The Great Central Liao Kitan State

One dynasty, two titles

The dynastic title of the Liao 遼 is still somewhat of a mystery. The Liaoshi 遼史 records that when Taizu 太祖 (Abaoji 阿保機) established the Kitan state, “the title of the emperor was Dasheng Daming Tian Huangdi 大聖大明天皇帝 and that of the empress Yingtian Daming Di Huanghou 應天大明地皇后 … the reign period was given the title shence 神冊 … his son Bei 倍 was designated crown prince.” There is no mention of the title of the state. This may well have been a simple omission in the Liaoshi. In the biography of Taizu in the Qidan guozhi 契丹國志, one of the major sources of the Liaoshi, we read, “Abaoji claimed the title of huangdi. He was called Tian huangdi. The reign period was titled shence, and the name of the state was Qidan.” Elsewhere in the Qidan guozhi we read, “Taizu declared himself emperor. The name of the state was Da Qidan, and the name of the reign period was changed to shence.” Here the name of the state is given as Da Qidan, not just Qidan.¹

The annexation of the Sixteen Prefectures (938),the incorporation of the Later Jìn (946), andthe adoption of the dynastic name Da Liao (947)

The only mention of the official dynastic title in the Liaoshi is “on the day dingsi of the second month of the first year of the datong reign period (947), Taizong named the state Da Liao.” Other sources, and inscriptions, show that the name Da Liao was used as early as 938.²

The main reason for the change to Da Liao is usually connected with the annexation of the Sixteen Prefectures. The first of the post-Tang Five Dynasties, the Later Liang (907–923) was defeated by the Shatuo Turks in 923. Their territory included the Sixteen Prefectures. The Kitans supported an insurrection against the Shatuo Turks, which resulted in the foundation of the Later Jìn 後晉 in 937. The Kitans demanded that the prefectures be ceded to them, as they were, in 938. A new reign title, huitong 會同 “meeting together,” was adopted, presumably meaning that the Kitans and the Chinese (in the Sixteen Prefectures) had now joined together into one state. The Sixteen Prefectures were divided into two of the five divisions of the Liao, with the southern capital at modern Beijing and the Western capital at modern Datong. The Later Jìn fell to the Kitans in 946. The following year, “the Chinese name of the dynasty, Liao, was assumed. This is why the government of the semi-barbarian state of Liao obtained advisers from China Proper to regulate ceremonial matters according to the prevailing Chinese tradition.”³

It is not known why the name Liao was chosen.⁴ It is routinely stated that it derives from the Liao River, and a comparison is often made with the following Jin dynasty deriving its name from the Anchuhu 按出虎 River, cf. the Jurchen word alčun “gold.” However, as Chan Hok-Lam has demonstrated, the situation with the Jin was much more complicated. Liu Pujiang noted that the Liao is a confluence of the Laoha 老哈 and Shiramuren 西拉木倫 rivers, both of which are central to Kitan identity; it is hard to see how this could be connected with the incorporation of Sixteen Prefectures of Han Chinese.

Shengzong changes the dynastic title back to Da Qidan (983)

This is not mentioned in the Liaoshi, but is in Song sources, and is corroborated by dozens of inscriptions. Liu Pujiang thinks this change was connected with the appointment of Empress Chengtian 成天太后 as regent, but the reasons for changing the dynastic title are unknown. He quotes Shimada Masao’s 島田正郎 view that this indicated a resistance to growing sinicization, or what we would now call a reassertion of Kitan ethnic identity. Liu, however, says there is no historical evidence for this supposition.⁵

Liu Pujiang’s conclusion is that when the Kitan state was established by Abaoji in 916, the area under the control of the Kitans was limited to the north, and the state was called Da Qidan. In 938, when the Later Jìn handed over the Sixteen Prefectures to...