of Taiping made heir apparent, and in the sixth month of the tenth year of Taiping given charge of the business of the northern and southern privy councils. He was sixteen when he came to the throne.

The Shengzong's Death and the Tyranny of the Empress Dowager Qin'ai

On the third day of the sixth month of the eleventh year of Taiping, 1031, the Shengzong died and the heir apparent Yelü Zongzhen took the throne before the coffin as the Xingzong; and on the sixth day of that month he honoured his mother the consort Yuan, lady Xiao, as empress dowager. Xiao Noujin made herself empress dowager, the empress Qin'ai; and the guards Feng Jianu, Xisun and others, guessing her mind, falsely accused the northern chancellor Xiao Zhuobu and the empress's kinsman Xiao Pidi of treason, and the case being tried it implicated the empress Qitian as well. The empress dowager had Xiao Zhuobu and Xiao Pidi put to death, and the grand master of the hunting grounds, the Jurchen Zhuguli, the right attendant lord and commissioner Xiao Yanliu and five others were executed in the market and their households confiscated, while the empress Qitian was moved to Shangjing. The Xingzong, learning of it, said that the empress had served the late emperor forty years and brought him up, and should have been empress dowager, and asked how she could instead be blamed now that it had not come about; and Xiao Noujin answered that were this woman to live she might prove a trouble hereafter; and the emperor saying that the empress being childless and old, she could do nothing even were she here, Xiao Noujin would not listen. Thereafter her appetite for power grew the greater, and she put even the emperor's every movement under her control: the emperor giving a musician his own wine and a silver belt, an inner attendant informed the empress dowager of it, and she had the musician flogged; and the emperor, learning it, had his attendants kill the informer, at which the empress dowager in a rage ordered the case tried and punished severely, and the emperor said in gloom that he was Son of Heaven yet must answer charges like a prisoner. By the account of the empresses in the Liao history, after her regency she "took her birthday as the festival of answering to the sage," killed many meritorious ministers, employed the brothers of the Xiao, dividing the Khitan and Chinese business of north and south, and "of the slaves of the Xiao, those made training commissioners, defence commissioners, observation commissioners and military commissioners came to forty"; and "Xiao Zhuobu and more than ten others connected by marriage with the empress Rende, and more than forty implicated, were all put to death and their households confiscated, the empress Rende being shut up in Shangjing and afterwards murdered, so that the injustice of her forced death stirred anger within and without." Xiao Noujin moreover meant to set up the emperor's younger brother Yelü Chongyuan in his place, but Chongyuan, then thirteen, revealed his mother's plan to his elder brother; and the Xingzong, unwilling to be deposed, secretly planned to strike first and take back the power.

The Destruction of the Xiao Noujin Faction

In the fifth month of the third year of Chongxi, 1034, Xiao Noujin and the emperor went to the travelling palace to escape the heat while her confidants remained at the central capital; and the emperor, seeing his moment, first found pretexts to arrest her confidants, then with his men broke straight into Xiao Noujin's sleeping tent and killed several dozen of the attendants about her, and took her in a prison cart to Qingzhou and confined her, decreeing the next day that she be deposed to commoner, and so her faction was destroyed. After the empress of the law of heaven was imprisoned some ministers proposed bringing her back to obtain the gifts the Song sent each year to the empress dowager, but the Xingzong would not; and in the seventh month of the sixteenth year of Chongxi, moved by hearing the sutra of requiting kindness, he brought Xiao Noujin, then nearly seventy, back to be tended, but she showed no repentance, so that the accumulated resentment between mother and son grew deeper and each was on guard against the other, so that even when they went out together they kept several tens of li apart. When the Xingzong died in the twenty-fourth year of Chongxi, 1055, Xiao Noujin showed no grief at all.

His Employment of Men, His Government and His Foreign Policy toward Song

In the first two years of his reign, with the empress of the law of heaven in power, opponents were killed at will, her brother Xiao Xiaoxian, who gave himself up to licence, was made northern privy councillor in power, and offices were lavished even on household slaves. Afterwards he took Xiao Xiaomu and others as chief ministers, and these men mostly promoted the worthy, attended to the state's business and counselled frankly, so that the government was fairly steady. By the biography of Xiao Xiaomu in the Liao history, though he was a kinsman of the empress, the higher his place the more cautious he was; "when the empress dowager gave him anything he always declined it, his wife and children showed no arrogance, and with men he was the same from first to last, and those he promoted were all loyal and upright"; and in the eighth year of Chongxi he memorialised for the registering of the realm's households to equalise labour service and set out the interests of the tribes and the Shili army, which was granted, "so that taxes and service became somewhat equal and all were pleased." Yelü Renxian too, by rare favour, spoke without concealment, and memorialised for the restoration of the prince's guard and the various palace corvées, and when made great prince of the northern court memorialised that the two courts being full of households, the other tribes should be excused from labour service, which was granted; and when Xiao Hui was beaten south of the river and the emperor still wished to advance, Yelü Renxian remonstrated strongly and he desisted. Yelü Yixian, knowing Xiao Ge to be a flatterer, told the emperor at a banquet that Xiao Ge was crafty and fond of disorder, and that if ever greatly employed he would ruin the state, but his words were not taken, and the emperor, finding Xiao Ge "attacked yet not resentful," favoured him the more, making him southern privy councillor, enfeoffing him as prince of Wu, then giving him the northern court and the principality of Zheng with the presidency of the secretariat, and on his deathbed even charging him that the throne could not be left a day empty and that if he did not wake the prince of Yan and Zhao should succeed. In foreign affairs, in the first month of the eleventh year of Chongxi, 1042, the second year of Qingli of the Song, the Liao massed troops on the frontier and sent the southern vice-commissioner of the palace Xiao Ying and the Hanlin academician Liu Liufu to Song; and taking the occasion of the Song-Xia war they meant a sudden diplomatic offensive, but a month before the envoys arrived the Northern Song had obtained a copy of the Xingzong's letter setting out his demands and had early discerned the Liao concentration at You and Ji, so that the Song had time to consider, though it remained on the defensive. After repeated negotiation the two sides agreed in the ninth month of that year to add silver and silk to the annual gifts fixed at the treaty of Chanyuan; and the Liao pressed Song again until it obtained the word "presented" rather than "given" for the tribute, showing it to be a superior state's due. Emperor Renzong of Song, bending to it, agreed on condition that Xia be restrained from war with Song; and on the words "tribute" and "presented" the Liao and Song histories each hold their own, but the outcome is certain: the Xingzong successfully realised his wish to be regarded as the superior power. Hence, Song and Liao being at peace, Liao and Xia fell out and war followed between them, while Xia too wished for peace and again called itself Liao's vassal and sent tribute.

His Campaigns against the Xia

The Xingzong's sister, the princess Xingping, being on bad terms with Li Yuanhao and dying of melancholy, and Xia long delaying to report it, the Xingzong took it for contempt and relations with Xia began to break. In the ninth month of the thirteenth year of Chongxi, 1044, the Xingzong resolved to lead a hundred thousand troops in person against Xia, sending the southern privy councillor and others in three columns, but the Liao army fell into the Xia's plan of luring them deep and was heavily defeated at Hequ with great loss, several dozen close ministers including Xiao Hudu being taken and the emperor fleeing in confusion to Yunzhou; and it was in that year that he raised Yunzhou to be the western capital at Datong, completing the five capitals of Liao, though the western capital had no palace city. By the biography of Luo Yiqing in the Liao history, when the Xingzong was beaten by Li Yuanhao he broke out alone and barely escaped: Yuanhao having been wont to cut off the noses of captured Liao men, so that fugitives dreaded pursuit, the jester Luo Yiqing checked him by asking whether his nose was still there, at which the emperor in anger had him tied behind the tent with felt rope to be killed, and the heir apparent laughing said that the jester was no Huang Fanchuo, and Luo Yiqing answered that the commander was no Emperor Taizong of Tang either, and the emperor hearing it let him go. In the eighteenth year of Chongxi, 1049, taking the occasion of Li Yuanhao's death and a young heir amid doubt, the Xingzong again went in person against Xia; the first stage went well, but Xiao Hui's army was beaten again, and the emperor on hearing of it returned with the captured widow of Yuanhao, lady Moyi, Xia officials and much livestock; and in that year the northern commissioner Yelü Dilugu led the Rouran and other tribes to the Helan mountains, captured Li Yuanhao's wife and the households of his officers, and destroyed three thousand Xia who came against him. In the first month of the nineteenth year of Chongxi he sent envoys to demand satisfaction of Xia; in the second month the Xia generals Wapu, Weihuo and Yilingji attacked Jinsu city and were broken by the southern linya Yelü Gaojianu, Wapu fleeing wounded while Weihuo and Yilingji were killed; in the third month the inspector of the palace guard Xiao Dielide defeated the Xia at Sanjiao plain, and the commissioner of the southwest Xiao Punu and the northern great prince Yixin were sent against Xia with the commissioner of the travelling palace Bijude to oversee; in the fifth month Xiao Punu and the rest entered Xia territory, met no enemy and returned with plunder; in the ninth month the Xia raided the frontier and Yelü Dilugu sent the general of the six courts, Haili, who beat them; and in the tenth month the mother of the king of Xia, Li Liangzuo, sent envoys asking to be a vassal as before, and in the twelfth month Li Liangzuo memorialised according to his mother's instruction.

Law, Economy and Letters

In law, in the fifth year of Chongxi, 1036, the Newly Settled Statutes were completed and the officers were ordered to hold them at every court audience, and they were published to every circuit, gathering the statutes of the dynasty since Taizu and adding the ancient system; the penalties ran to death, exile, flogging and three degrees of penal servitude in five classes, four hundred and forty-seven articles in all. Yelü Shucheng with the privy vice-councillor Xiao De revised the statutes, and the emperor told Shucheng that the law was now unequal in weight, that law was the first business of government and bound up with men's lives and could not be treated lightly, and that he should weigh it and revise it as fitting; and Shucheng, consulting ancient and modern, corrected errors and presented the book, which the emperor read and approved. But the Xingzong loved reputation, delighted in change and was steeped in the Buddhist law, doing small kindnesses and repeatedly proclaiming amnesties, so that he released very many men condemned to death: as when Yelü Babaa falsely accused his brother Hange of plotting to kill him and the officers held that he should suffer the same penalty, but at the execution the younger brother wept and begged that he had but one brother and that his life be spared, and the emperor in pity consented. In economy the Xingzong valued agriculture: in the second year of Chongxi, 1033, he sent envoys to inspect the harvests of the circuits and in the same year had the households registered, decreeing that from his youth he had known farming, that those who worked hard farmed widely and seldom paid their dues while those who ate at home neglected planting and often wandered away, and that the households should be thoroughly registered so that all might be equalised; he also forbade the officials to brew wine unlawfully and waste grain. In the eighth year, 1040, he took Xiao Xiaomu's advice and registered the realm's households to equalise labour service, so that taxes and service became more equal, the people were pleased and the households increased; and afterwards he remitted the corvée of the prince's guard and the various palaces and the other tribes' aid to the northern and southern courts. At the beginning of Chongxi he decreed that the realm should speak of the essentials of government, and Xiao Hanjianu memorialised that since the later years of the Shengzong continuous war had impoverished the people and turned good men into bandits, and asked for lighter taxes and service, saying that "the people are the root of the state and soldiers its guard," and quoting the Emperor Taizong of Tang on suppressing banditry, that robbers multiply because taxes are without measure and the people cannot live; and the Xingzong in part took his advice, remitting taxes for the poorer households of the tribes and of Nanjing and giving relief to steady the realm. In letters the Xingzong loved to compile books: he had Yelü Shucheng and Xiao Hanjianu gather the deeds from the Yaonian khans onward and compile the veritable records of the emperors, make three volumes of the code of rites, and translate the General Calendar, the Essentials of Government of the Zhenguan Period and the History of the Five Dynasties so that men might know the successes and failures of past and present, and he had medical books translated so that the Khitan should know how to feel the pulse and use medicines, "and from that time all were conversant with it, and even the tribes knew medical matters." The Xingzong also began to examine the doctoral candidates in person, adding a palace examination to the Liao examinations: in the fifth year of Chongxi he sat in the Yuanhe hall and tested the candidates in the court with a rhapsody on shooting thirty-six bears and a poem on the visit to Yan, granting the doctorate to Feng Li, Zhao Hui and forty-seven others, making Feng Li remembrancer of the right and those from Zhao Hui down secretaries of the heir apparent, with scarlet robes and silver fish, and gave a great feast, "and the palace examination of candidates began from this"; afterwards he repeatedly admitted candidates in the Qingliang, Hanliang and Jinluan halls, and decreed that physicians, diviners, butchers, pedlars, slaves and those who had turned their backs on their parents or fled from a charge should not sit for the doctorate. He also believed in Buddhism and carried out a policy of favouring it: he gathered monks to expound the dharma, burned incense and took the precepts, gave meals to monks on special days, and granted high official rank to some monks in token of reverence.

Major Activities

Political Measures

To correct inconsistencies in law, Xingzong ordered Xiao De, Yelü Shucheng, and others to compare older statutes and regulations since the founding of the dynasty. The resulting Xinding Tiaozhi was promulgated in 1036. They provided death, exile, beating, and three grades of penal servitude, totaling 547 provisions.

Xingzong also paid attention to agriculture and population administration. He sent officials to inspect crops and compile households, accepted Xiao Xiaomu's proposal for a realm-wide registration to equalize corvée, reduced certain miscellaneous labor obligations, and prohibited officials from privately brewing alcohol and wasting grain. He also revised the posthumous titles of earlier rulers and empresses and gave Yelü Bei the temple name Yizong.

Literature and Arts

Xingzong was interested in Confucian learning, music, painting, and Central Plains culture and employed Han Chinese officials. He painted a work known as Thousand-Antler Deer, later transmitted to the Song court, where it reportedly attracted attention. He personally examined jinshi candidates and supported education.

Foreign Relations

In 1042 Xingzong compelled Song to increase annual payments. In 1044 and 1049 he personally invaded Western Xia. Although neither campaign produced a decisive military victory, the broader relationship ended with Li Yuanhao apologizing and acknowledging vassal status. Xingzong's proposal that the two empires style themselves Northern and Southern Courts was rejected by Song.

Religious Policy

Xingzong was deeply devoted to Buddhism and inclined to acts of personal mercy, frequently pardoning criminals. The source gives the example of Yelü Baba, who falsely accused his younger brother of treason and legally deserved punishment by retaliation, but was pardoned when the brother tearfully pleaded for him during an imperial review of prisoners.

His Painting and His Books

The Xingzong was skilled in painting: he once sent geese and falcons of his own painting to the Song, so delicately and vividly touched that Emperor Renzong of Song answered with a piece of flying-white calligraphy, and he was a landscape and flower-and-bird painter of note in Liao, painting the picture of a thousand-antlered deer; and the tale of the exchange of paintings and calligraphy between him and Song was long told as something fine. He loved also to compile books: he had Yelü Shucheng and Xiao Hanjianu gather the deeds from the Yaonian khans onward and compile the veritable records of the emperors, made three volumes of the code of rites, and had various books translated so that men might know the successes and failures of past and present.

The Frontier and the Dependent Tribes

Since the later years of the Shengzong, because of the negligence of frontier officers, the Rouran had raided the jurisdiction of the northwestern commissioner of Liao; and on the Xingzong's accession Xiao Hanjianu and others memorialised for the removal of that office nearer and a withdrawal to the old frontier, which the Xingzong did not take up, choosing rather a mild course towards the Rouran and setting up an additional inspector at Daotaling to strengthen the frontier, so that in his reign the Rouran were fairly steady in their submission and tribute and even sent troops to help the Liao armies against Xia. In the northeast the Xingzong took Yelü Renxian's advice and cut roads through the mountains of the eastern capital circuit to control the Jurchen, which in part checked their raids; he also deposed for crime the chiefs of the five Wuguo tribes and set up a Khitan military commissioner there to strengthen control, and sent troops against the rebels of the Pulumaoduo, Punuli and Wukui tribes to keep them sending tribute, while to Jurchen chiefs who submitted he gave the title of grand preceptor and received their tribute. The Xingzong also changed the posthumous names of many earlier emperors and empresses, as that of the empress of the Shizong from the filial and martial to the cherishing and moderate, and gave the temple name Yizong to Yelü Bei, eldest son of Taizu and elder brother of Taizong.

His Character and Anecdotes

After taking the government into his own hands the Xingzong grew wilful and unrestrained, "swearing brotherhood with dozens of men including the master of the teaching workshop Wang Shuiqing, going in and out of their houses and even bowing to their parents," and often "changing his dress and going out in secret, entering wine shops and talking lewdly until he had had his fill and went home." By the Record of the Khitan State, once at a night banquet he joined the musicians' band with his close ministers Liu Siduan, Wang Gang and others, playing among the jesters, and had his consorts change into the dress of Daoist nuns for the sport; and when the empress's father Xiao Mozhi said that with the Khitan and Chinese officials all present it was unseemly for the consorts to take part in the play, the Xingzong struck him in the face and asked who his daughter was, since he himself did it. He was very grateful to his younger brother Yelü Chongyuan, and once, drunk, promised to make him his successor, and his son Yelü Hongji was never made heir apparent. By the biography of Luo Yiqing, the Xingzong often gambled with Chongyuan at backgammon with cities and their people as the stake, and losing again and again lost several cities, until Luo Yiqing, pointing at the board, said that if backgammon did not come to its senses it might lose even itself, at which the Xingzong was first startled and then took the point, and at last gave up the game.

Personal Relations

• Father: Emperor Shengzong Yelü Longxu
• Mother: Empress Qin'ai Xiao Noujin
• Foster mother: Empress Qitian Xiao Pusage
• Younger brother: Yelü Chongyuan, also called Zongyuan
• Sons: Emperor Daozong Yelü Hongji, Yelü Baoxinnu, Yelü Heluwo, Yelü Alian
• Daughters: Yelü Baqin, Yelü Wolita
• Empress: Empress Renyi Xiao Dali
• Noble consort: Xiao Sanqian
• Xiao Xiaomu: Northern Administration Privy Commissioner and important early-reign minister
• Yelü Renxian: senior commander and outspoken remonstrant
• Yang Ji: Minister of Personnel and senior councillor who made recruitment of worthy men a priority
• Xiao Ge: Northern Administration Privy Commissioner and favored late-reign minister criticized as flattering
• Yelü Yixian: denounced Xiao Ge and angered Xingzong through remonstrance
• Xiao De and Yelü Shucheng: participated in compiling the Xinding Tiaozhi
• Xiao Noujin: birth mother, regent who dominated politics and plotted Xingzong's deposition; later confined by him
• Xiao Xiaoxian: central figure in the empress dowager's faction and deposition plot
• Li Yuanhao: emperor of Western Xia and opponent in the Hequ war

Historical Assessment

Liao / Contemporary

The official Liao annals preserve extensive records of Xingzong's policies with a mixture of praise and criticism, especially the conflict with his mother and his attempts at law and administrative reform.

Song and Yuan Periods

The Yuan compilers of the History of Liao criticized Xingzong for failing to restrain his mother's regency and for the death of his foster mother, but praised his renewal of peace with Song, acceptance of a Western Xia settlement, internal reforms, personal examination of jinshi candidates, major legal revision, and willingness to hear proposals from officials and commoners, concluding that among rulers after Shengzong he could be counted a worthy emperor. The Qidan Guozhi gave a more negative account of the empress dowager's domination and political corruption.

Ming and Qing Periods

Ming scholar Wang Qi gave some approval to the legal reforms of Xingzong's reign. Qing scholar Li E supplemented details of the period and characterized Xingzong as fond of reputation and frequent institutional change.

Modern and Contemporary

Chen Shu regarded Xingzong's reign as a turning point from Liao prosperity toward decline, with the empress dowager's domination and political corruption accelerating the process. Li Xihou and Bai Bin note both the failures of his Western Xia campaigns and the positive significance of the Xinding Tiaozhi. Modern scholars often view him as personally talented in the arts but lacking long-term political strategy.