The Khitan exodus, one of the most improbable awesome story you probably never heard.

[RollingWave]

Here's a story that western folks who study history probbly overlook more often than not, but one could argue have certain ramification on the development of western history as well.

The story began around the turn of the 11th century AD, the Liao dynasty, a semi-nomadic dynasty founded by the Khitan people, who also formed a governmetn similar to their Chinese counterpart to the south, have dominated Manchuria for the last 2 century, their influence stretched far and wide as the various Mongolian tribes, and all of Korea were counted as part of their vassals, and their military dominance over the south ment that the Song dynasty continue to pay them annual tributes each year.

However, this domination was about to come to an end, as various Jurchen tribes deeper in Manchuria rebelled against their rule, the Song dynasty saw a chance to get rid of themself of the cost of annual tributes and recover some long lost territories (the modern day Beijing area) . they allied with the Jurchen rebels and together in 1124 they launched a joint offensive from both ends of the Khitan empire, with the Jurchens overrunning their north eastern frontieer and the greatest Song army assembled in over a century marching up on Beijing once again, the Liao dynasty was in grave danger.

The Liao court assesed the situation, and correctly figured tha the Jurchens were actually the greater of the two threat, because they were attacking a vast open frontieer, where as the Song army, while amongs the most technologically sophisticated army in the world at the time (they probably already were using some early gunpowder weapons), had not seen war in many many years, and are slow and crumbersome, not to meantion must cross rather unfavorable terrains . so they decided that the Emperor himself will lead the main army against the Jurchens while leaving a relatively light defense around Beijing headed by one of his royal relatives, Yelu Dashi.

The Liao was alerady in deep trouble then, as previous defeats against the Jurchens saw many unrest and revolt, that was eventually put down but the uneasy feeling persisted, which was why the Liao emperor so the need to risk it all and lead his own expedition to win back his authority, unfortunately for him that didn't work out, though he actually wasn't defeated by the Jurchens this time around, his army was temporarily cut off, which fueled rumors at home that he had been crushed and killed, thus leading to multiple upsuper and a the Liao dynasty collapsed onto itself from the chaos that ensued, ironically the Liao emperor actualyl managed to make it out of the mess with most of his army still intacted, but his empire lost.

On the other end of the war, the Song army approached and besieged their main target of modern day Beijing (then called Yizhou by the Song and NanJing by the Liao) though badly outnumbered and outgunned, Yelu Dashi displayed some serious military ability and defeated the huge Song army, temporarily securing the city, however with the Khitan empire crumbling around him, he was soon forced to abandon the city to the Jurchen onslaught.

Yelu Dashi lead a significant party and managed to meet up with the emperor around the edge of Mongolia, however the two's relationship was tense, as in the confusion of the Liao collapse Yelu Dashi had also nominated another emperor to try and salvage the situation. something the Liao emperor saw as treason, and he also rejected Yelu Dashi's plan of waiting in their current position, rally more survivors / loyal tribes over before acting, dishearted with the sitaution, Yelu Dashi left with a singificant portion of the gathered Khitan survivor and headed westward, the Emperor remained and attacked the Jurchens again with only a small army, which predictablly failed and he was caught by the Jurchens and died under house arrest a few years later.

Yelu Dashi though, managed to gather many survivors as he went westward, aided by friendly Mongolian tribes he managed to cross an amazing distance, starting from the eastern edge of Mongolia, he ended up reach modern day Kyrgyzstan and over the next 9 years managed to topple the long Kara-Khanid dynasty, establishing a new Kingdom thousands of miles from where they had started from.

The implication of the new dynasty, whom the west often calls the Kara-Khitans, while the chinese call the western Liao dynasty, was to be played out a few years later.

The Kara-Khanids were actually vassals to the Great Seljuqs, the extremely powerful Turkish dynasty established in the later 11th C, most famously defeating the Romans at the battle of Manzikert at their height their realm stretched the entire greater Persian area and most of Anatolia / Syria / Iraq. their conquest directly lead to the begining of the Crusade era, as it was their supposed persecution of Christians in Jerusalem that Pope Urban called upon the western knights to unite against.

However the Great Seljuqs, being rather nomadic in nature, and also spanning a huge realm, had trouble holding themself togeter, the succession of Alp Arslan (the victor at Manzikert) to his son Malik Shah was already shaky, but Malik Shah managed to consolidate most of his father's realm eventually, only to see the whole process start again upon his own death, as the shaky succession between his sons caused the Great Seljuqs to exist in name only, while in reality it was several splintered factions.

Amongst his sons though, one began to stand out some 20 years after his death, which was his youngest son Ahmed Sanjar, he was orignially the governor of Khorsan (border area between Iran / Uzbekisan / Tajikstan) but soon his real power ecplised his brothers and nephew in the west, and by 1118 he was quite undisputedly the most powerful Seljuq Prince and by 1131 with the death of his nephew Mahmud II (who ruled over Iraq and parts of western Iran) he became the sole successor to the Great Seljuqs.

The reformation of the Great Seljuqs is obviously a huge threat to the Byzantiums and Crusader States, who was already having trouble just dealing with the Seljuq's local Atabeg in Mosul and Syria, Zengid had he full weight of the Seljuq might been brought down on the Levant the remaining Crusader states would be in great trouble.

In was during this particular moment, that the events in the east began to bring Ahmed Sanjar and Yelu Dashi on a full collision course, as their vassals suddenly being destroyed was obviously a serious issue for the Seljuqs, and only made worse by the new dynasty's continued expansion at the expenses of other Seljuq vassals in the area.

So in 1141 Ahmed Sanjar brought the might of the empire against Yelu Dashi, so the improbable story of a general fleeing for his life on one ends of Asia suddenly ending up as king on the other end, facing off against the greatest empire of the day, came to it's finally, Ahmed Sanjar's forces was reputed to be huge, having brough not only his army from Iran, but also the full force of almost all his eastern vassals from Uzbekistan down to Afganistan, if we take the numbers of the army offered by both side and only take the number of their own army (since recordss are usually much more likely to grossly over-estimate the opponent's numbers while thier own are usually at least closer to reality. The Seljuqs probably had an army ranging between 70k to 100k, an improbably huge army for the time period, while Yelu Dashi commaned about 40-50k added together (roughly 10-20k his own troops adn 20-30k allied onces). however Ahmed Sanjar in an ironic twist of fate seem to have played the role of Romanus Diogenes this time around, being overly confident of his gerat army against mere new commers. he was terribly crushed and barely escaped, his wife was captured, and most of the Seljuq army either perished or surrendered .

The battle marked the end of the Greast Seljuqs, though Sanjar managed to live for another 15 years or so, he saw the complete collapse of his eastern vassals over to the Kara-Khitans, while elsewhere major atabegs like Zengi and Nur Ad-din paid only lip service, when he finally died in 1157 the title of the Great Seljuqs died with him and no one even bothered to contes the title again.

It is strongly suggested, that the story of Prester John, which grew popular right around this time frame, was the story of Yelu Dashi being mixed together with Christian legends.


So Yelu Dashi, fleeing from the walls of Bejing in 1125, somehow ended up as the surpreme suzeraine of central asia some 2 decades later. Though is true dream was never fullfilled, as it was to retake the Khitan homeland of Manchuria back from the Jurchens, as improbable as it sound, he made a campaign some 6 years before the great showdown with the Seljuqs, with the aim of crossing the Gobi and retaking manchuria, predicatbly it failed disastorously just from the difficulty of supplies, though the Jurchen counterattacked also failed in spetacular fashion for the same reason.

his dynasty would continue on until some Temujin guy showed up on their doorsteps on his way to destroy everything in his path from China to Iraq.

The Kara-Khitan was an interesting state in that it's religious status remained highly ambigous throughout it's existence, Yelu Dashi himself was probably like most other Khitan nobles of the time, a Buddhist, however he was ruling over an area where most inhabitants were probably muslim, with a very large portion of Pagan or Nestorian Christians as well. though the different sides seem to have managed to co-exist peacefully during this span, an imporable Chinese buddhist dynasty existing in Persia. that was the Kara-Khitans.

[Mister D]

Very interesting, RW. Thanks. I have an interest in the Crusader era and this helps add perspective.

The origins of Prester John go much further back than the 11th century but these events inspired the Western imagination. The Mongols did as well.

[URF8]

I have always wondered how the Seljuqs/Seljuks disappeared from history. Thanks for your insight.

[MMC]

I would have thought there was more of what they termed Pagans than Muslims? Excellent piece of history there, RW!

[RollingWave]

I wonder what extend did the Europeans really were aware of the Church of the East, aka the Nestorians, espeically of their far flung missionaries to India and China, as early as as the early 8th century there was actually a pretty viberant Nestorian community in North Western China, mainly the capital of ChangAn and the other cities along the Chinese portion of the silk road, this very well surviving tabolate is a good proof...

[MMC]

Weren't those Chinese speaking an Indo-Iranian Language? Something like Sogdianese or something like that. Also didn't the Europeans know that there was bishopric in Singan fu Hsien fu. How did the Chinese distinguish the difference of the Syrian Christians with that of the Chaldeans?

Seems they were in 25 Asiatic Provinces and that they had like 70 diocese all throughout China. I thought Marco Polo brought all that back with him.

[URF8]

I think the Latin and Orthodox Christians saw the Nestorian Christians as heretics who were beyond the pale.

[RollingWave]

I don't think Chinese were really that aware of the difference, or rather they saw them as completely different religions, the Chinese term for Nestorian Christian is "景教" Jin-Sect something like that. while later on called the catholic "天主教" (Sect of the Holy Father). and finally only after Protestant preachers show up did the term "基督教" (Sect of Christ) became more commonly used. by then we are obviously aware of the connection between Protestant and Catholics but by then Nestorian Christianity had disappeared from China completely as well.

[URF8]

I don't think Chinese were really that aware of the difference, or rather they saw them as completely different religions, the Chinese term for Nestorian Christian is "景教" Jin-Sect something like that. while later on called the catholic "天主教" (Sect of the Holy Father). and finally only after Protestant preachers show up did the term "基督教" (Sect of Christ) became more commonly used. by then we are obviously aware of the connection between Protestant and Catholics but by then Nestorian Christianity had disappeared from China completely as well.

What happened to the Nestorians? Were the Nestorian Christians in China overwhelmed by the faith of Islam?

[RollingWave]

Well no they kinda just disappeared, the Nestorian Church's far east branchs seem to have collapsed around the 14th century, right around / before the emergence of Timur, which mostly conicided with the collapse of a unified Mongol empire.

it seems to be a combination of factors, one is the obvious part that after the collaspe of the Mongol order the silk road became very much less travesable, so the connections that was maintined before was gradually lost. the second is that the Islamic world in general had a pretty severe backlash after the Mongol invasion, which turned them towards a less tolerant path (though, one should point out that this is the exact same period where the Inquisition was in full swing in the west, so it seem to be something of a trend) .

Other factors include that this was also the period of the black death. so the huge depopulation the occurred trhough the Silk road and the mid east also obviously bodes very poorly for the Nestorian Church in maintaining the ties to the far east.

And finally, the Church itself had to share some of the blame, as not long after their eastern sees blew up they collapsed on themself with internal bickering, worst of all they made the Patriach position hereditary, that obviously didn't end well and the Church instead of trying to regain it's strengh basically destroyed what's left of it on internal fighting.

And finally, when the Ming dynasty was established after they overthrew Mongol rule, most central Asians were expelled from within China, (because they were part of the Mongol ruling class in China, and thus largely hated by the population) this was probably the final deathblow to Nestorian Christianity in China, since obviously many (or rather almost all)of their missonaries were... you know... Central Asians.

So by the time Catholics and Protestants reached China, people had long forgotten about the Nestorians, scholars are probably aware of the Jin-Sect that existed in history but have no idea of their connection to the Western Church.

But soon after the first missionaries landed in the early 17th C that tablet I posted above was discovered and they were said to be quite shocked, for years its one of the biggest piece of artifact that missionaries comming to China sought after. so much so that the locals were scared that they might steal it

During the Tang era when Nestorians florished most, Zoroastrianism was also very big in China, the tablet was made in 781 AD, the later half of the Tang (after they began to decline but still not too terrible yet) it states that when the first missionaires arrived in early Tang period they were greeted by the Tang emperor Taizhong (one of the most famous Chinese emperor in history) and his famed vizier, they were allowed to establish temples (churches) in the Captial etc..

The Churches were called "The Temple of the Cross" in Chinese, though most surviving onces have a very strong Chinese characteristics anyway , aka they look basically the same as a Buddist Pagoda from the outside.

The Tablet includes the story of the birth of Christ, and was written by a Persian Missionary, in both Chinese and Syrian, by then you can see already that the Nestorian Church was very interwined with the Chinese society as they made many use of Confucian phrases and stories to link the Christian story in one (it should be noted, that early Catholic missionary that arrived in China did the same.)

Also Nestorian sect plays better with Chinese in general since one of it's big key aspect that differs from other Christian Churchs plays much better with Chinese in general, that they do not ban or disuade believers from ancestral worship.