The Liao Empire: Khitan Rule in Northeast Asia and Northern China

The Liao Empire was a Khitan-led state that ruled parts of northeast Asia and northern China from the early tenth century until its conquest by the Jurchens in 1125. At its greatest extent, its lands included Manchuria, the Mongolian Plateau, and parts of the northern China Plain, as well as territories around the Korean Peninsula. Its rulers combined institutions inherited from Khitan tribal politics with imperial practices used by neighbouring states. The result was not simply a frontier regime facing Song China, but a multi-ethnic empire with its own political traditions, economy, and religious life.

The Liao took shape during the period when Tang power was weakening and competing states were forming across East Asia. Its history is also part of the wider sequence of Chinese states and dynasties, but its political identity rested on Khitan rule and on governing peoples with different ways of life. The empire’s relations with Song, Goryeo, Western Xia, and the Jurchens changed over time, involving warfare, diplomacy, trade, and shifting alliances.

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From Khitan confederation to imperial state

Before the Liao was founded, Khitan tribes had alternated between periods of unity and subordination to stronger neighbouring powers. By the early tenth century, the Yila tribe had become especially powerful. Its growing wealth was connected to closer relations with settled communities: Han farmers were resettled in its territory, and Han craftspeople shared skills such as spinning and weaving. These resources helped the Yila leader Abaoji build influence beyond his own tribe.

Abaoji became supreme Khitan leader in 907. In the following years he resisted the customary rotation of leadership and consolidated his position against rival members of the elite. His adoption of the imperial title in 916 marked another step towards hereditary imperial rule. His successors used both Khitan political traditions and institutions for governing conquered populations; the state was known at different times as Great Khitan and Great Liao.

Expansion brought new peoples and territories into the empire. The conquest of Balhae in 926, for example, added populations with their own political and social backgrounds. The Liao also incorporated or exerted authority over groups including Han Chinese, Balhae people, Uyghurs, and Jurchens. Rule therefore depended on more than a single system imposed uniformly across the territory.

Governing pastoral and settled populations

The Liao developed two principal administrations. The Northern Administration handled Khitan tribal affairs, the imperial household’s herds and retainers, and many military matters. Its structure retained features of a leader’s personal following, and powerful offices were held largely by Khitans, especially members of the ruling Yelü family and the Xiao consort clan. The Southern Administration governed the settled population, particularly Han communities, and drew on administrative practices associated with the Tang dynasty.

This division was not simply a boundary between two ethnic territories. The Northern Administration also dealt with settled groups, including Han, Balhae, and Uyghur populations. The two administrations reflected differences in political organisation and livelihood, while important decisions remained with the emperor and his court. Military questions were generally handled through northern authorities, even when they affected communities governed by the Southern Administration.

Over time, the empire was organised into five circuits, each associated with a capital: the Supreme Capital, Shangjing; the Eastern Capital, Dongjing; the Southern Capital, Nanjing; the Central Capital, Zhongjing; and the Western Capital, Xijing. The capitals anchored administration across a wide territory. Circuits were subdivided into prefectures and counties, while officials could adapt policies to local circumstances. The system brought central oversight without requiring every community to be governed in precisely the same way.

Pastoral livelihoods, farming, and exchange

Khitan pastoral life remained central to the empire. Herds supplied food and other resources, while horses supported travel and military service. Khitan communities moved with seasonal needs, and hunting was both a source of food and a practice with military associations. The Liao did not replace this way of life with farming. Instead, its rulers drew on both pastoral and agricultural resources.

Settled agriculture expanded through contact with farming populations and the movement of people into Khitan territory. Abaoji resettled Han farmers and brought Han craftspeople into the early state. Agricultural production and craft skills helped supply towns, officials, and armies. The military likewise combined different resources: Khitan cavalry formed a central force, while sedentary populations contributed infantry, archers, and crews for military equipment. Access to grain and manufactured weapons supported an army whose cavalry depended on horses and mobility.

Trade and tribute connected the Liao with neighbouring states and communities. Border markets provided a setting for exchange, while diplomatic relationships could involve regular transfers of goods. The Song, for example, made annual payments of silver and silk under the agreement concluded with the Liao in 1005. On the northeastern frontier, trade relations with the Jurchens were shaped by the conduct of Liao officials at Ningjiang, an important border trading post. Such connections could bring practical benefits, but they were also sources of dispute when officials mistreated traders or imposed demands on local communities.

The Liao court used more than one written language. Its large and small Khitan scripts, introduced in the tenth century, represented the Khitan language through different systems of signs. Surviving inscriptions, including memorial texts for the dead, record names, titles and family histories. Chinese served administrative and diplomatic purposes as well. Writing helped officials maintain records across a multilingual empire, while elite families used inscriptions to commemorate their place within it.

The Liao adopted some Chinese-style educational and administrative practices without making them the sole route into government. The first examination for the jinshi, a degree awarded through formal examinations, was held in 988. In practice, Chinese candidates took these examinations, which tested literary composition. Their existence alongside Khitan institutions illustrates the different administrative settings within the empire rather than a complete replacement of one tradition by another.

Khitan women could play active roles in household management and public life. Women managed family herds, property, and finances, particularly when men were away on campaign. Elite women could also hold political and military authority. Xiao Yanyan, known as Empress Dowager Chengtian, acted as regent for her son Shengzong and took part in military affairs. Such examples show that imperial authority could be exercised by women as well as by the emperor and senior male officials.

Religious practice and imperial rule

Buddhism received substantial imperial support alongside Khitan rites, Confucian learning and Daoism. During the eleventh century, Liao patrons supported the printing of a Buddhist canon, a large collection of authoritative scriptures. Known as the Khitan Canon, it was printed in Chinese, rather than being a complete translation into Khitan. Producing it required collecting and checking texts, carving printing blocks and organising repeated impressions of many volumes.

A surviving eleventh-century gilt-bronze image makes one form of this devotion visible. The Buddha Vairocana holds the index finger of one hand within the other, a gesture associated with his identity and wisdom. The figure may once have stood within a larger arrangement of images forming a mandala, a diagram of the Buddhist cosmos. Such images gave worshippers a material focus alongside the study and recitation of texts.

Buddhism coexisted with Khitan practices centred on ancestors, the natural world, and sacred places. The sun and mountains associated with Khitan origins held ritual importance. The emperor’s ceremonial position faced east, toward the rising sun. Religious life was therefore not a simple replacement of older practices by Buddhism: Buddhist worship and Khitan rites continued alongside one another within the empire.

Diplomacy and conflict with neighbouring states

The Liao’s relationship with the Song shifted from warfare to a long period of formal peace. In 1004, Liao forces advanced toward the Song capital region. The two courts reached the Chanyuan Treaty in January 1005. They agreed to treat their emperors as equals, settle the disputed border, resume cordial relations, and have the Song provide annual payments of silver and silk. The agreement was followed by more than a century without major war between the two states, although it did not remove all tension. In 1042, during a Song war with Western Xia, the Liao secured an increase in the annual payments.

Relations with Goryeo, the Korean kingdom, also combined war and negotiation. After a Liao invasion in 993, the diplomat Sŏ Hŭi negotiated a settlement that acknowledged a tributary relationship while allowing Goryeo to expand towards the Yalu River. Further invasions followed. The campaign begun in 1018 ended in a major Liao defeat at Gwiju in February 1019. Restored diplomatic relations then helped stabilise the frontier.

The Liao also dealt with the Tangut-led Western Xia through both alliance and conflict. In 986, the Liao recognised the Tangut ruler Li Jiqian as king of Xia and arranged a marriage connection with the ruling family. Later, relations deteriorated. In 1044, Liao forces invaded Western Xia but failed to capture its capital; peaceful relations were subsequently restored. These episodes show that the Liao’s neighbours were not a fixed bloc of enemies or allies. The empire pursued its own interests as circumstances changed.

Jurchen revolt and the end of the Liao

In the northeast, the Jurchens lived in communities with varying degrees of connection to Liao authority. Tensions sharpened as the Wanyan clan consolidated its power. Jurchens resented the behaviour of Liao officials at Ningjiang and the obligation to obtain gyrfalcons, large hunting falcons, for the emperor, a demand that required them to cross the lands of neighbouring groups. Disputes over trade and these imposed demands contributed to worsening relations.

The Wanyan leader Aguda began an uprising in 1114, and the Jin dynasty was established in 1115. Liao forces suffered defeats as Jin armies took cities and moved across Liao territory. The Jin captured several of the Liao capitals by 1122. The Liao emperor Tianzuo was captured in 1125, ending the dynasty’s rule. Yelü Dashi, a member of the ruling house, led a group west and established a successor state in Central Asia, known as the Western Liao or Qara Khitai. The Liao’s political history thus extended beyond the defeat of its empire in northeast Asia, while its institutions and identity had already developed through the interaction of Khitan rule with the many peoples and states around it.

For the wider setting, see Chinese States and Dynasties: How Political Power Changed from Zhou to Qing.