1986 - J. Holmgren - Marriage, Kinship and Succession Under The Ch'i-Tan Rulers of The Liao Dynasty (907-1125)

Marriage, Kinship and Succession under the Ch'i-tan Rulers of the Liao Dynasty (907-1125)
Author(s): J. Holmgren
Source: T'oung Pao, Second Series, Vol. 72, Livr. 1/3 (1986), pp. 44-91
Published by: BRILL
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T'oungPao LXXII (1986)
MARRIAGE, KINSHIP AND SUCCESSION UNDER THE

CH'I-TAN RULERS OF THE LIAO DYNASTY
(907-1125)
BY
J. HOLMGREN
The Liao marriage system was a unique contribution to me-

chanisms of political control in China. This paper examines the
origins of that system, how it worked in practice under each Liao
ruler, and its relationship to Liao kinship and succession.
Introduction
During Liao, only the imperial clan and the consort clan had the
right to use family names in the Chinese manner. The imperial or
paternal relatives took the name Yeh-liu 9lf while members of the
consort clan were known as Hsiao W.Members of other tribal units
had no family names and lived under a more purely traditional
social structure wherein tribal exogamy was practised down to the
seventh or ninth generation.' However, the early rulers of Liao did
not forget their tribal heritage, and at least one emperor managed
to put the traditional laws of exogamy to good political use. Other
traditional or pre-Liao features also remained embedded in the new
social and political system adopted by the Liao rulers, and these too
reappear from time to time during the course of the dynasty, or at
least had a marked effect on the operation of the newly adopted
system. Features discussed here are 1) the nomadic tendency towards
collateral succession, 2) the important role of paternal relatives in
the traditional government, and 3) the nomadic practice of poly-
gamy where all wives or a group of senior ranking wives held com-
parable status with one another. These three features of Ch'i-tan
4f society were common to almost all nomadic societies on China's
northern frontier,2 but the fourth and final feature was not found in
earlier nomadic communities. This was the practice of limited
tenure of office wherein the leader of the confederation was required
1 See Karl A. Wittfogel and Feng Chia-sheng, History of Chinese Society, Liao
(907-1125) (The American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 1949), pp. 204-5.
2 See ibid., pp. 218, 224, 398-400 and 414 n. 50 on succession and paternal
relatives; pp. 211-2 on polygamy. On the T'o-pa MR Hsien-pi, see J. Holmgren,

"Women and political power in the traditional T'o-pa elite; a preliminary study of
the biographies of empressesin the Wei-shu",Monumenta Serica35 (1981-83), 33-74.

MARRIAGE, KINSHIP AND SUCCESSION 45
to step down in favour of a paternal relative after a three year term.3

As will be seen, the highly regulated marriage system in Liao was a
direct response to the conflict between the traditional concept of
shared collateral leadership and the newly adopted Chinese model of
government. We shall also see that what began as a strategy by the
throne to protect itself against the traditional rights of paternal
relatives was soon appropriated by the consort clan as a strategy to
strengthen and perpetuate its own hold on the throne.
This paper thus focuses on the development of marriage and
succession strategies during Liao and on changes in the balance of
power between the throne, the imperial relatives and members of
the consort clan during the course of the dynasty. The work will also
discuss evidence for a direct relationship between implementation
of the marriage strategy and the development of a Liao aristocracy.
Appendices to the paper provide a list of Liao rulers and diagrams of
important kin groups within the Yeh-lu and Hsiao clans.
Establishmentof the model- Thefirst reign (90 7-926)
The most difficult problem faced by Emperor T'ai-tsu, the founder

of Liao, in his struggle to establish himself as leader of the Ch'i-tan
confederation and emperor of a Chinese-style state was to persuade
his relatives and colleagues on the council of elders to accept a
permanenthead of state. After successfully challenging the established
leadership of the Yao-lien e clan, he managed to serve an un-
precedented nine-year term as leader of the confederation before
being forced to step down. Unable to regain his position by legiti-
mate means, he then resorted to force: it is said that his wife, later
known as Empress Ying-t'ien Yi (d. 953), first thought of the idea
of ambushing and murdering the other chieftains as they assembled
to buy salt from T'ai-tsu's Chinese "tribes".4 After this, there was
little or no opposition to his resumption of the leadership and on
27 February 907, he declared himself emperor, Chinese-style, of all
the Ch'i-tan tribes and their subject peoples. His wife was given the
title of Empress of the Earth.5
T'ai-tsu's own relatives had undoubtedly supported his plot to
3 Wittfogel and Feng, pp. 398 and 410; Ch'en Shu t,* "Lun Ch'i-tan chih
hsuan han ta-hui yu ti-wei chi-ch'eng AiZAff:)*#;fN**5 reprinted in
Liao-shihhui-pienA.P_*Q (Ting-wen shu-chUi,Taipei, 1971), hereafefter LSHP,
vol. 8, 418-42. See espec. pp. 419-20.
4 Wittfogel and Feng, p. 142. On T'ai-tsu's "Chinese tribes" and the salt
monopoly, see ibid., p. 151.
5 Ibid., pp. 142 and 574.

46 J. HOLMGREN
eliminate the other tribal chieftains, but with him back in office they
expected he would relinquish the leadership to one of them in ac-
cordance with traditional practice. Thus, from the fourth year of his
rule both as Khan and as emperor of the new Chinese-style state he
was faced with rebellion from within his own lineage, in particular
from hlis brothers. After discovering the first plot against him in 91 1,
he attempted to pacify his relatives by appointing his brother, La-ko
UIJg(d. 923), to the office of Chieftain of the I-la tIJ (reh-lid)tribe.6
This post, which T'ai-tsu himself had held, gave his brother con-
siderable status and authority in matters concerning the I-la, but,
significantly, little real power in the central government evolving
around the person of the emperor (see below). However, amongst
the more traditionally orientated kinsmen, the office was no doubt
seen as tacit recognition by the emperor of his brother's eventual
right to the supreme office. Thus, a most serious rebellion broke out
in 9137 when it became apparent that he was never going to re-
linquish the leadership. The rebellion lasted three months, and on
this occasion, as on the last, the emperor was given prior warning
by a sister-in-law.8 Here we have the first indications of T'ai-tsu's
strategy of relying upon relatives by marriage for support against
his own kin.
In 907, upon his assumption of the throne, T'ai-tsu had created
two posts - those of Northern and Southern Prime Minister - to
head the official hierarchy of his new centralized government.9
While the office of Northern Prime Minister had been given to Hsiao
Hsia-la eW+ij, a brother or half-brother of his wife,10 the post of
Southern Prime Minister went not to one of the emperor's close
relatives such as an uncle or brother, but to a more distant member
of the Yeh-lii clan named Ou-li-ssu WME.11 After Ou-li-ssu's time,
the post was given to members of others tribes or was left vacant.12
The Northern Prime Ministry remained in the hands of Empress
Ying-t'ien's brothers with the promise that it would be reserved for
their descendants.13 At the time of the 913 revolt, Ying-t'ien's brother
6 Prior to this, a more distant Yeh-lu relative had had that post. La-ko had
only had control of internal affairs of the royal clan.

7 Minor trouble had broken out in 912, but that seems to have been a half-
hearted affair. See Wittfogel and Feng, p. 411.
8 See ibid, pp. 411 and 413.
9 Ibid, p. 440.
10 See ibid, p. 412 n. 27.
11 Ibid, p. 440. Ou-li-ssu's exact genealogical position within the Yeh-lIi is not
known.
12 See ibid, pp. 440 and 473.
13 See ibid, p. 474 n. 61 and n. 64.

Hsiao Ti-lu 4j% (d. 919) held that post and it was he who led
T'ai-tsu's armies to victory.14
T'ai-tsu also created a new military corps - the first "imperial
guard" - by taking some 2,000 men from across the Ch'i-tan tribes
to act as a personal body-guard. A nephew of Empress Ying-t'ien,
Yeh-lu Lao-ku 4WZ-jS, was appointed its commander, and Ying-
t'ien herself personally organized a second inter-tribal force known
as the Shu-shan )lffI Army which consisted of possibily as many
as 200,000 soldiers which included non-Ch'i-tan and Chinese.15
Presumably, these were the soldiers whom Hsiao Ti-lu led against
the emperor's brothers. Later, T'ai-tsu's imperial guard was to be-
come the nucleus of the first Liao ordo or imperial army (see below).
T'ai-tsu's patronage of the consort family in the early years of his
reign was to leave an indelible imprint on Liao politics. In the
period after his death, his strategy of using the Hsiao to put down
rebellions by his brothers and other members of the Yeh-lu clan led
to the formulation of an official marriage strategy for the imperial
house wherein relatives of the first empress constituted the official
consort lineages of the empire. Moreover, the pattern established by
T'ai-tsu of giving high office to the Hsiao and to his more distant
Yeh-lu kinsmen rather than to his own uncles or brothers'6 remained
in force for much of the dynasty, for patronage of Yeh-lu from
humble backgrounds was a tactic later taken up by influential
members of the Hsiao clan who came to power in the latter part of
the dynasty. T'ai-tsu's strategy of incorporating loyal officials from
other tribal groups into the Yeh-lu clan17 was also adopted by the
14 See ibid, pp. 412 and 472. On the military support given T'ai-tsu by Ti-lu's
younger brother A-ku-chih W who held the post of Northern Prime Minister
after Ti-lu's death, see Liao-shih t (Chung-hua shu-chu, Peking, 1974), here-
after LS, 73, pp. 1223-4. See also n. 16 below on the role of distant Yeh-lu relatives
in crushing this and other revolts.
15 See Wittfogel and Feng, pp. 509-10, 521 and 549, n. 77. Also the biographies
of Chao Ssu-wen jLMR in LS 76, p. 1250; K'ang Mo-chi 1lE" (d. 980) in LS
74, p. 1230; and Han Yen-hui "XM in LS 74 p. 1231 for roles played by indi-
vidual Chinese in T'ai-tsu's military campaigns.
16 See for example the biography of Yeh-li Ho-lu 9WAnj (d. 918) one of
T'ai-tsu's right-hand men during his struggle to keep the chieftaincy of the
tribes. Later Ho-lu was given authority, along with Hsiao Ti-lu, over T'ai-tsu's
new inter-tribal military force and he helped defeat T'ai-tsu's brothers. He was a
descendant of the emperor's great grandfather. LS 73, pp. 1219-21. His grandson,
Hsieh-chen , held high office under Empress Ch'eng-t'ien *W (d. 1009).
See n. 116-7 and n. 156 below. See also the biography of Yeh-luAHsieh-nieh-
ch'ih N4iWI& in LS 73, pp. 1224-5. Also n. 26 below.
17 See for example, LS 73, p. 1226 on Yeh-lu Yu-wen 91llk (d. 925) and
n. 25 below on Yao-lien who were made honorific members of the Yeh-lu clan.

48 J. HOLMGREN
Hsiao in their search for officials who would remain loyal both to the
throne and to themselves (see below).
The chapter on empresses in the Liao-shih suggests that a policy of
exclusive intermarriage between the Hsiao and T'ai-tsu's family had
existed in the time of the first emperor's great great grandfather, for
in that work T'ai-tsu's mother, grandmother etc. are all given the
name Hsiao.18 Wittfogel and Feng have expressed doubt about this,19
and certainly there is no evidence that these women were related to
one another. It would seem that the name "Hsiao" is as anachron-
istic as is the appellation "emperor" and "empress" for the pre-
dynastic era. As we shall see, even during the third and fourth
reigns, new families which had no blood ties with the first empress,
could be given the name Hsiao by imperial decree. This is not to say
that T'ai-tsu's ancestors did not sometimes marry back into their
mother's families or into the families of half-sisters as happened with
T'ai-tsu himself (see Diagram 7).20 Nevertheless, we suspect that
T'ai-tsu's mother, like the mother of the third emperor Shih-tsung
(see below), had no blood ties with Empress Ying-t'ien's family
despite the fact that she is referred to in the Liao-shih as a Hsiao.
After subduing the revolt of 913 and executing those who had
supported his brothers, T'ai-tsu's reign was virtually free from in-
ternal strife for the remaining part of that three year term. His re-
latives by this time had come to accept the idea of permanent
tenure of office for the supreme leader of the confederation. Now
T'ai-tsu faced the problem of how to persuade them to accept the
concept of primogeniture: in 916, in the third month of the tenth
year of his reign he declared his eldest son heir-apparent to his posi-
tion as supreme leader of all the tribes and first emperor of a Chinese-
style state,21 and in the following year, he was again faced with
rebellion. That rebellion was also put down and by 920 it was clear
that his problems with his brothers were over.22 This did not mean
that the concept of primogeniture or even fixed succession in the
direct line had taken hold amongst the Ch'i-tan. It was merely that
T'ai-tsu's personal supremacy, the concept of permanent tenure of
office for the ruler, and the ruler's right to nominate an heir had been
accepted by the Ch'i-tan. Whether the ruler's will would be hon-
18 LS 71, pp. 1198-9.
19 Wittfogel and Feng, p. 206. Li Fu-t'ung is more inclined to the view that
these marriages were to some degree institutionalized in the pre-dynastic era.
See n. 23 below.
20 LS 73, p. 1222.
21 LS 1, pp. 10- 1.
22 Wittfogel and Feng, pp. 401-2 and 413-4.

MARRIAGE,KINSHIPAND SUCCESSION 49
oured after his death was another matter. As we shall see, for various
reasons, primogeniture did not come into practice in Liao until the
latter half of the dynasty, and even then evidence for its complete
acceptance as a theoretical concept is open to question.
We have seen that during his reign, T'ai-tsu adopted various
strategies for control of his paternal relatives and that these strategies
were necessary because of the traditional Ch'i-tan system of leader-
ship which required incumbents of the supreme office to step down
after a three year term. The first strategy was creation of an elite
military corps which not only cut across tribal boundaries but also
included Chinese from the communities over which he had been
given control. In this, he was greatly helped by his Uighur wife,23
and his second strategy was to place in high office around the throne
members of his wife's family. The third strategy was to patronize his
more distant Yeh-lu relatives and members of other tribes, leaving
his brothers and close paternal relatives in charge of purely internal
matters concerning the I-la tribe. Here, his strategy concerning the
Yao-lien family is particularly interesting: first, he separated the
Yao-lien from their traditional source of independence and wealth
- their tribesmen,24 then he set about employing amenable Yao-lien
leaders - usually the descendants of earlier Khans - giving them
high office and granting them honorary membership of his own
Yeh-lu clan.25 These men, along with the distant Yeh-lu kin, were
entirely dependent upon his personal favour for their political sur-
vival and were thus willing to support him in subduing rebellious
elements within the state. Finally, some of those distant Yeh-lu kin
were honoured by being given wives from the empress' family. Sons
of those unions might then be taken into T'ai-tsu's own household.26
As with the strategy of adopting outsiders into the Yeh-lu clan,
this promoted fictitious kin ties with the throne which were of benefit
to both patron and client.
23 On the Hsiao as a Uighur family, see ibid., p. 237 n. 3. A more recent article
on this subject is that by Li Fu-t'ung 1t:H (Fulton Lee), "Liao-ch'ao kuo-chiu
tsu Pa-li I-shih-ssu erh pu wei Hui-ko k'ao I1M1NIRTIZ@E=gMJRMW
Li-shih hsueh-paoM5 F* 1 (1973), 85-128.
24 See Wittfogel and Feng, pp. 85 and 439.
25 See the biographies of Yeh-lui Ti-la NffiIj in LS 74, p. 1229 and Yeh-lu
Hai-li MMOW in LS 73, pp. 1226-7.
26 See for example the family of Yeh-lu Hsieh-nieh-ch'ih in LS 73, pp. 1224-5.
Hsieh-nieh-ch'ih was a descendant of T'ai-tsu's great grandfather but was taken
into T'ai-tsu's household at an early age. In 922, he was given control of the
Northern or Six Divisions of Paternal Relatives (see below). One of his brothers
married a sister of Empress Ying-t'ien and a son of that union was raised in T'ai-
tsu's household.

50 J. HOLMGREN
It seems that in his last and more peaceful years as emperor, T'ai-
tsu began to question the advisability of heavy reliance on his wife's
family. Once the danger with his brothers was over, he failed to
honour his promise that the post of Northern Prime Minister would
remain in the hands of her brothers' descendants: in 922, that post
was given to a minor Hsiao of now unknown origins, and, in the
following year, it was temporarily suspended.27 At the same time,
T'ai-tsu placed the office of Southern Prime Minister in the hands of
his half-brother Su j- (d. 926).28 He was still wary, however, of
his own kinsmen and the power which their authority within the I-la
tribe might give them. Thus in 922, he attempted to reduce that
power by splitting the tribe into two separate administrative units.29
A Yeh-lu who was not a close relative but whose brother had been
favoured by T'ai-tsu with a wife from the empress' family, was given
control over the Northern Division,30 while a cousin from the
Second Patriarchal Household of paternal relatives (see below) was
given the Southern Division.31
After decentralizing control of the I-la Tribe, T'ai-tsu created a
fullscale imperial army, the nucleus of which was provided by his
imperial guard of some 2,000 men (see above). The army so es-
tablished becarne known as the Suan : Ordo, the first of many
imperial forces attached to the person of the ruler.32 Altogether 12
imperial armies were set up during the course of the dynasty: each
of the eight subsequent rulers had his own ordo army while another
three were attached to the persons of Empress Ying-t'ien, Empress
Ch'eng-t'ien and Ch'eng-t'ien's second son, Yeh-lu Lung-ch'ing
gMZ33 Ying-t'ien's ordo was probably established in her hus-
band's time c.922, but Empress Ch'eng-t'ien had to wait until her
regency during her son's reign to establish her army.34
By the end of T'ai-tsu's reign, the Yeh-lu relatives had been
organized both for administrative and political purposes into a sys-
tem of related lineages based on kinship ties with the throne.35 The
27 See the tables of high-ranking officials supplied by Wan Ssu-t'ung Ami1H
in "Liao ta-ch'en nien-piao : Erh-shih-wushih pu-pien I tMS

(Chung-hua shu-chu, Peking, 1956) vol. 6, 8045-68 (1-24), hereafter LTCNP,
reprinted in LHSP vol. 4, no. 33, 1-24. See especially p. 2. Also LS 2, p. 18.
29 LS 2, p. 18; Wittfogel and Feng, pp. 440, 473 and 549. This had been sug-
gested to the emperor as early as 914. Ibid., p. 413 n. 32.

30 LS 2, p. 18.
31 Idem, and LS 77, p. 1261.
32 See Wittfogel and Feng, pp. 19, 509 and 540-1.
33 Ibid., pp. 510, 540, 543-7.
34 See ibid., p. 510.
35 The following description is based on Wittfogel and Feng, pp. 191-2;

first emperor constituted the locus of the system and his descendants
were known as the Horizontal Tents or Horizontal Households.
Descendants of his brothers were known as members of the Third
Patriarchal Household, while those of his two uncles, Yen-mu tf
and Shih-lu g, were known as members of the First and Second
Patriarchal Households (see Diagrams 1 and 2). Later, these four
lineages - the Horizontal Tents and the Three Patriarchal House-
holds became known as the four leading lineages of the empire (see
below), but it seems that during the first and second reigns the
status of the Horizontal Tents - the imperial line - was considered
by many to be the same as that ascribed to the more remote line-
age.36 A wider grouping of paternal relatives, the Southern or Six
Divisions, stemmed from T'ai-tsu's great grandfather and his younger
brothers. A more remote division called the Northern or Five Divi-
sions of relatives consisted of descendants of an elder brother of
T'ai-tsu's great grandfather - perhaps a half-brother (see Diagram
3). These two divisions were formally recognized in 922 when T'ai-
tsu split the administration of his f-la tribe into two separate units
each controlled by a different Yeh-lu Chieftain or i-li-chin 4kg .
In the Liao government, as Wittfogel and Feng have indicated,
the two i-li-chin, or Great Kings as they came to be known in T'ai-
tsung's day, were given more power, in particular military power,
than the official in control of the Horizontal Tents, the t'i-yin 'j%.37
Moreover, while the Northern and Southern Prime Ministers in the
central government ranked below the t'i-yin, they actually held more
power and were closer to the throne than that offiial whose duties
were restricted to management of the internal affairs of the emperor's
family.38 For most of T'ai-tsu's reign, the offices of Northern and
Southern Prime Minister were given to men outside the classificatory
system of imperial kin. Within the Yeh-lu clan, those who were
most frequently patronized by the emperor were members of the
more remote lineages.
We can summarize the various strategies adopted by the first
emperor to maintain his position as leader of the Ch'i-tan tribes as
follows: 1) patronage of his wife's family - the Uighur Hsiao, at
least up to the year 922, 2) patronage of his more distantly related
Yeh-lu kinsmen, 3) honorary membership for some of those kinsmen
readings from biographies of Yeh-lu relatives in the Liao-shih;and information
derived from the tables in LS 64, pp. 961-73 and LS 65, pp. 1013-22.
36 See Wittfogel and Feng, p. 227, translation of LS 73, pp. 1225-6. Also the
discussion below.
37 T'i-yin came from the Altaic word meaning "brother of the Khan". See
Wittfogel and Feng, pp. 400, 438 and 472.
38 Ibid., p. 438.

52 J. HOLMGREN
T'ai-tsu's father (posth. Te-tsu) T'ai-tsu's grandfather (posth. Hsuan-tsu)
T'ai-tsu La-ko Tieh-la Yin-ti-shih An-tuan S. Yen-mu Shih-lu Posth. Te-tsu
First Emperor I I
FIRST SECOND T'ai-tsu

_ \ s ,' ,' PATRIARCHAL PATRIARCHAL
HOUSEHOLD HOUSEHOLD
Eldest son Other sons,
l A'X | o ,' HORIZONTAL THIRD
IMPERIAL , TENTS PATRIARCHAL
LINE , " sX | s ,' HOUSEHOLD
HORIZONTAL TENTS THIRD PATRIARCHAL HOUSEHOLD
Diagram 1 The Horizontal Tents and Third Diagram 2 The four Leading Lineages
Patriarchal Household
T'ai-tsu's great great grandfather (posth. Su-tsu)
XsI
T'ai-tsu's g
11 randfather h X
(posth. I-tsu)
T'ai-tsu' ;grdfather 0
(posth. ea- tsu)
THE NORTHERN l
or FIVE DIVISIONS THE SOUTHERNor SIX DIVISIONS
Diagram 3 The Northern and Southern or

the Five and Six Divisions
Diagrams 1-3 are based on the discussion in Wittfogel and Feng pp. 191-2.
in his own lineage or household, 4) patronage of members of other

tribes, 5) honorary membership within the Yeh-lu clan for some of
these followers, 6) relegation of his close kin to matters concerning
the internal affairs of his tribe, 7) division of his tribe and clan into
two separate administrative bodies, 8) creation of an inter-tribal
military force which incorporated Chinese militia into its ranks, and
9) military authority extended to his Uighur wife and her relatives.
The first strategy was to be further developed and refined during
the second and sixth reigns under the influence of powerful Hsiao
consorts. It was to form the basis of the Liao marriage system. The
authority in military matters which had been extended to the first
empress also remained in force, and Hsiao women participated in
military campaigns during Liao in a manner which had not been
seen in any previous Chinese dynasty - native or foreign.

Developmentof the model- The secondreign (927-947)
There were no serious rebellions by paternal relatives during the

second reign. Two related reasons can be put forward for this: first,
continuity in government between the first and second reigns was
maintained by Empress Ying-t'ien.39 Secondly, all but one of T'ai-
tsu's brothers, along with many other senior members of the house,
were eliminated before the start of the second reign. While T'ai-tsu
had spared his brothers after each attempt to overthrow him, he had,
between 913 and 914, carried out mass executions within the Yeh-liu
clan and I-la tribe to rid himself of their troublesome followers.
These executions severely depleted the ranks of the senior relatives.40
Then, in 923, his brother, La-ko, died in exile.4' Brother Tieh-la All
died in August 926.42 and upon T'ai-tsu's death in September 926,
brother Yin-ti-shih 3ftf was murdered on the orders of Empress
Ying-t'ien. Yeh-lu Su, T'ai-tsu's half-brother, died in suspicious
circumstances less than two months later.43 Apart from this, the ranks
of the elite were further depleted by mass executions carried out by
the empress during T'ai-tsu's burial ceremony. Our sources on this
are somewhat contradictory both in detail and in their explanation
of Ying-t'ien's behaviour, but it is likely that the primary motivation
was political and that some of the men who are said to have willingly
or otherwise followed T'ai-tsu in death were seen by the empress as
a potential threat to the stability of the state and to her plans for the
succession.44
T'ai-tsu had nominated his eldest son as heir in 916, but Ying-t'ien
managed to persuade the Ch'i-tan to accept her second son as em-
peror. Her success in this presumably lay in her control over the
military which she had assumed upon T'ai-tsu's death,45 to the fact
that she was able to persuade her first son to stand aside peaceably,46
39 See LS 71, p. 1200; and LS 2, p. 23.
40 See Wittfogel and Feng, pp. 400 and 412-3.
41 Ibid., p. 414 n44.
42 LS 2, p. 23.
43 See LS 64, p. 969; LS 2, p. 23; and the discussion in Ch'en Shu, p. 426.
4 See Wittfogel and Feng, p. 254, translation of Ying-t'ien's biography in
LS 71, p. 1200; Ibid., p. 254 n. 27 on the account in the Ch'i-tankuo-chih )FGli;
and Ch'en Shu, p. 427.
45 See LS 2, p. 23.
46 Ch'en Shu, pp. 428-9, has pointed out that it is unlikely that Pei willingly
led officials of the court to ask his mother to set T'ai-tsung on the throne as re-
corded in LS 3, p. 28. See LS 72, p. 1210 for a slightly less watered down version
of the events of this time. The Ch'i-tankuo-chih(Shang-wu yin-shu-kuan, Shang-
hai, 1937), hereafter CTKC, 2, p. 9, has the empress asking the officials to choose

54 J. HOLMGREN
and to the fact that her second son was already 25 and obviously
acceptable to the Ch'i-tan as a leader in his own right. The idea of
succession by primogeniture, as distinct from succession in the direct
line, as yet carried little or no weight with the Ch'i-tan. However,
the fact that T'ai-tsung was not formally enthroned until a year
after his father's death suggests that there may have been more
opposition to Ying-t'ien's plans for the succession than is indicated
in our sources. Later, the empress was quite unsuccessful in her
attempt to have her youngest son, Li-hu , succeed T'ai-tsung.
This was because Li-hu was not a popular leader and by that time,
Shih-tsung, Ying-t'ien's 29 year old grandson by her eldest son, had
proven himself both popular and capable.47 At that time (947), many
of Ying-t'ien's highest officials - those whom she had actively patron-
ized in the government, including her own nephew Hsiao Han ffi-
supported Shih-tsung against Li-hu.48 Conciliation between the
parties was finally brought about by Yeh-lu Wu-chih 4#WW (d.
972), and war was avoided. Here it should be pointed out that at
that time Ying-t'ien had had control of a sizable military force with
which she could have and was clearly tempted to use against Shih-
tsung.49
It would seem from the little we know about the Liao government
in T'ai-tsung's reign that Empress Ying-t'ien and her son continued
to patronize members of the Yeh-lu clan who were not closely related
to the throne.50 Thus although we find some relatives from the First
and Second Patriarchal Households (descendants of T'ai-tsu's
grandfather) in high office at this time,51 apart from T'ai-tsu's last
between her two sons. Wittfogel and Feng, p. 402, state that Ying-t'ien cited her
dead husband's "will" before the officials to justify placing T'ai-tsung on the
throne. I have found no reference to this in the Liao-shih.Whatever the circum-
stances of T'ai-tsung's accession to the throne in 927, we can say that there was
no war over the issue and that this was surely due in part to Ying-t'ien's power, in
particular her military power.
47 Ibid., pp. 401-2 and 417; and LS 77, pp. 1255-7.
48 See LS 113, pp. 1505-6 and 1508;
n.43 above; and n.67 below.
49 Yeh-lu Wu-chih was a member of the First Patriarchal Household. At this
time he held the post of t'i-yin-head of the Horizontal Tents. This was a high
ranking but largely powerless post. See LS 77, p. 1255; and LS 71, p. 1200.
50 For example, Yeh-lu P'o-te a nephew of Hsieh-nieh-ch'ih. See
9 ft,
LS 73, p. 1225; L TCNP, p. 3; and n. 26 above. Also Yeh-lu Hou 95Ma (911-
948). Both men were from the Six Divisions of paternal relatives and Yeh-lu Hou
succeeded P'o-te as Great King of the Six or Southern Divisions. See LS 77, p.
1258; and LTCNP, p. 3.
51 For example, Yeh-lui Wu-chih from the First Patriarchal Household. But
on his largely powerless post, see n. 49 above. Also Yeh-luiWa 1ThWM from the
Second Patriarchal Household. See LS 77, p. 1261. Also Wittfogel and Feng,

surviving brother An-tuan 2Z, members of the Third Patriarchal

Household seem to have been excluded from the most important
posts at the central level of government. It is possible that some of
T'ai-tsu's nephews were considered too young to hold high office
at this time, but on the other hand it should be remembered that
the second emperor who was of their generation was already 25 when
he came to the throne in 927. It is also significant that members of
the Third Patriarchal Household only come to the fore in the Liao
government in the following generation when blood ties with the
throne were considerably weaker.52 It would appear that members
of the Third Patriarchal Household were deliberately excluded from
certain offices during the second reign just as they had been in T'ai-
tsu's time.
Apart from distantly related Yeh-lu relatives, Ying-t'ien and her
son also patronized men of Chinese origin, in particular those who
had commanded the state's Chinese militia. Some of these men had
seen active service in T'ai-tsu's day,53 but most were new to the
politics of the Liao court during the second reign.54 It is probable
that there is a link here between the patronage of Chinese officials
from military backgrounds and the role played by Ying-t'ien in the
formation of the Shu-shan Army during T'ai-tsu's reign. Signifi-
cantly, while Ying-t'ien's period in power did not see an increase
in the number of Hsiao relatives holding influential civilian posts
in the government,55 her nephews did dominate the military.56
This era also saw the formulation of a marriage strategy for the
imperial house - a most important mechanism of political and social
control which was to ensure continuity of Hsiao influence at court:
in 935, a decree was issued which stated that the lineage of the
empress-dowager's (Ying-t'ien's) father and the lineage of the first
pp. 192 and 228-30 on the employment in office of Yeh-lui Hai-ssu MTS,, a
poor clansman from the Second Patriarchal Household.
52 See LS 85, pp. 1315-6 on the career of Yeh-liu Su's grandson from 986 under
Empress Ch'eng-t'ien. Nothing is known about his father. See also LS 86, pp.
1321-2 on Tieh-la's grandson.
53 For example, Han Yen-hui. See n. 15 above.
54 See n. 55 below.
55 LTCHP, pp. 2-3 names only three Hsiao holding office at the highest levels
of the government during T'ai-tsung's time, whereas five new Chinese appointees
appear within the top ranks of the bureaucratic elite. See also n. 56 below on ra-
cial tension at this time.
56 See for example the role of her nephew Hsiao Han in T'ai-tsung's campaign
against Chin in 947. Also LS 113, p. 1505; and LS 76, p. 1252 which reveal ten-
sion over the use of Chinese in the government. Also LS 73, p. 1224; and Wittfogel
and Feng, p. 452 on A-ku-chih's son and his command of T'ai-tsung's P'i-shih
J,!t army, an inter-tribal military force established during the second reign.

56 J. HOLMGREN
(Hsiao?) husband of the empress-dowager's mother were to be known

as kuo-chiuF-j - "rmperial Maternal Uncles" or consort lineages
of the empire which were to supply the Yeh-lu with women for the
imperial harem.57 Descendants of the first husband were to be known
as the I-shih-ssu Z lineage, while those of the second husband,
Ying'-t'ien's father, were to be known as the Pa-li X M. Each lineage
consisted of two households (see Diagram 4).58 Thus, from 935, there
were two designated consort lineages which were meant to supply
husbands and wives for members of the Horizontal Tents and Third
Patriarchal Household.
In 947, just before T'ai-tsung's death, Ying-t'ien's nephew, who
had the personal name of Hsiao-han iJv, was granted the family
name of Hsiao and the personal name of Han M, and from that time
the name Hsiao was extended to all members of the consort line-
ages.59 In addition, each generation of the imperial house was to
marry into an ascending generation of a Hsiao lineage while the
Hsiao were to marry into a descending generation of the Yeh-lu.60
Wittfogel and Feng have commented that "Since the more powerful
clan married upwards, it may be inferred that these marriages
assured them additional power, prestige and wealth.''61 Elsewhere
they comment that the form of the marriage system "reflected the
rising power of the Yeh-lu, and bulwarked the supremacy of the
imperial clan",62 suggesting that Hsiao support was essential to the
survival of Liao and that in the period before the stabilization of the
dynasty, the Hsiao werejust as or perhaps more powerful in economic
and military terms than the imperial house.63 In other words, it
was only T'ai-tsu's alliance with the Hsiao (or rather with members
of Turkic Uighur communities who later became known as Hsiao)
which enabled him to establish his authority over both his own and
the other tribes.
The generational element in the Liao marriage system favoured
the Hsiao in many ways. First, the system as a whole ensured that
each emperor would have a Hsiao mother and a Hsiao consort and
that every female regent or co-ruler would be a Hsiao. Male mem-
bers of the Hsiao clan would thus never be excluded from the most
57 See LS 3, p. 36, translated Wittfogel and Feng, p. 254.
58 Ibid., p. 238 n. 3.
59 LS 67, p. 1027. See also Wittfogel and Feng p. 237 n. 3 on the various
legends associated with the adoption of the name.
60 Wittfogel and Feng, p. 209.
61 Ibid, p. 18.
62 Ibid., p.211.
63 Ibid., p. 206.

important offices of the realm. Secondly, the fact that the Hsiao
married into a descending generation of the Yeh-lu meant that
Hsiao consorts would be considerably older than their emperor-
husbands and therefore in a strong position to dominate the throne
not only in the time of their sons but also during the husband's life-
time. Just as importantly, Yeh-lu princes who did not come to the
throne might be controlled by their Hsiao mothers and their more
mature Hsiao wives and Hsiao brothers-in-law, ameliorating the
tendency for those princes to rebel against the throne. In this system,
we see not so much the benefits which accrued to the imperial line,
but rather the strong hand of the Hsiao and their dominant position
in the Liao realm. It is surely no coincidence that the initial formula-
tion of this strategy occurred at the height of power of the first Hsiao
empress, and that further refinements to the system took place during
the period in power of her relative Ch'in-ai , in the latter half
of the sixth reign (see below).
In practice, Liao marriage strategy seems to have worked well
for Hsiao consorts for it meant that they, as mature women, were
able to act decisively and independently of their male relatives.
This can be seen in the history of Empress Ch'eng-t'ien whose father
brought Emperor Ching-tsung to power in 969. Ch'eng-t'ien's father
died in 970 and there is no doubt that it was she who acted as head
of the Hsiao family both during her husband's reign and during that
of her son, and that it was she who dispensed favour and office in
the Liao government. There are few cases in Liao where women as
regents or influential consorts were dominated by and acted under
the direction of close male relatives as happened during Chinese
dynasties.
Five months after his accession to the throne, T'ai-tsung appointed
his mother's niece as his empress.64 However, after this woman died,
that position remained vacant for the rest of his reign.65 Presumably,
acceptance of the concept of polygamy wherein each wife or a group
of senior ranking wives held equal status with one another made the
appointment of a second empress unnecessary. For Ying-t'ien,
however, the matter also had important political considerations.
In a system where women came to power and kept power through
personal relationships, mothers of emperors could never be sure of
maintaining their authority even under a system such as that es-
tablished in Liao where a niece or close relative was appointed
consort. In the months after her husband's death, it had been es-
64 LS 3, p. 28.
65 LS 71, p. 1200.

58 J. HOLMGREN
sential that Ying-t'ien establish the dominance of her family at court,

and the way to do this was to place a malleable son on the throne
and have one of her own relatives appointed empress. However,
after 935 - the year of her niece's death and the official formulation
of the marriage strategy - the important issue was no longer the
future of the Hsiao but rather Ying-t'ien's own position within the
family. As early as 930 A.D., before the birth of her niece's first son,
Ying-t'ien had made plans for the succession in the event of T'ai-
tsung's premature death: in that year, some seventeen months before
the birth of T'ai-tsung's first son, his younger brother Li-hu, was
given the title huang-t'ai-ti _2X.% (Grand Imperial Brother) indicat-
ing that he rather than any sons of T'ai-tsung would come to the
throne.66 Li-hu retained that title throughout T'ai-tsung's reign,
and no son of the emperor was proclaimed heir. WVithLi-hu's acces-
sion, Ying-t'ien would have avoided the possibility of a factional
struggle within the Hsiao clan between herself as grand empress-
dowager and the mother or close relatives of T'ai-tsung's successor-
son. Leaving the position of empress vacant after her niece's death
in 935 was part of this strategy. Here, Ying-t'ien was caught in the
dilemma which faced every empress-dowager in the Chinese system
of succession if she lived long enough: the push towards succession
in the direct line in the first generation so that a son might come to
the throne, and the pull towards collateral succession in the next
generation in order to avoid a conflict with the younger and rising
generation of distaff relatives. This problem was particularly acute
under foreign conquest dynasties which enshrined a tradition of
collateral succession.
The flaw in Ying-t'ien's strategy lay in the personality of her third
son: the idea of Li-hu as emperor was objectionable to most of the
Yeh-lu and Chinese leaders, and with T'ai-tsung's death on 15 May
947, a council of ministers and tribal leaders hurriedly proclaimed
Ying-t'ien's more popular grandson, Shih-tsung, as third emperor
of Liao. Ying-t'ien had been outwitted by her own ministers and
she quickly saw that Li-hu's accession to the throne was unacceptable
to the Ch'i-tan leadership (see above).67 At first it seemed as if re-
conciliation between the empress-dowager and her grandson might
be achieved, but shortly after Shih-tsung took control of the govern-
ment, he had his grandmother and her son expelled from court.68
66 LS 72, p. 1213 and LS 64, p. 975 give his title as huang-t'ai-tiwhile the annals
recorded it as huang-t'ai-tzuQt-f (Grand Imperial Son), the normal Chinese
term for heir-apparent. See LS 3, pp. 31 and 42 n. 1.
67 See LS 77, pp. 1255-7 and 1260-1; LS 5, pp. 63-4; and LS 72, p. 1213.
68 LS 5, p. 64; and LS 71, p. 1200.

Reactionagainstthemodel- Thethirdandfourthreigns(947-969)
The hostile strategy adopted by both Shih-tsung and his successor

towards the Hsiao is revealed in their respective attitudes to the
appointment of an empress and in their approach to the role of
consort lineages in the central government. In 947, when Shih-tsung
came to power, he expelled his grandmother, Ying-t'ien, from court
and made his own mother empress-dowager. He also bestowed the
posthumous title of Northern Prime Minister upon one of her an-
cestors, Chih-lu Yq or La-chih-sa-ku-lu *U1jY@, and declared
that Chih-lu's descendants were to be known as a consort lineage.69
One of those descendants, T'a-la-ko 41j9 or T'a-lieh A,3iIJ(d. 951),
was made head of this new lineage of maternal relatives.70 In short,
Shih-tsung had added a third consort lineage to the two proposed
by his predecessors. At first sight this might seem not to have in-
volved any radical change in attitude towards the Hsiao, for Shih-
tsung's mother is said to have been a Hsiao. However, extant records
dealing with this third lineage reveal that the emperor's actions
entailed more than a mere attempt to establish the dominance of
his mother's family over that of his grandmother.
In his biography in the Liao-shih,T'a-la-ko is said to have been a
member of the Six Divisions - i.e., a descendant of a son or brother
of Emperor T'ai-tsu's great grandfather, I-tsu (see Diagram 3).71
For this reason, Wittfogel and Feng refer to him as an "honorific
Hsiao".72 At first glance, this statement seems irreconcilable with
the fact that he was a member of the lineage of Shih-tsung's "Hsiao"
mother, but it should be remembered that the name Hsiao had only
just been assigned to Empress Ying-t'ien's relatives, and that in the
traditional system of tribal exogamy, what had once been a single
exogamic unit could, after about seven generations, divide into sub-
units which were permitted to intermarry. Thus Shih-tsung's mother
and her relative T'a-la-ko, as descendants of a brother of T'ai-tsu's
69 See LS 5, pp. 64 and 67 n. 1 on Chih-lu's name. LS 67, p. 1033 gives Chih-lu
the title of Northern Prime Minister. As he lived during the eighth century - see
LS 85, p. 1318 and n. 70 below - the title must have been a posthumous one.
70 T'a-la-ko (d. 951) in LS 90, p. 1358 seems to have been confused by the
authors of the Liao-shihwith Hsiao T'a-lieh-ko W; IJU who was Northern Prime
Minister one century later. See LS 85, p. 1318. The confusion occurs in LS 85
and in the table in LS 67, pp. 1033-4 both of which make Hsiao T'a-lieh-ko of
the mid-eleventh century an eighth generation descendant of Chih-lu. The latter
was contemporary of An Lu-shan t [L in the mid-eighth century and his eighth
generation descendant was T'a-la-ko, head of Shih-tsung's third consort lineage.
71 LS 90, p. 1358.
72 Wittfogel and Feng, pp. 238 n. 3 (3) and 452.

60 J. HOLMGREN
great grandfather,73 could have married back into T'ai-tsu's family

(see Diagram 5). In short, it was quite possible for Shih-tsung's
Hsiao mother to have been a member of the Yeh-lu clan.
The third emperor gave his mother's family the name Hsiao first
to boost its respectability vis-a-vis the newly established "traditions"
of Liao, but most importantly to create a new and rival consort
lineage which might weaken the monopoly of Empress Ying-t'ien's
line on marriage relations with the throne. Shih-tsung was not at-
tempting to replace the family of his grandmother with that of his
mother for he did not appoint an empress from his mother's lineage
and none of his mother's relatives were given high office until the
fourth year of his reign.74 While it is possible that later Hsiao officials
whose genealogical positions are now unknown came from Shih-
tsung's third consort lineage,75 nothing more is heard of that lineage
directly. Certainly it provided no empresses for the Liao house
either in Shih-tsung's day or under his successors.
Shih-tsung did not establish a Hsiao woman as empress. Rather,
he appointed one of his Chinese concubines to that position.76 This
was clearly a case of deliberate disregard for the system of marriage
alliances established by his predecessor, and in the following year,
the emperor was faced with rebellion by one of his former supporters,
Hsiao Han.77 The latter was the son of Hsiao Ti-lu, T'ai-tsu's second
Northern Prime Minister. He was thus in the direct line for succes-
sion to that post should T'ai-tsu's promise of hereditary succession
be fulfilled. Being a nephew of Empress Ying-t'ien and a cousin of
T'ai-tsung's late empress, he must also have expected Shih-tsung to
elevate a member of his family to the rank of empress. As we have
seen, it was Hsiao Han who, only a year earlier in T'ai-tsung's time,
had been given the name Hsiao, and his family had been named as
the Senior Patriarchal Household (see Diagram 4) amongst the
consort families which were meant to supply empresses for the
throne. Shih-tsung's action over the consort issue and his attitude
73 LS 67, p. 1033, in its description of the eleventh century individual Hsiao
T'a-lieh-ko whom it confuses with T'a-la-ko (see n. 70 above), refers to him as an
eighth generation descendant of Chih-lu (see n. 69 above). We can thus assume
that Chih-lu was a brother or other close relative of T'ai-tsu's great grandfather,
i.e., a member of the Six Divisions as stated in LS 90, p. 1358.
74 In 951, T'a-la-ko was given the post of Northern Prime Minister. He was
killed in that year by Shih-tsung's assassin. See LS 90, p. 1359. It should be noted
that in 951, the office of Northern Prime Minister no longer headed the official
hierarchy.
75 See n. 105 below.
76 LS 71, p. 1201.
77 LS 5, p. 64, translated Wittfogel and Feng, p. 417.

towards the Hsiao in government, particularly in regard to the post

of Northern Prime Minister (see below), must have rankled consider-
ably with Hsiao Han and his family.
Although the rebellions of 948 and 949 were unsuccessful, Shih-
tsung was nevertheless forced to agree to Hsiao demands that he
set up a Hsiao as empress.78 Thus in 950, a niece of Empress Ying-
t'ien (and cousin of Hsiao Han), i.e., a member of the Junior Patri-
archal Household of the consort clan, was declared empress of the
realm.79 However, Shih-tsung's Chinese consort was never formally
degraded and from 950 to 951 there were two empresses in Liao.
Moreover, the Chinese woman continued to play a prominent part
at court in discussions on political and military affairs.80 The Hsiao
empress played no significant role in court affairs. It would seem that
while Shih-tsung had been forced to compromise in the matter of
nominating a Hsiao woman as empress, the Hsiao had been unable
to force any further concessions from him. It is probable that part
of the emperor's appeal as leader of the Yeh-lu clan and emperor of
the realm in 947 had been his independent spirit and his strength
of will, but as we shall see, this independence and determination
quickly developed into an autocratic style of leadership which was
an anathema to many of those who had supported his accession to
the throne.
Evidence from Mu-tsung's reign also indicates that the concept
of polygamy was still operative within the ranks of the Ch'i-tan elite.
It would seem that the fourth emperor, who came to power in 951,
made use of this concept to maintain a careful balance of power
between his various Hsiao wives. The chapter on empresses in the
Liao-shih contains a biography of a Hsiao woman said to have been
his empress but that biography reveals neither her posthumous title
nor the date of her appointment.81 Moreover, Mu-tsung's annals
contain no reference to the appointment of an empress during his
reign. This suggests that the fourth emperor of Liao, like the second
and fifth emperors of Northern Wei probably had no empress.82
The woman said to have been Mu-tsung's empress is described as
"weak" and "agreeable", unable to regulate the affairs of the inner
apartments.83 Nothing is known about her father, not even his gene-
79 LS 71, p. 1201; LS 5, p. 65; and Diagram 4 below.
80 LS 71, p. 1201.
81 LS 71, p. 1201.
82 See J. Holmgren, "The harem in Northern Wei
politics-398-498 A.D."
Journalof the Economicand SocialHistoryof the Orient,26:1 (1983), 76-7.
83 LS 71, p. 1201.

62 J. HOLMGREN
alogical position within the Hsiao clan. In other words, this woman
had no influence at court, and it seems that Ying-t'ien's family had
no prominent spokeswoman within the harem at this time. Thus,
during the third and fourth reigns, the concept of polygamy reas-
serted itself over the adopted system of monogamy with concubinage.
The reason for this was political: acceptance of polygamy by the
elite was used by the third and fourth emperors to counteract the
influence of the Uighur relatives of the first empress.
It is possible that Mu-tsung's strategy vis-a-vis the Hsiao extended
to sexual avoidance of his Hsiao wives. Certainly he had no sons by
the women in his harem and there is no record of daughters born to
him.84 A later, parallel case can possibly be found in the Ming dy-
nasty in the person of the Cheng-te Emperor. Soulliere has suggested
that Cheng-te's failure to produce children - despite his reputation
for sexual excess - may have been linked to his unorthodox and
"scandalous" behaviour in general, and that this behaviour had
its origins in antagonism towards the constraints imposed upon him
by bureaucrats of his court who attempted to dominate not only
his government but his personal life. Soulliere has suggested that
part of Cheng-te's personal rebellion against these restraints may
have been refusal to produce an heir, thus depriving the dynasty of
one of the mainstays of its stability.85 In Mu-tsung's case, the element
of "disregard for orderly succession" may not be applicable since
collateral claims to the throne were obviously recognized during
early Liao. But if Mu-tsung's childlessness was not merely a case of
infertility, it may well have been the result of resentment against
the Hsiao, in particular against the fact that his chief wives were
all women from the Hsiao clan. The fact that their wives had been
chosen for them during the second reign under the dominion of
Empress Ying-t'ien and the fact that Hsiao power could not be sup-
pressed without serious threat to the stability of the state must have
severely restricted the actions of the third and fourth emperors vis-
a-vis the consort question.
Wittfogel and Feng have pointed out that data on marriage rela-
tions between the Hsiao and the Yeh-lu reveal only marriages in-
volving the Pa-li lineage: there are no records of marriages involving
the I-shih-ssu - descendants of the first husband of Ying-t'ien's
mother. They conclude that the data provided by our sources is
inadequate and that the few "disconnected Hsiao lineages" may
84 See LS 64, pp. 973-88; and LS 65, pp. 999-1001.
85 Ellen F. Soulliere, "Reflections on Chinese despotism and the power of the
inner court", Asian Profile 12:2 (1984) 133-4.

have belonged to either of the two lineages.86 The following para-

graphs discuss this question and argue that at least three Hsiao em-
presses probably came from the I-shih-ssu and that this was part of
the reaction which occurred against the influence of members of the
Pa-li lineage during the third and fourth reigns.
The chief problem in locating members of the I-shih-ssu lineage
lies in identifying the ancestor of the line - the first husband of Em-
press Ying-t'ien's mother. Since the structure of traditional Ch'i-tan
and Uighur society was rigidly patriarchal,87 it is likely that the
consort system was conceived of in terms of a patriarchal social
structure, i.e., in T'ai-tsung's day, the consort lineages formed or
were part of a true patriarchal clan. We also know that the practice
of levirate wherein a widow was given in marriage to a close paternal
relative of her deceased husband was quite common amongst peo-
ples of the northern steppe.88 Thus from this viewpoint also, it is
likely that the first husband of Ying-t'ien's mother was a paternal
relative of the second - a close relative such as brother, son or
nephew. Indeed, one would have to ask why, if the first husband had
not been a relative of Ying-t'ien's father, his descendants would have
been chosen as a consort lineage. The problem lies in the wording
of our text which appearsto divide the two lineages by referring first
to the lineage of Ying-t'ien's father and then to the lineage of her
mother's former husband, suggesting that the only link between the
two was Ying-t'ien's mother.89
Diagram 7 below shows that Ching-tsung's empress, Ch'eng-t'ien,
was a descendant of an uncle of Ying-t'ien's mother's second hus-
band. In other words, if levirate had occurred from uncle to nephew,
as was quite possible in the society of that time, then both Ching-
tsung's empress, and her niece who was empress under Sheng-tsung,
as well as the empress of the last ruler T'ien-tsu, probably came from
the family of the first husband of Ying-t'ien's mother, making them
members of the I-shih-ssu lineage of consort families. Whether or
not this was so, it can be seen that genealogically the empresses of
the fifth, sixth and ninth reigns stand apart from those of the first,
87 See L. Krader, socialOrganization
of theMongol-TurkicPastoralNomads(Uralic
and Altaic Series, Vol. 20, Indiana University Publications, Mouton & Co., The
Hague, 1963).
88 See Wittfogel and Feng, pp. 201 and 211; P. Ratchnevsky, "The levirate
in the legislation of the Yuan dynasty", TamuraHakushiShojutoyoshironso[Asiatic
Studies in honour of Dr. Jitsuzo Tamura] (Tokyo, 1968), pp. 45-62; and Krader,
pp. 24-5, 56, 185-6, and 302.
89 LS 3, p. 36.

64 J. HOLMGREN
second, seventh and eighth. Indeed, if Ching-tsung's empress was

not from the I-shih-ssu lineage, then her family would have had no
kin relationship at all with the established consort lines. Either way,
these marriages were somewhat different from those involving mem-
bers of Ying-t'ien's family. In this respect, it is interesting to see that
Ching-tsung's marriage took place in Mu-tsung's time, during the
period of reaction against the influence of Ying-t'ien and her family.
We can imagine therefore that this marriage was part of the attempt
to widen the boundaries of the consort system.
Under the third and fourth emperors there was further restless-
ness amongst the paternal relatives. As in T'ai-tsu's time, the insti-
gators of these revolts were members of the Third Patriarchal House-
hold (descendants of T'ai-tsu's brothers) but now they were joined
by members of the Horizontal Tents (T'ai-tsu's descendants). These
were the men who, in the traditional system of collateral succession,
had strongest claim to the throne. Wittfogel and Feng have accord-
ingly ascribed the rebellions of this period to the fact that the concept
of succession in the direct line had not yet taken hold in Ch'i-tan
society.90 Such a conclusion is built on the premise that succession
in the direct line had actually taken place at the end of the second
and third reigns, but as we have seen, the third emperor was nephew
of his predecessor while the fourth was cousin of the third. Their
hypothesis also suggests that the traditional system of collateral suc-
cession tended to drive Ch'i-tan society towards chaos and unrest,
i.e., that the office of leader was gained and held only by force. This
is untenable for it ignores the democratic and consensus elements in
the election of Ch'i-tan leaders of which Shih-tsung's elevation to
the throne is a classic example. Equally, it could be argued, from the
work of Wittfogel and Feng itself, that the traditional nomadic system
of collateral succession was flexible enough to incorporate direct
succession when necessary.91 Since the first revolts against Shih-tsung
were for the most part led by men who had actively supported his
assumption of the throne, we must look elsewhere for an explanation
of the rebellions of this period.
As we have seen, one of the leaders of the 948 and 949 rebellions
against the third emperor was Hsiao Han, and his grievances stem-
med in part from the consort issue. Also, in 947, only one month
after his assumption of the throne, Shih-tsung had reorganized the
central government, setting up a Northern Chancellery the chief
office of which was to be ranked higher than that of the Northern
91 Ibid., pp. 17 and 398-400.

Prime Ministry.92 In T'ai-tsu's day, the office of Northern Prime

Minister had headed the official hierarchy in the central government
and it had been promised as a hereditary office to the descendants
of Empress Ying-t'ien's brothers.93 Now, under Shih-tsung, in 947,
it was the Northern Chancellor who held the key position in govern-
ment.94 Moreover, that office was not given to a Hsiao but to one of
the emperor's paternal relatives, a Yeh-lu of the First Patriarchal
Household (see Diagram 2).95 A Chinese who had previously held
a military post was given the comparable post of Southern Chan-
cellor.96 Both these men held their offices into the fourth reign under
Emperor Mu-tsung. Thus Hsiao Han's role in the rebellion of 948
was almost certainly due to unfulfilled expectations about his place
in Shih-tsung's government.
T'ai-tsung's son,T'ien-te t,, who had supported Shih-tsung in
947, is said to have resented the fact that he was not used in the new
government,97 and we can assume from this that similar feelings of
resentment prevailed amongst other leaders of the revolt such as
the sons of Yin-ti-shih.98 Only a few months after Shih-tsung's ac-
cession to the throne, it had become clear that not only was there
to be a reduction in Hsiao influence on the throne, but that the close
paternal relatives would not profit from this. In essence, the issue
in Shih-tsung's time was not one of collateral versus direct succession
but that of shared leadership wherein close paternal relatives might
be given status and authority in the government commensurate with
their traditional eligibility for the supreme office.
Shih-tsung lost whatever opportunity he had had to reconcile the
throne and members of the Third Patriarchal Household. The cir-
cumstances surrounding his murder in 951 reveal that at the time
he was leaning towards an autocratic style of leadership which not
only excluded members of the Third Patriarchal Household from
responsible office but also failed to take into account the wishes of
other tribal leaders in matters crucial to the state's survival: in 951
he was in the process of using his authority as supreme commander
of military affairs and autocratic ruler of a Chinese-style empire to
92 LS 5, p. 64; and Wittfogel and Feng, pp. 440-1, 474 and 474 n. 57.
93 Wittfogel and Feng, pp. 440, 474 n. 61 and n. 64, and 452.
94 See ibid., pp. 440-1. The southern Chancellery was established a few months
later. Ibid., p. 483.
95 See LS 5, p. 64; and LS 77, pp. 1259-61.
96 LTCNP, p. 4; and LS 85, p. 1317. See n. 94 above on the Southern Chancel-
lery.
97 LS 64, p. 980.
98 See LS 113, p. 1508.

66 J. HOLMGREN
force these men to participate against their better judgement in a

southern campaign.99 Thus, the third emperor, who had begun his
reign as a popular leader chosen through the traditional processes
of discussion and conciliation lost his life by adopting a hostile atti-
tude towards the full participation in government of his relatives,
and by attempting to drag them into an unpopular war. These
issues had little bearing on the acceptance or otherwise by the Ch'i-
tan of the concept of succession in the direct line.
Shih-tsung had had no time during his four year reign to declare
his attitude towards the succession, and on his death, his assassin
declared himself emperor. This was unacceptable to most leaders
and he was soon murdered and replaced by T'ai-tsung's eldest son,
Emperor Mu-tsung.100 We know that Mu-tsung ascended the throne
with the approval of officials of Shih-tsung's court, but the attitude
of members of the Horizontal Tents and Third Patriarchal House-
hold - the close paternal relatives - is less clear. By this time, there
were three different "imperial lines" from which to choose an em-
peror. In part this was the result of actions by the first empress at the
time of T'ai-tsu's death. These lines were 1) that of T'ai-tsung, Ying-
t'ien's second son; 2) that of Li-hu, Ying-t'ien's third son who had
been proclaimed heir to the throne in 930; and 3) that of Emperor
Shih-tsung who had been selected as emperor in the traditional
manner. Shih-tsung's line also had the advantage of having been
named as the imperial line during the first reign by Emperor T'ai-
tsu. T'ai-tsung's line suffered from the fact that none of its members
had even been proclaimed heir to the throne, while Li-hu's line
suffered from the fact that none of its members had ever ascended
the throne (see Diagram 6). Given this situation, it is not surprising
that Mu-tsung found the early years of his reign beset by rebellion.
However, once he had proven himself capable of holding the leader-
ship, the number of rebellions against him tapered away dramati-
cally. Only the first three years of his 18 year reign were marred by
unrest, with one other rebellion occurring during the tenth year.10'
There were, however, other factors in the unrest against Mu-
tsung. It seems that while the fourth emperor made some attempt to
reconcile the power of the throne with the expectations in govern-
ment of his younger uterine brother,'02 he did little else to alter the
99 Tzu-chiht'ung-chienWAM (Chung-hua shu-chu, Hong Kong, 1971), pp.

9462-3; and LS 5, p. 66.
100 See LS 113, p. 1500.
101 See Wittfogel and Feng, pp. 417-8, translations from LS 6, pp. 70-2 and
76.
102 See LS 64, p. 979.

practices of Shih-tsung's reign: the office of Southern Prime Min-

ister remained outside the province of the paternal relatives as did
that of Southern Chancellor,103 and the emperor continued to
patronize distantly related Yeh-lu kin104 and Hsiao from honorific
or humble backgrounds.105 His policy towards his younger brother,
Yen-sa-ko VO;, seems to have worked - at least for a time. Cer-
tainly, Yen-sa-ko was implicated in the rebellion of 953 but only
on the testimony of ringleaders of the revolt after the event. As a
result of that testimony, he was exiled to the northern frontier.106
No doubt Yen-sa-ko's implication in the rebellion of 953 increased
Mu-tsung's determination not to trust his close paternal relatives.107
However, apart from the revolt of 960, there were no further attacks
on his position, and it is possible that in the last years of his life, his
attitude began to change: in this period we find the office of Southern
Prime Minister returning to a Yeh-lu, albeit a distant relative,108
103 The post of Southern Prime Minister continued to be held by a Chinese
until 955. This official had previously served T'ai-tsu and Ying-t'ien during
T'ai-tsung's time. It would seem that after 955 the post was suspended for over
a decade. In 968, the year before Mu-tsung's death, it was returned to a member
of the Yeh-lii clan. He held that post until his death some two decades later.
See LS 84, p. 1307. The post of Southern Chancellor under Mu-tsung was held
by a Chinese until 952 and was resumed by that same official in 968. See L TCNP,
pp. 4-7.
104 Yeh-luiWu-chih held the office of Northern Great King from 955. See n. 49
above. Yeh-lui Ta-lieh 1 from the Six Divisions of Paternal Relatives,
held that of Southern Great King. See LTCNP, pp. 4-5.
105 After Yeh-lti An-tuan 9M%WN died in 953, Mu-tsung gave his post of
Northern Chancellor to Hsiao Hu-ssu AWA (d. 962). See LTCNP, p. 4. The
latter, according to Wittfogel and Feng, p. 452 and 491, was an honorific Hsiao.
See LS 78, p. 1266 for his biography. In 955, Mu-tsung revived the post of North-
ern Prime Minister and gave it to Hsiao Hai-li &VR. He kept that office until
his death in 967. See LS 6, p. 73; and LTCNP, pp. 4-5. Hsiao Hai-li is described
by Wittfogel and Feng as a man "whose father held a minor tribal office" (p.
452, based on LS 78, p. 1266). It is possible that his father, T'a-lieh 4"N, who
held that office at the beginning of T'ai-tsung's reign, is the same man as the
T'a-la-ko or T'a-lieh (d. 951) discussed above (see n. 70 and n. 74 above). This
would coincide with the timing of and provide a reason for Hai-li's marriage to
An-tuan's daughter in Shih-tsung's day. See LS 78, p. 1266. It would also mean
that Hai-li was not from a minor Hsiao family but from the third consort lineage-
an honorific Hsiao, and that the office of Northern Prime Minister during the third
and fourth reigns had passed from father to son within the third consort lineage
(with the post being suspended between the death of T'a-la-ko in 951 and Hai-li's
appointment in 955).
106 See LS 64, p. 969; and LS 6, p. 72.
107 See LS 78, pp. 1265-6; and Wittfogel and Feng, p. 257 n. 60 on Yeh-lu
I-la-ko 9f441, a palace menial upon whom Mu-tsung came to rely greatly
in the latter part of his reign.
108 LS 84, p. 1307.

68 J. HOLMGREN
and, in 967, the office of Northern Prime Minister being given to

Hsiao Kan W (d. 986), a nephew of Empress Ying-t'ien.109 How-
ever, it should also be noted that the higher-ranking offices of North-
ern and Southern Chancellor remained beyond the reach of both
Ying-t'ien's family and the close paternal relatives up to the time of
Mu-tsung's death in 969.
Mu-tsung was murdered by his personal attendants on 21 March
969. Details of the event are not clear. Wittfogel and Feng relate
it to the emperor's earlier conflicts with his paternal relatives - to
the rebellions which had occurred between 951 and 953 and again
in 960.110 However, it seems more likely that the disaffection of his
attendants stemmed from his increasing dependence upon alcohol,
his acts of sadism when drunk and his general unfitness to rule during
the last years of his life."'
We have seen that Shih-tsung and Mu-tsung attempted to weaken
the influence of the first consort family not by replacing it with
another powerful consort clan or by patronizing the close paternal
relatives but by employing "honorific Hsiao" and Hsiao from minor
families in the government. Those Hsiao in the highest ranks of the
central government were honorific members of the clan created
mainly from distant branches of the Yeh-lu. In short, these emperors
used T'ai-tsu's strategy of employing distant Yeh-lu kin not only
to control the close paternal relatives, but to weaken the power of
the designated consort clan. This is most evident in Shih-tsung's
creation of the third consort lineage. Imperial patronage was also
extended to the less powerful of the two designated consort lineages
of 935 - the I-shih-ssu. Apart from the I-shih-ssu, marriages were
also concluded with "Hsiao" who were right outside the designated
lineages.'12 Thus this was the crucial formative period for the Hsiao
as a clan; it was an aggregate of individuals and lineages held to-
gether by the adoption of a common surname and by both real and
fictive kin relationships.
Apart from strategies concerning the Hsiao, Shih-tsung and Mu-
tsung continued to favour distantly related Yeh-lu and those from
more humble backgrounds in office, and both continued to employ
Chinese from military backgrounds in the government, although on
a considerably reduced scale to that under Empress Ying-t'ien in
the preceding era. We can thus imagine that the attitudes and
policies entertained by these rulers resulted in a significant degree
109 LTCNP, p. 5; and LS 83, p. 1299.
111 See LS 7, pp. 84-7; and LS 78, p. 1267.
112 See n. 105 above on Hsiao Hai-li and his marriage to An-tuan's daughter.

of social and political mobility within the established ranks of the

elite. In the following era, this political and social mobility was to
be drastically curtailed with the return to power of Empress Ying-
t'ien's relatives and the promulgation of further restrictions on the
range of marriage alliances available to the imperial house: the
height of Hsiao power in the latter part of the sixth and during the
seventh reign coincides with repression of the relatively liberal at-
titude towards social status and political rank witnessed in the
early part of the dynasty.
of themodel- The lateryears

Reaffirmationand development
During the latter part of the sixth reign, the family of Empress
Ying-t'ien re-emerged as the leading political force at court and in
the government. The process was long and complicated. As we have
seen, it may have begun as early as 967 with Hsiao Kan's return to
office as Northern Prime Minister. However, in 969, upon Mu-
tsung's death, Hsiao Kan lost that office, and although he and his
nephew played an important role in Liao military campaigns during
the fifth reign under Emperor Ching-tsung,113 it was not until the
death of Ching-tsung's empress in the latter half of the sixth reign
that Ying-t'ien's family and the Hsiao in general returned to the
forefront of Liao politics.
A second step in the reassertion of Hsiao influence came in 969
with the accession of Emperor Ching-tsung and the appointment of
his father-in-law, Hsiao Ssu-wen ,9T, (d. 970), as Northern Prime
Minister, Northern Chancellor and Director of the Masters of
Writing.114Yet Hsiao Ssu-wen was not a member of the Pa-li lineage,
and he did not become Northern Prime Minister in accordance with
the principal of hereditary selection. Rather his posts were rewards
for his part in Ching-tsung's successful assumption of the throne.1"5
His position at court was an anomaly and upon his death in 990,
his posts were given to members of the Yeh-lu clan."16
113 See LS 84, pp. 1309-10.
114 See LTCNP, P. 5.
115 See LS 78, pp. 1267-8; and LS 8, p. 89.
116 Here, I disgree with Wittfogel and Feng, p. 452, who state that "The
principle of special (family) prerogative found increasing recognition with
Ching-tsung's accession to the throne. In 969 Hsiao Ssu-wen was granted the
hereditary claim to the Northern Prime Ministry . .. in 986 ... [his] adopted
son, Chi-hsien ft, was assigned to the northern office ..." As noted above,
Hsiao Ssu-wen died in 970, leaving a gap of some 16 years before his son's ap-
pointment during which time the post was held by Chinese. Secondly, the year
986 was already four years into Emperor Sheng-tsung's reign. Finally, according

70 J. HOLMGREN
Hsiao Ssu-wen's daughter, Empress Ch'eng-t'ien, came to power

in 982 in the classical Chinese manner as empress-dowager and
regent for her young son, and between 982 and the year of her death
in 1009 she continued the policies of previous rulers in patronizing
distantly related and honorific Yeh-lu for the highest offices.117She
also looked favourably upon the Chinese. Han Te-jang intf, who
had been elevated to the position of Southern Chancellor by Ching-
tsung in 980, gradually became all powerful under her rule. As we
have seen, it had become almost customary for the office of Southern
Chancellor to be given to a Chinese,118 but in 985, 986 and 994 Han
Te-jang also assumed other key offices in addition to that of Southern
Chancellor. When Yeh-lu Hsieh-chen died in 999, he added the title
of Northern Chancellor to his already long list of offices. In 1001, he
was given the highest honorary tribal title ofyii-yiiehfS, and in 1004
was made an honorary member of the Third Patriarchal House-
hold.119 Apart from Han Te-jang, Shih Fang R,, Liu Ju WIJg, and
members of the Hsing 3:,Band Ma X families, the empress-dowager
also patronized Wang Chi-chung T*,! who had been captured
from Sung in 1003. Later, he too was made an honorary member of
the Yeh-lu clan.120
As Wittfogel and Feng have noted, by the end of the eleventh
century, the Han clan had furnished seven Prime Ministers, nine
Masters of Court Etiquette and more than 100 ministers and generals
for Liao.121The family had begun its climb to power under T'ai-tsu;
Han Te-jang's grandfather having been captured by one of Empress
Ying-t'ien's brothers and his father having been treated like one of
Ying-t'ien's own sons,'22 it was under Ch'eng-t'ien during the early
to LTCNP, pp. 8-9, and as admitted by Wittfogel and Feng, p. 452, Hsiao Chi-
hsien never took full responsibility for that office except between the years 1001
and 1004. After Hsiao Ssu-wen's death the post of Northern Chancellor went to
Yeh-li Hsien-shih 9M(A and then in 979 to Yeh-li Hsieh-chen. See LTCNP,
pp. 5-6; and n. 156 below.
117 See for example LS 83, pp. 1302-3 and n. 156 below on Yeh-luiHsieh-chen
a grandson of Yeh-lui Ho-lu (n. 16 above); and LS 79, pp. 1274-5 for the bio-
graphy of Yeh-lu A-mo-li MMVJa. The latter was a descendant of a Yao-lien
chieftain and thus an honorific Yeh-lu. Except where otherwise indicated, the
following discussion about offices in the Liao government under Empress Ch'eng-
t'ien is based on the tables in LTCNP, pp. 5-8.
118 See LS 8, p. 89; and LTCNP, pp. 5-6.
119 See Wittfogel and Feng, p. 259 n. 76; and LS 82, pp. 1289-90.
120 See Wittfogel and Feng, p. 231 n. 33; and LS 81, pp. 1284-5. In 1016, an-
other Chinese was made an honorary member of the Yeh-lu clan in reward for a
courageous deed concerning the emperor's safety. See LS 81, p. 1286.
121 Wittfogel and Feng, p. 240 n. 21.
122 LS 74, pp. 1233-4.

part of the sixth reign that the family began to attain the highest
ranking posts in the Liao bureaucracy. We can imagine that patron-
age of men from Chinese military backgrounds was part of a strategy
adopted by Hsiao consorts to maintain and extend their control
over government affairs. Such men stood outside the complex hi-
erarchy of the Ch'i-tan elite and were thus solely dependent upon
favour bestowed by their benefactors. In this respect, it is interesting
to see that Ch'eng-t'ien attempted to incorporate some of these men
into the established kinship structure, and that these men in turn
adopted the practice of recommending distant Yeh-lu for office
rather than those to the throne.123
Ch'eng-t'ien's second son, Yeh-lu Lung-ch'ing (d. 1016), was the
only prince of the house to have his own ordo, i.e, to have control of
a regular or permanent military force. This is surely a reflection of
his mother's great power during Sheng-tsung's time. She had her
own ordo and played a regular role in military affairs even to the
extent of participating in and directing military campaigns.'24 Her
two younger sons both participated in military campaigns during
her time as empress-dowager,125 and it seems that she was schooling
them for prominent positions in the government after her death - or
after that of Sheng-tsung. This is reflected in Lung-ch'ing's position
as Grand Commander-in-chief after 1011 and in his posthumous
title of huang-t'ai-ti (Grand Imperial Brother) in 101 7.126 Formerly,
the post of Grand Commander-in-chief had been held by T'ai-tsung
after his elder brother had been proclaimed heir to the throne in
916, and then by Li-hu from the year of his appointment as T'ai-
tsung's heir in 930.127It should be noted, however, that Lung-ch'ing's
title of huang-t'ai-ti was only granted after his death (see below) and
that apart from his post as Grand Commander-in-Chief, his other
offices in the government after his mother's death in 1009 dealt
solely with the Chinese administration and he held no great political
power.128 Moreover, although his younger brother, Lung-yu FkSf
(d. 1012), was given temporary control over the Northern Chancel-
lery as Director of its affairs upon Han Te-jang's death in 1011,
123 See for example Han Te-jang's recommendation of Yeh-lu Ti-lu f14,$
who was a member of the Five Divisions of paternal relatives. Hsiao Ho-cho
WP# had also been recommended to the throne by Han Te-jang. See LS 81,
p. 1286.
124 See Wittfogel and Feng, p. 200; and LS 82, pp. 1290-5.
125 See LS 64, pp. 986-8.
126 Ibid., p. 987.
128 On his offices of Grand Preceptor and Chief of the Political Council from
1012 (LS 64, p. 987), see Wittfogel and Feng, pp. 446-7.

72 J. HOLMGREN
Sheng-tsung soon appointed Yeh-lu from outside the Horizontal

Tents to fill that post.129Han Te-jang's place as Southern Chancellor
was filled by a Chinese.130 Thus, it seems that while Ch'eng-t'ien
had coached her younger sons for important positions in the govern-
ment, Sheng-tsung was wary of granting them too much power in
the administration.
To help perpetuate her father's line as a consort family, Empress
Ch'eng-t'ien followed the example set by Empress Ying-t'ien in
having her son take a member of her own family - her niece - as his
principal wife. However, her family was to lose its position to Ying-
t'ien's family in the following reign. In part this was because her
niece failed to produce an heir'31 and the succession went to the son
of a concubine Ch'in-ai who was a descendant of one of Ying-t'ien's
brothers (see Diagram 7). Apart from this, Ch'eng-t'ien's line was
also disadvantaged by the early death of her adopted brother Hsiao
Chi-hsien. The latter had obtained the post of Northern Prime Min-
ister in 986, four years after his sister had come to power.132 With
his death in 1010, the office went temporarily to a member of Ch'in-
ai's family and was then shared between Ch'in-ai's family and offi-
cials of Chinese origin. From 1016, however, when Ch'in-ai's son
was proclaimed heir to the throne, her family had a virtual mono-
poly on that post.133 Ch'in-ai also had the advantage of having
numerous brotlhers and uncles some of whom had been patronized
for high office by Ch'eng-t'ien herself. Thus Hsiao Ssu-wen's family
was in no position to defend its protege, Ch'eng-t'ien's childless
niece, in the struggle for power after Sheng-tsung's death in 1031.
This struggle saw the re-emergence of Ying-t'ien's relatives as the
leading consort lineage and one of the most politically powerful
families of the Liao realm.134
Hsiao influence on the throne was not affected by Ch'in-ai's
temporary banishment from court in 1034 (see below), and Hsing-
129 See LTCNP, p. 9; LS 15, p. 169; and LS 64, p. 988.

130 LTCNP, p. 9.
131 She had two children who died in infancy. See LS 71, p. 1202.
132 For details on his position as Northern Prime Minister between 986 and
1010, see n. 116 above.

133 See LTCNP, pp. 9-10 ff; and Wittfogel and Feng, p. 453.
134 LS 71, pp. 1202-3. Ch'in-ai's brother, Hsiao Hsiao-hsien At, played a
leading role in this struggle. See LS 87, p. 1333. Later, he tried to help Ch'in-ai
overthrow Hsing-tsung in favour of Ch'in-ai's second son Chung-yuian IG (see
below). At this time, Hsing-tsung's appointed empress was forced to step down in
favour of Ch'in-ai's niece. See LS 71, pp. 1204-5. See also LS 88, p. 1343 on Ch'in-
ai's cousin who lost his life because he had been favoured by Hsing-tsung's first
empress.

Empress Ying-t 'ien 's Mother
First Husband + + Second Husband
_
X
I I I
I T ~~~~~~~~~~~~T
X
,
l T'ai-tsu + Ying-tlie. Hio
i- lu
(Hsiao)
A-ku- ch ih
Chih-lu
| | 7~~~~~~e-l i+ PeBi
Senior Junior
elder elder Senior Junior
Household Househotld Patriarchal
F Patriarchal
| ~~~~~Hou
sehold Household
n(Ch' it-ls
ttfamtily)
I-shih-ssu Branch Fifth Household Pa-li Branch
THE FIVE HOUSEHOLDSOF IMPERIAL MATERNALUNCLES
Diagram 4 The Chief Consort Lineages in Early

Liao (c. 950 A.D.)
Yeh-iA (posth. Su-tsu)
Yet-iA (posth. 1-tsu) Yeh-li A
Yeh-li (posth. Hsuan-tsu) Yeth-li B
Yeh-iA (posth. Te-tsu) Ye-Iu C
YhlulA-pao-chi (posth. T'ai-tsu) Yeh-lul D
Yeh-li Pei + Lady Yeh-li/Hsiaot
Emperor Shih-tsung THIRD CONSORTLINEAGE

(r. 947-951) (Fifth Household of
I
~~~~Imperial
Maternal
| ~~~~~~~Unclles
)
IMPERIALLINE
Diagram 5 Traditional Chi-tan Exogamy:

Creation of the Third Consort Lineage
T'ai-tsu Ying-t'ien
(emperor from 907 to 926) (empress from 907 to 926;
empress-dottager from 926 to 947)
Pei T'ai-tsung Li-hV

(heir-apparent (emperor from 927 to 947) (heir-apparent
from 916 to 927) from 930 to 947)
Vhih -tsung
(empe rorfrom 947 to 951)
Diagram 6 Imperial Lines in Liao at the

End of the Third Reign (951 A.D.)

74 J. HOLMGREN
tsung's reign witnessed the full development of Hsiao power and

authority in Liao.135 It is surely no coincidence that the beginning
of this era - the last years of the sixth reign after the death of Empress
Ch'eng-t'ien - saw refinements to the marriage system which greatly
strengthened the position of the Hsiao, in particular that of Ch'in-
ai's family as the leading consort lineage within the Hsiao clan:
in 1019, a decree was issued which stated that henceforth members
of the Horizontal Tents and Three Patriarchal Households were no
longer to intermarry with "lesser tents and lineages".136 Presumably
the latter referred to lesser lineages of the Hsiao clan and to the more
distant and humble Yeh-lii lineages whose members were probably
still marrying back into the Horizontal Tents and Three Patriarchal
Households. At the same time, debate arose about the relative status
of sons of wives vis-a-vis sons of concubines.137 This was a matter of
vital concern to the distribution of power within the consort clan
and it is interesting to see that the decree of 1019 also states that all
marriage contracts involving members of the leading Yeh-lu lineages
had to be submitted to the throne for scrutiny.
In 1024, Sheng-tsung drew up a set of genealogical tables for the
imperial clan in an attempt to distinguish between the descendants
of wives and those of concubines.138 This rneasure was to eliminate
the last vestiges of polygamy from the upper-strata of Liao society
and effect a radical change in the earlier liberal attitude towards
upward social and political mobility: in 1027 it was decided that
status should be determined primarily by the mother's rank, and that
sons of concubines would henceforth be excluded from hereditary
selection for office.139As a corollary, low and common persons were
not to hold office in the administrations of what were to be known as
the noble lineages of the empire - the four leading Yeh-lu lineages,
the two chief consort lineages, and the households of the Northern
and Southern Great Kings.140 In the past, offices deemed "here-
ditary" had been open to any member of the family or lineage to
which it had been assigned, and, as we have seen, men from other
lineages or other tribes could always be given such an office by being
135 See Wittfogel and Feng, pp. 419 n. 97, 288 n. 7, and 452 on her family
and the Northern Prime Ministry; also n. 144 below.

136 LS 16, p. 186, translated Wittfogel and Feng, p. 232.

138 Ibid., p. 233.
139 Idem.
140 Idem.Wittfogel and Feng, p. 191 suggest that the four "leading" lineages
the Horizontal Tents and the Three Patriarchal Households - were set above and
apart from the "noble" lineages. Nevertheless, it is clear that the four leading
lineages were included in the intention of the decree (LS 17, p. 203).

made honorary members of the appropriate group. This had been

the practice during the first, third and fourth reigns when both
honorific Hsiao and honorific Yeh-lu had been employed on a con-
siderable scale in the central government, and it had been an in-
valuable strategy for promoting loyalty to the throne in the early
part of the dynasty. Psychologically, however, its cumulative effect
was to raise the status of the Hsiao and Yeh-lu above all other line-
ages and tribal groups in the empire.
It should not be thought that Ch'i-tan society, either traditionally
or during early Liao, was not stratified; only that political mobility
was seen as both desirable and necessary between the various ranks
of the elite. The main criterion for upward mobility was military
and political capability, and it was in this sense that social equality
was seen to exist between all members of the elite.141 This attitude
underwent a profound change during the sixth reign and nowhere
is this more evident than in the laws and decrees on marriage and
office passed during Sheng-tsung's time. The effect of these laws was
to preserve the status quo of the leading Hsiao lineage in its social
and political relationship with the throne by placing further re-
strictions on the kinds of marriage available to members of the
imperial house and by tightening up the liberal attitude towards
office which had marked the early part of the dynasty.
Diagram 7 below illustrates the result of the more restrictive
marriage policy operating from Sheng-tsung's time. Sheng-tsung
had married a niece of his mother - his mother's brother's daughter.
His son also had as chief consort a daughter of his mother's brother,
while the eighth emperor married a daughter of his father's mother's
brother: his wife was his mother's paternal cousin and his father's
maternal cousin. Relations between princesses of the imperial house
and Ch'in-ai's family were similarly complex. For example, Ch'in-
ai' s daughter, princess Yen-mu-chin WxN*, mnarried as her third
husband one of her mother's nephews, and then married as her
fourth husband her former husband's uncle - i.e., one of her mother's
brothers.142This last husband became the father-in-law of Ch'in-ai's
grandson Emperor Tao-tsung (see Diagram 8).143 The monopoly
held by Chiin-ai's family on marriage connections with the imperial
line coincided with the peak of Hsiao influence both at court and
in the government, and with a virtual monopoly by Ch'in-ai's family
on the post of Northern Prime Minister.'44 It also coincided with a
141 See Wittfogel and Feng, p. 454.
142 LS 65, pp. 1003-4, translated Wittfogel and Feng, p. 266.
143 See LS 71, p. 1205.
144 Altogether, from 1005 to 1077, the descendants of A-ku-chih supplied

76 J. HOLMGREN
Hsiao Wei-ning Emperor Te-tsu + 9 "Hsiao"
X Hs i.. Shen-ssu ,l
Hsiao P'o-ku + 9 Yeh-li
Hsiao Ti-lu, Hsia o Shih-1u
Hsiao A-ku-chih 9 Hsiao + Empe_or

Ying-t'e6 Ta-s
Hs,ia. Ssu-wen
+psia o+ Emperor
TI.i-ts.ng Yeh-16 "Hia,"
E.pe,or Mu-tsu,ng
9$ Hsia + Emperor Shih-tsung
Hsiao Ch'en-yin a
T'ao-kuei i?
Hsiao + Emperor Ching-tsung
Ch'eng-t 'ien |5
iIHsiao
Ch' in -(ai
Hsiao lisiao
Em,press Hs iao-mu E+mperor Sh ng-t-sung
.len-te zia
i
(m.
Sheng- HII
H, ia
ts-g) 9
96~~~~~~~~ +Eer. r Hsing-tsung
H,i.. + Em,peror Tao-t-ung
(2. 1056) 0 ~-++-+ 5+8
Diagram 7 Liao Marriage Strategy-An Illustration*
Hs iao T 'ao-kue i
|Ch ' i.ai + Sheng-tsu,ng + n6e Hs.ia.
Hs iao- Hs i.. Hs iao-
Y*r Ptr oincess + Hsiao

**This darm de ntso alm rigsw ih curbHs iao-
Hfi Hsiao
Ppincess + hsien
( d. 1056 ) Yen-..-ch in
| ne Hsiao + Hs ing-tsung
Empress Jen-i
l ~~~~~Princess
+ Hsiao Hsng-
Hs iao + Pr inceSss
Hu-tu Yen-mu-chin
( d.1063)
nee Hsiao + Tao-tsung

Empress Hsuan-i I
Diagram 8 Marriage Ties of Ch'in-ai's Family**
*numbers refer to reigning emperors in order of accession to the throne
**This diagram does not show all marriages which occurred between Ch'in-ai's
family and the imperial line.

restriction on the practice of granting the name Hsiao to members

of other tribes, for in the latter part of the sixth and in the seventh
reign only the Great Kings of the Hsi 5 tribe which had had mar-
riage relations with the Ch'i-tan elite in the days before the founding
of the dynasty were given the name Hsiao.145 Other honorific Hsiao
in the latter part of the dynasty rose to power either during the time
of Empress Ch'eng-t'ien or in the period after Ch'in-ai's death in
1057.146
While Diagram 7 illustrates the complexities of kinship ties be-
tween the imperial house and Ch'in-ai's branch of the Hsiao clan
during the seventh and eighth reigns, it is somewhat misleading in
its representation of the early years of the dynasty for it fails to in-
dicate differences within Liao vis-a-vis marriage policy. In parti-
cular, the diagram contains no hint of the reaction against Hsiao
influence during the third and fourth reigns and fails to take into
account the effect of kinship strategy on the marriage system. Rather
it presents a uniform picture of Liao marriage strategy throughout
the dynasty.
It is possible that the reaction against the Hsiao which we have
seen during the time of the third and fourth emperors reappeared
in a somewhat milder form during the latter part of the eighth reign,
for the empress of Tao-tsung's successor came not from Ch'in-ai's
family but was a descendant of Hsiao Ssu-wen, the father of Ching-
tsung's empress, (see Diagram 7).147 Moreover, in Tao-tsung's time,
when it was suggested that the system of clan names with its related
marriage laws be extended to cover other tribal groups in the em-
pire, the emperor rejected the idea. It is said that he considered
the proposal too revolutionary for the more traditional tribal
peoples,148 but it is also possible that he had an unfavourable view
of many of the decrees and laws which had been passed in Sheng-
tsung's time149 and which had imposed upon him as his empress a
woman who was cousin of both his mother and father. However,
11 men for that post. These included Ch'in-ai's five brothers as well as two
nephews and a grandnephew. Some of Ch'in-ai's relatives also obtained the
post of Northern Chancellor during this period. See Wittfogel and Feng, p. 452.
145 See LS 85, p. 1314; and LS 87, p. 1335.
146 See for example LS 81, pp. 1286-7; and LS 99, p. 1419.
147 LS 71, p. 1206.
148 Wittfogel and Feng, p. 264. Another indication of Tao-tsung's attempt to
break the domination of Ch'in-ai's family can be seen in his appointment of a

Chinese to the post of Northern Prime Minister in 1058. See LTCNP, p. 16;
and LS 96, p. 1403.
149 Wittfogel and Feng, pp. 199 and 236 n. 65, show that Tao-tsung considered
traditional Ch'i-tan culture to be as good as that of Chinese.

78 J. HOLMGREN
whatever Tao-tsung's personal view of the marriage system, and

despite the fact that his grandson's empress was not from his mo-
ther's family, it can be seen that Liao consorts continued to play an
important part in court politics until the very end of the dynasty.
The following section discusses the role of each Hsiao consort in the
politics of succession and the impact of her actions on subsequent
succession strategies.
Influenceof Hsiao consortson Liao successionstrategy
In theory, the propensity of Hsiao consorts to take control of the

military could have had some effect on the outcome of succession
disputes, but in practice, the chief factors which shaped Ch'i-tan
succession during Liao were the more subtle political actions taken
by these women during the husband's life-time. As we have seen,
Ying-t'ien managed to have her second son, T'ai-tsung, rather than
her husband's nominated heir come to the throne in 927. Then,
during T'ai-tsung's reign, before the birth of his son, she had her
third son, Li-hu, given the title huang-t'ai-ti (Grand Imperial Bro-
ther) in preparation for his assumption of the throne should T'ai-
tsung die. She was unsuccessful in having Li-hu ascend the throne
primarily because he was unacceptable to the majority of Ch'i-tan
leaders. Ying-t'ien was ousted from power and the third and possibly
the fourth emperors came to the throne as leaders elected along more
traditional lines. Hsiao consorts played no role in the politics of
succession during this period. From the fifth reign, however, the
strategy adopted by Empress Ying-t'ien of nominating a close col-
lateral relative of the emperor as huang-t'ai-ti or huang-t'ai-shuYjc4
became, in modified form, a standard part of Liao succession pro-
cedure in an attempt to come to terms with the expectations in
government of the paternal relatives.
During the fifth and sixth reigns under Emperors Ching-tsung and
Sheng-tsung, the state was virtually free from serious rebellion by the
paternal relatives, and the Liao government attained a stability
which had not been current either in T'ai-tsu's day or during the
third and fourth reigns.150 Although this stability coincided with
the reappearance of influential Hsiao consorts and a gradual
strengthening of Hsiao influence at the central levels of government,
there were other factors which contributed to the stability of the
government after Ching-tsung's accession to the throne. One very
150 Only one revolt occurred - that of 981 by Li-hu's son. Significantly, in this
last attempt to take the throne, Li-hu's family was not supported by other paternal
relatives but by rebellious Chinese soldiers. See ibid., pp. 402-3 and 418.

important element was the absence of other serious contenders for

the throne: Mu-tsung had had no sons and the brothers, uncles and
cousins of Ching-tsung's father, the late Emperor Shih-tsung, had
exhausted themselves in rebellion during the early years of the
fourth reign.15' There was only Ching-tsung's half-brother, the son
of Shih-tsung's Chinese empress. Clearly, he would have been
unacceptable to the Yeh-lii, the Hsiao and to almost all leaders of the
Ch'i-tan and non-Chinese tribes.152 In short, there were no close
paternal relatives who could have effectively challenged the 21 year
old Ching-tsung for the throne in 969.
In 982 the situation was as it had been at the time of Mu-tsung's
death in 969: apart from Sheng-tsung, the only possible candidate for
the throne within the Horizontal Tents was Ching-tsung's half-
brother. Opening up competition for the throne to members of the
First and Second Patriarchal Households would have resulted in
internecine war tearing the dynasty apart. In this respect, the claim
by Wittfogel and Feng that Sheng-tsung's accession was contested
by a coalition of paternal uncles and cousins and that Sheng-tsung's
mother, Empress Ch'eng-t'ien, used Liao troops led by the Chinese
Han Te-jang to break up opposition to her son's enthronement153
needs further consideration. The source for their claim was the
Ch'i-tan kuo-chihl54 which states that during Ching-tsung's last
illness, Han Te-jang recommended a series of protectives moves for
the empress: the princes were to be sent to their individual resi-
dences. They were to have their particular military commands
revoked and to be denied the right of assembly. The children and
wives of princes outside the capital were to be summoned to the
palace (as hostages).155 Other sources confirm that there was tension
amongst the Yeh-lu at this time and that the empress feared for her
son's future. However, they also reveal that the empress received
support from members of the Yeh-lu clan, in particular from the
Northern Chancellor of the time, Yeh-lu Hsieh-chen.'56 Ch'i-tan
151 See LS 64, pp. 973-86; and the biographies of princes in LS 72, pp. 1213-4,
LS 112, pp. 1499-1501, and LS 113, pp. 1507-10. Also Wittfogel and Feng, pp.
417-8.
152 See LS 64, pp. 985-6.
154 CTKC, 18, 2a (p. 132).
155 CTKC, 18, p. 132.
156 LS 71, p. 1202. On the authority of the Northern Chancellor in
military
matters, see Wittfogel and Feng, p. 474. Yeh-lui Hsieh-chen was a member of the
SixDivisions of paternal relatives.He had been recommmended to the throne by
the empress' father. His wife was a niece of the empress and it seems that he owed
his position at court to the Hsiao family. See n. 116 and n. 16 above. See LS

80 J. HOLMGREN
kuo-chih has exaggerated the importance of Han Te-jang's role in

Sheng-tsung's accession by neglecting the fact that there were no
other real alternatives for the throne in 982.
In short, we cannot know whether the system of primogeniture
was acceptable to the majority of Ch'i-tan leaders during the latter
half of the dynasty. We only know that in practice, succession during
later Liao followed that pattern. One reason for this was the fact
that after Sheng-tsung, all rulers were adults when their predecessors
died. Under these conditions, primogeniture as a theoretical prin-
ciple was never fully put to the test: only when an eldest son or
grandson comes to the throne as a child in preference to and with the
willing consent of an older uncle or cousin can the concept of pri-
mogeniture be said to have been fully accepted by a ruling elite of
non-Chinese origins.
Wittfogel and Feng state that from T'ai-tsu's time, the eldest
son was designated as heir-apparent,l57 but in fact only two em-
perors followed T'ai-tsu's example. The first was the sixth ruler
Sheng-tsung and it is probable that his actions were influenced or
dictated by the wishes of his wife Ch'in-ai, the mother of his heir.
The other case occurred in the eighth reign under Tao-tsung and
this action was also dictated to some extent by the activities of
Ch'in-ai. Emperor Hsing-tsung, the seventh ruler, left a last will
stating that his son should succeed him,158 and we have evidence
that Hsing-tsung certainly approved of succession in the direct
line.'59 He did not, however, proclaim his eldest son as heir to the
throne in the normal Chinese manner. Again, Ch'in-ai was in-
volved in this decision (see below). Thus it would seem that during
the latter part of the dynasty, Liao emperors intended and/or
hoped that their sons would succeed them, but due to their respect
for Ch'i-tan tradition or fear of resentment amongst the paternal
relatives, they sometimes refrained from making a formal announce-
ment to this effect.
When Ching-tsung came to the throne in 969, he had his deceased
older brother given the posthumous title of huang-t'ai-tzu (Grand
Imperial Son).160 Clearly, this was intended to legitimize his own
claim to the throne. As mentioned above, his grandfather had been
83, pp. 1302-3 for his biography.

158 LS 20, p. 248.
159 During a conversation with a Sung envoy in 1054, the
emperor had noted
with approval that the second and third Sung rulers had been father and son.
Wittfogel and Feng, p. 415 n. 50.
160 LS 64, p. 985.

given that title in 916 by the first emperor, but his father Shih-tsung
had come to the throne not as huang-t'ai-tzu, but as a leader elected
in the more democratic Ch'i-tan tradition. With his brother canon-
ized as huang-t'ai-tzu, Ching-tsung's accession to the throne in part
confirmed the Ch'i-tan tradition of fraternal succession. Again
reinforcing the principle of collateral succession, Ching-tsung had
his father's cousin Yen-sa-ko, the only surviving son of Emperor
T'ai-tsung, brought back from exile, and, upon Yen-sa-ko's death
in 971, gave him the posthumous title of huang-t'ai-shu (Grand
Imperial Uncle).161 As Ching-tsung did not openly proclaim a son
as heir during his life-time, this act effectively legitimized the claim
of T'ai-tsung's line to the throne. In practice, however, Yen-sa-ko's
title meant little for he died without sons.162 The purpose of the
strategy was to stabilize the relationship between the throne and the
paternal relatives by honoring the ideals behind traditional Ch'i-tan
practices.
Ching-tsung's strategy was continued in Sheng-tsung's time. At
the beginning of that reign, Li-hu, who had died in jail c. 960, was
granted the posthumous title of emperor.163 Again, this could have
little practical effect on future claims for the throne, for Li-hu's
sons and grandsons were also dead. We do not know what were
Empress Ch'eng-t'ien's plans for the succession, for she died in 1009
and by 1017 both her younger sons were dead. It is possible that
Lung-ch'ing was not given the title huang-t'ai-ti during her day
because Sheng-tsung at that time had no sons who could have
rivalled Lung-ch'ing's claim for the throne in the event of the
emperor's premature death.
In 1017, following the custom established by his predecessor
Ching-tsung, Emperor Sheng-tsung gave his deceased brother
Lung-ch'ing the posthumous title of huang-t'ai-ti.164In the preceding
year, a son had been born to the emperor by his Hsiao wife, Ch'in-
ai.165 Since the empress, Ch'eng-t'ien's niece, as yet had no surviving
sons, it was imperative for Ch'in-ai's survival to have her son formally
proclaimed heir to the throne. The creation of a new imperial line -
that of her husband's brother Yeh-lu Lung-ch'ing - must have made
this matter even more urgent for unlike Yen-sa-ko and Li-hu,
Lung-ch'ing had left behind five sons.166 By 1020, it was probably
Ibid, p. 979.
162 Idem.
163 Ibid, p. 974.
164 Ibid, p. 987; and LS 15, p. 179.
165 LS 15, p. 178.
166 LS 64, pp. 986-7.

82 J. HOLMGREN
thought that the empress would not produce another son, and in the
following year, Ch'in-ai's five year old son was proclaimed heir to
the throne and formally placed under the care and protection of the
empress.167 As noted above, this was only the second such appoint-
ment in Liao history.
Ch'in-ai's son, Hsing-tsung, came to the throne as the seventh
emperor of Liao in June 1031. Now, like Empress Ying-t'ien before
her, Ch'in-ai was caught between the push towards succession in the
direct line which had brought one of her sons to the throne and the
pull towards collateral succession in the next generation so that a
younger and more favourite son might come to the throne rather
than a grandson who might be dominated by his own mother.
Unlike Ying-t'ien and Ch'eng-t'ien, Ch'in-ai was overly impatient
for her younger son to ascend the throne, and in 1034, she conspired
to overthrow Hsing-tsung. In consequence she was banished from
court for some three years.168 Her banishment did not affect the
position of her younger son for it was he who had warned Hsing-
tsung about the plot.169 In recognition of his loyalty,'70 and per-
haps to placate those of his maternal uncles who had supported his
mother,17' Hsing-tsung gave his brother the title huang-t'ai-ti (Great
Imperial Brother).172 Under pressure from his mother and her
family, Hsing-tsung never declared his eldest son as heir to the
throne. It was only on his death-bed that he indicated that the
throne should go to his son Tao-tsung rather than to his brother.
It is in the eighth reign under Emperor Tao-tsung towards the
end of the dynasty that we find the last stages of the process of
adjustment to the concept of fixed filial succession. When Tao-tsung
ascended the throne in August 1055, both his grandmother Ch'in-ai
and his uncle Chung-yiian were still alive. It would seem from both
earlier and later events that Tao-tsung's successful assumption of the
throne was achieved mainly through Chung-yiian's reluctance to
press his own claim, but it should also be remembered that Tao-
tsung was no child when his father died,173 and he had the support
of his mother and her relatives against his grandmother. In recogni-
tion of Chung-yiian's loyalty as well as his traditional claim on the
succession, Tao-tsung honored his uncle by changing his title from
167 LS 16, p. 189; and LS 71, pp. 1202-3.

168 LS 71, pp. 1203-4.
169 Idem;and LS 112, p. 1502.
170 See LS 112, p. 1502; and LS 64, pp. 988-9.
171 See LS 71, p. 1203; and n. 134 above on Hsiao Hsiao-hsien.
172 LS 112, p. 1502; and LS 64, pp. 988-9.
173 He was 23 years old.

huang-t'ai-ti (Grand Imperial Brother) to huang-t'ai-shu (Grand

Imperial Uncle).174 Chung-yuan had sons, and these sons, unlike
those of Yeh-lu Lung-ch'ing, were not content to see their father's
title remain purely honorary. The problem became more acute
after the birth of Tao-tsung's son and the death of Ch'in-ai, and in
1063 Chung-yuian was persuaded to revolt against the throne.175
Chung-yuan's rebellion was the last great revolt by paternal
relatives before the collapse of the dynasty. However, it differed from
earlier rebellions in that it was supported by many members of the
Hsiao clan, in particular, men like Hsiao Hu-tu iMffj who were
close relatives of the late empress-dowager Ch'in-ai and thus closer
to Chung-yuan than to Tao-tsung.176 Naturally, Tao-tsung's mother,
even though she was Ch'in-ai's niece, supported her son. Also sup-
porting the throne were distantly related Hsiao and honorific
Hsiao whom Tao-tsung's mother had patronized in the govern-
ment.177 Thus, along with high-ranking Yeh-hi officials who were
mostly distant relatives of the emperor178 and honorific Hsiao, Tao-
tsung's mother and her younger son led their forces to victory over
Chung-yiian's family.179
In effect, this revolt ushered in a new period of instability in Liao
- one which was characterized not so much by unrest amongst the
Yeh-lu but by divsions within the consort clan as its members
struggled with one another for control of the throne. Two years after
the rebellion Tao-tsung appointed his eldest son as heir.180 This was
only the second such appointment in Liao history since the first reign
and it was surely a response by the emperor to the recent threat from
his uncle's line. It would seem that the appointment was not opposed
by his mother, or if opposed, she was unsuccessful in dissuading
Tao-tsung from this course of action. However, dissension within
the Hsiao clan over the succession was only temporarily averted: in
174 LS 64, p. 989.
175 LS 112, p. 1502; LS64, pp. 988-9.
176 Hsiao Hu-tu for example was Ch'in-ai's nephew and married to one of
her daughters. He was thus both cousin and brother-in-law to Chung-yuian.See
LS 114, pp. 1513-4 for his biography.
177 See for example LS 96, pp. 1400 on Hsiao Te W from the Ch'u-t'e ft
tribe. In 1063, he held the office of Southern Prime Minister. See also the bio-
graphy of Hsiao Yi-lu ^WLT originally a Yeh-lu, in LS 93, pp. 1376-7.
178 See for example, LS 96, pp. 1396-7 and 1399 on Yeh-lu Jen-hsien 9M1ftz
(d. 1073) and Yeh-lti Liang f1'iA who played vital roles in suppressing the re-
bellion. Yeh-lti Jen-hsien was a member of the First Patriarchal Household, a
descendant of T'ai-tsu's uncle.
179 EmpressJen-i L9, in fact led her own army in the field against Chung-yuan.
LS 71, p. 1204.
180 LS 22, p. 264.

84 J. HOLMGREN
1075 the mother of the heir-apparent was forced to commit suicide

and two years later the heir himself was degraded and murdered in a
struggle for power between rival factions in the harem.181 The ques-
tion of collateral succession was raised again, for Tao-tsung con-
sidered making his nephew rather than his grandson his heir.
However, the issue remained open for Tao-tsung never granted his
brother the title huang-t'ai-ti,'82and on his death-bed, he apparently
indicated that his grandson, then aged 26, should come to the
throne.183 In the following era, dissension within the consort families
intensified for the empress failed to bear a son. In the struggles of
that reign, T'ien-tsu's most popular son and his mother both lost their
lives.184 Essentially, these were conflicts within the Hsiao clan in
which the paternal relatives participated according to their ties with
individual Hsiao consorts.
Thus, we can see that while Liao emperors in the latter part of the
dynasty intended and hoped that their sons would come to the
throne, several factors mitigated against the official proclaimation of
a son as heir-apparent during the emperor's life-time. Such an-
nouncements occurred only under pressure from influential consorts
and/or in the wake of serious rebellion against the throne by a close
collateral relative. On the other hand, during the reign of a son,
Hsiao consorts tended to favour a restatement of traditional col-
lateral claims to the throne in order to avoid conflict in the harem
during the next reign. Thus a system developed during the latter
part of the dynasty wherein a surviving uncle or younger brother
was given the title huang-t'ai-shuor huang-t'ai-ti in recognition of his
traditional rights to the leadership. I'n this way, it became practice
to avoid making a declaration about the position of the eldest son
until the time of the emperor's death.
181 Although Yeh-Il I-hsin
M#LZ$, the Northern Chancellor of the time,
is blamed for the death of the heir, it is clear that the divisions at court were based
on factions in Tao-tsung's harem and that this was a struggle between his various
Hsiao wives for control of the succession. See LS 71, pp. 1205-6. Yeh-lu L-hsin
came from the Five Divisions and from a humble and poor background. See LS
110, pp. 1483-6; and Wittfogel and Feng, pp. 265-6. He was disgraced in 1101
with T'ien-tsu's assumption of the throne. LS 27, p. 317.
182 Three years after T'ien-tsu's assumption of the throne, Tao-tsung's brother
was given the title huang-t'ai-shu.LS 64, pp. 991-2. His son came to the throne as
ruler of "Northern Liao" at the end of the dynasty.
183 LS 26, p. 314.
184 See LS 71, pp. 1206-7; LS 29, pp. 341-2; and LS 64, pp. 994-6.

Conclusion
A description of the Liao marriage system without reference

either to its origins or to its various permutations during the course
of the dynasty might run as follows. First, only members of the im-
perial clan and the consort clan were entitled to use family names.
Second, the imperial or Yeh-lu clan took its spouses only from the
Hsiao or consort clan, while the Hsiao took its spouses only from
the Yeh-lii, i.e., there was an exclusive and permanent reciprocal
exchange system between the two clans in which marriage was
based on Chinese rather than Ch'i-tan laws of exogamy. Amongst
other Ch'i-tan and non-Chinese tribal groups in the empire, mar-
riage was conducted according to the traditional laws of exogamy
wherein members of the same tribal unit or consanguineous relatives
might intermarry after a lapse of about seven generations. Thus,
in Liao the Yeh-lu and Hsiao were unique both in their adoption
of Chinese surnames and in their adherence to the Chinese prohibi-
tion on same-surname marriages.
Third, while the Yeh-lu and Hsiao constituted the apex of a
rigidly stratified system, the two leading clans were themselves
stratified into various ranked lineages. Within the Yeh-lu clan there
were four leading lineages, the ranks of which were determined by
closeness of blood ties with the founder of the dynasty. Members
of these four lineages took their spouses only from three designated
lineages of the Hsiao clan. These consort lineages were: descendants
of the father of the first empress; descendants of the first husband of
her mother - probably a close relative of her father; and finally,
maternal relatives of the third emperor. The dominant lineage for
most of Liao was that which descended from the father of the first
empress. The last lineage seems to have played little or no active
part at the highest levels of the system after the third reign.
Fourth, political stratification was meant to correspond with the
pattern of social stratification: certain high-ranking and influential
offices around the throne were set aside for members of the leading
Hsiao and Yeh-lti lineages; common or low-ranking persons, whether
outside or part of the two-clan structure, were not to hold these
positions.
Fifth, the perfect operation of this system required a clear dis-
tinction between the chief or main wife and secondary wives and
concubines with a corresponding distinction in rank between their
offspring. Thus political and social stratification within the govern-
ing classes was mirrored at the family level by a hierarchical ranking
of wives. Nowhere was this more important than in the imperial

86 J. HOLMGREN
harem which constituted the locus of the whole system: it can be

said that serial monogamy, wherein only one woman at a time
could hold the rank of empress or empress-dowager, was an integral
part of the Liao political system. Ideally, the empress would come
from the higher or highest ranking consort lineage while her male
relatives performed important political and military duties for the
throne in association with the paternal relatives. Other Hsiao women
taken into the harem as secondary wives and concubines would be
ranked according to the status of the natal family, and sons and
daughters of these women would then marry back into the Hsiao
clan according to that status. In this way, brothers and nephews of
the empress might take her daughters as their wives, while her
sisters would marry her sons. Cross-generation marriage was thus
an essential feature of the system, with the Hsiao tending to marry
into a younger or descending generation and the paternal relatives
marrying upward into an ascending generation of the consort clan.
Finally, it would seem that a fixed system of pre-determined
succession by primogeniture was not an essential part of this system.
Rather, Ch'i-tan marriage and succession strategies operated on
the assumption that the appointed empress would produce sons and
that only sons of an empress would come to the throne, i.e., the
Liao system emphasized the Chinese concept of unity of function
between empress and mother of the heir or heirs-apparent. Succes-
sion in either the direct or collateral line was thus possible as long
as the heir to the throne was the son of an empress. Grandsons of
former empresses could not succeed to the throne. In other words,
the system made room for a limited degree of collateral succession
by allowing for the existence of more than one imperial line at a
time.
In theory, the outcome of such a system would be the gradual
incorporation of the consort family into the imperial line to such an
extent that all divergencies of interest between it and the the Yeh-lu
would disappear. It would also mean domination of important
offices in the government by members of the consort family and
committed support for the throne by the Yeh-lu offspring of the
empress. In theory this system would not, however, grant women
the legal right to a more positive and consistent role in the govern-
ment than they had under the normal conditions of a native Chinese
dynasty.
We have seen that the model described above did not originate
in traditional Ch'i-tan society but rather evolved during the course
of the dynasty in response to problems of adjustment to the newly
adopted system of imperial rule. Moreover, because it was a de-

veloping and constantly changing system, and because it depended

for its perfect operation on unpredictable factors such as human
fertility, the system rarely operated in the manner described above.
The period of closest proximity to all facets of the theoretical model
was that between the latter part of the sixth and the eighth reign,
i.e., after the complete development of the model and before the
disintegration of Ch'i-tan authority in northeastern China. The
section below summarizes what is known about the origins of the
Liao marriage system and its impact on the workings and stability
of the Liao government during the course of the dynasty.
We have seen how the establishment of an autocratic Chinese-
style state with its concomitant emperor, empress, empress-dowager
and regency governments ran counter to traditional Ch'i-tan tenets
of shared, familial leadership with limited tenure of office and a
flexible system of succession in either the collateral or direct line.
Essentially, the Liao marriage system began as a response to the
attempt by brothers of the first emperor to retain their traditional
rights and privileges vis-a-vis the leadership, i.e. the origins of the
marriage system lay in the first emperor's strategy of delegating
military and political power, and incorporating into his new gov-
ernment, forces outside his own family, clan and tribe. His most
important asset in this respect was marriage ties with the Turkic
Uighur community and he relied to a great extent on his wife's
Uighur relatives for military and political support against his own
relatives: with his wife's help, he created an intertribal military
force to bolster the authority of the throne in the face of internal
revolt from members of his own clan. We have concluded that the
role of the first empress and her relatives was at least as important
as that of the first emperor in establishing the state, and that the
authority of Liao consorts in military matters during the course of
the dynasty was a function of the part played by the first empress
in organizing the Liao military machine.
Other strategies adopted by the first emperor involved the in-
ternal reorganization of his clan and tribe. These can be classified
under the broad heading of "kinship strategies". They include in-
duction into the Yeh-lu clan of loyal followers from other Ch'i-tan
tribes, incorporation into his own household of loyal relatives from
the more distant and humble lineages of his clan, and marriage of
these loyal followers to members of his wife's family.
Actions taken in the first reign set the pattern of government for
the rest of Liao. However, there were important developments and
differences in attitude and approach to the marriage system in
later times: what began as a series of strategies designed by the

88 J. HOLMGREN
throne to control the paternal relatives and bulwark the authority

of the imperial line was soon appropriated by the consort clan to
maintain its influence in government. Here, it has been argued that
the official formulation of the marriage system which occurred
during the second and sixth reigns was probably more the work of
Hsiao consorts and their relatives than of reigning emperors of the
time.
The hostility expressed in the third and fourth reigns towards
the family of the first empress reveals that the marriage system as
formulated during the second reign favoured the Hsiao much more
than it did the emperor or members of the Yeh-lu clan. The third
emperor attempted to appoint a woman from outside the Hsiao
clan as his empress. Later, he adopted and modified the kinship
strategies of the first reign, inducting members of the Yeh-lu clan
into the consort clan and creating honorific Hsiao from members
of other groups loyal to the throne. In this way, an attempt was
made to broaden the base of the consort clan and weaken the power
of the family of the first empress. The traditional concept of polygamy
as well as tribal laws on exogamy played an essential part in the
success of these strategies. During the fourth reign, these policies
were continued in somewhat milder form, with the emperor pa-
tronizing in government and in marriage both honorific Hsiao and
members of the less powerful lineages of the consort clan. Thus
during the third and fourth reigns, the consort clan lost its original
structure, becoming a group of fictive relatives bound together by
the assumption of a common surname: from this time, the "Hsiao
clan" consisted of the original consort lineages along with Yeh-liu
and individuals from other tribes who had been given the name
Hsiao.
During the third and fourth reigns, honorific Hsiao and members
of the more humble consort lineages had been encouraged to marry
into the highest Yeh-lii lineages including the imperial line. Under
this policy, a relatively high degree of political and social mobility
had been induced into the system. This mobility, however, concerned
only the elite strata of society and there is no question that the Yeh-
lui and Hsiao continued to dominate the government. The practice
during this period of honoring loyal servants of the throne with the
name Hsiao confirms the basic aristocratic orientation of the Ch'i-
tan leadership even during times of a relatively high degree of
upward mobility. In the long-term, all these strategies merely
strengthened the place of the Hsiao alongside the Yeh-lu at the
apex of the political and social hierarchy.
During the latter half of the dynasty, the marriage strategy was

further refined in such a way as to exclude from government and

from marriage ties with the imperial house those minor and hon-
orific members of the clan who had been patronized during the
early part of the dynasty. At this time, relatives of the first empress
regained their dominant position in the government. Thus the
latter part of the dynasty saw the full development of the marriage
system wherein serial monogamy and strict ranking by birth be-
came an integral part of the social and political system.
Soulliere has pointed out how the Ming (1368-1644) was one of
the most anti-aristocratic of all Chinese dynasties. She has shown
how that dynasty was unique in Chinese history in that it never
produced an empress-dowager who was appointed regent for the
throne, and how male relatives of Ming consorts after the early
period of the dynasty never achieved positions of political importance
in the government. Moreover, several Ming empresses-dowager
began their careers in the harem with status little better than that
of slaves. Comparing this situation with that under other native
Chinese dynasties, Soulliere has concluded that there may be a
direct relationship between "the prevalence of aristocratic in-
fluences and the power of women at the imperial court" in Chinese
history.185 Liao history tends to confirm the validity of this hypo-
thesis both on macro and microscopic levels of analysis: in regard
to its aristocratic tendencies and to the number of influential con-
sorts and female regents - both de facto and de jure - which it
produced, the Liao as a whole should probably be ranked at the
opposite end of the scale from the Ming. As we have seen, in the
latter half of the dynasty, the consolidation of Hsiao power and the
return to court of influential Hsiao consorts coincided with increasing
concern over questions of birth and rank, and with the formal ex-
clusion from certain high-ranking offices of men from humble or
low-ranking backgrounds. In contrast to this, the third and fourth
reigns which saw a hostile reaction to the marriage system and a
corresponding decline in consort influence exhibit a relatively high
degree of political and social mobility within the ranks of the elite.
It would seem, then, that in Liao there is a correlation between the
implementation of the marriage system, the presence of influential
women and distaff relatives at court, and the development of a
native Liao (as distinct from Ch'i-tan) aristocracy.
We have seen that the politics of succession during Liao were
extremely complex and that strategies varied somewhat throughout
the course of the dynasty. There is, however, an underlying pattern
185 Soulliere, p. 139.

90 J. HOLMGREN
to these strategies which begins to emerge towards the end of the

dynasty. After the accession of her son in 927, the first empress had
favoured a re-statement of the traditional concept of collateral
succession. Her wish was thwarted by the Ch'i-tan leadership not
because that leadership wished to institute the Chinese system of
primogeniture but because the empress' third son was considered
unfit for the highest office of the state. From that time until the
death of the fifth emperor, succession was conducted according to
traditional practice: rulers were elected in semi-democratic fashion
by the Ch'i-tan leadership or officials of the court from amongst
descendants of the first emperor and empress, i.e., there were three
main lines from which to choose an emperor. In practice, however,
succession passed within only two of those lines, first from uncle to
nephew and then from cousin to cousin and so on, with members
of the third line (descendants of the empress' third son) often con-
testing the will of the majority.
By the end of the fifth reign, two of those three lines were ex-
hausted and from that time, primogeniture came to be the practice.
Yet, during this period, a system developed not unlike that seen in
the earlier period. In this system, a surviving uncle or younger
uterine brother of the ruler was given a title which recognized his
traditional rights vis-a-vis the throne, i.e., in theory, there was more
than one imperial line at a time. As noted above, these lines stemmed
from the offspring of women who had held the rank of empress.
Also in recognition of collateral rights, proclamation of the eldest
son as heir-apparent tended to be delayed until the ruler issued his
final will. This system had its origins in actions of the fifth emperor
and in those taken by two consorts of the realm who sought to
strengthen their position at court through a restatement of limited
collateral succession. It is possible, however, that towards the end
Table 1
Ruler ReignPeriod* InfluentialConsorts**
1. T'ai-tsu 907- 926 Ying-tien
2. T'ai-tsung 927- 947
3. Shih-tsung 947- 951
4. Mu-tsung 951- 969
5. Ching-tsung 969- 982 Ch'eng-t'ien
6. Sheng-tsung 982-1031 Ch'in-ai
7. Hsing-tsung 1031-1055
8. Tao-tsung 1055-1 101
9. T'ien-tsu 1011-1125
* dates after Wittfogel and Feng, p. 600.
** only the names of women discussed in detail in this paper are listed here.

of the dynasty, this system was also seen as a means of avoiding in-
ternecine disputes within the royal house during emergencies caused
by the premature death of a childless ruler or that of a ruler with
only infant or incapacitated sons. In other words, it was probably
seen as a backup system designed to prevent succession disputes
when the system of primogeniture failed to produce an appropriate
heir. But, in fact, after the sixth reign, all Liao rulers came to the
throne as adults, and thus, except for one case, primogeniture re-
mained uncontested during the latter part of the dynasty.
During the latter part of the dynasty, instability at court was
caused not so much by the paternal relatives, but by divisions within
the consort clan as its various families struggled for greater control
of the throne through manipulation of the succession. The system
was particularly vulnerable to such disputes at times when the
empress failed to bear or raise sons as happened during the fifth
and ninth reignes. However, whether the internal politics of succes-
sion procedure during the last reign had any significant destabilizing
effect on the empire as a whole remains to be seen.


1986 - J. Holmgren - Marriage, Kinship and Succession Under The Ch'i-Tan Rulers of The Liao Dynasty (907-1125)

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1986 - J. Holmgren - Marriage, Kinship and Succession Under The Ch'i-Tan Rulers of The Liao Dynasty (907-1125)

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Marriage, Kinship and Succession under the Ch'i-tan Rulers of the Liao Dynasty (907-1125)

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MARRIAGE, KINSHIP AND SUCCESSION UNDER THE

The Liao marriage system was a unique contribution to me-

relatives; pp. 211-2 on polygamy. On the T'o-pa MR Hsien-pi, see J. Holmgren,

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to step down in favour of a paternal relative after a three year term.3

Establishmentof the model- Thefirst reign (90 7-926)

The most difficult problem faced by Emperor T'ai-tsu, the founder

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only had control of internal affairs of the royal clan.

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This content downloaded from 205.133.226.104 on Sat, 24 Aug 2013 12:20:10 PM

This content downloaded from 205.133.226.104 on Sat, 24 Aug 2013 12:20:10 PM

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in "Liao ta-ch'en nien-piao : Erh-shih-wushih pu-pien I tMS

gested to the emperor as early as 914. Ibid., p. 413 n. 32.

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T'ai-tsu's father (posth. Te-tsu) T'ai-tsu's grandfather (posth. Hsuan-tsu)

T'ai-tsu La-ko Tieh-la Yin-ti-shih An-tuan S. Yen-mu Shih-lu Posth. Te-tsu

FIRST SECOND T'ai-tsu

HORIZONTAL TENTS THIRD PATRIARCHAL HOUSEHOLD

T'ai-tsu's great great grandfather (posth. Su-tsu)

(posth. ea- tsu)

Diagram 3 The Northern and Southern or

in his own lineage or household, 4) patronage of members of other

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Developmentof the model- The secondreign (927-947)

There were no serious rebellions by paternal relatives during the

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surviving brother An-tuan 2Z, members of the Third Patriarchal

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(Hsiao?) husband of the empress-dowager's mother were to be known

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sential that Ying-t'ien establish the dominance of her family at court,

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The hostile strategy adopted by both Shih-tsung and his successor

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great grandfather,73 could have married back into T'ai-tsu's family

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towards the Hsiao in government, particularly in regard to the post

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have belonged to either of the two lineages.86 The following para-

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second, seventh and eighth. Indeed, if Ching-tsung's empress was

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Prime Ministry.92 In T'ai-tsu's day, the office of Northern Prime

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force these men to participate against their better judgement in a

99 Tzu-chiht'ung-chienWAM (Chung-hua shu-chu, Hong Kong, 1971), pp.

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practices of Shih-tsung's reign: the office of Southern Prime Min-

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and, in 967, the office of Northern Prime Minister being given to

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of social and political mobility within the established ranks of the

of themodel- The lateryears

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Hsiao Ssu-wen's daughter, Empress Ch'eng-t'ien, came to power