CHAPTER V
JINGHIS KHAN’S TRIUMPHANT ADVANCE BEYOND THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA
Many provinces of China had been subject to foreign rule for three centuries. After the fall of the Tang dynasty, which had ruled the whole country from 618 to 907, this immense Empire fell to commanders of provinces and was cut up into ten states co-existent and separate. Intestine wars, the result of this parceling, favored the rise of a new power in Northern Asia.
The Kitans, who formed a part of the Manchu stock, held that country from the Sungari southward as far as the present Shan hai kuan, and from the Khingan range on the west to Corea. These people had for a long time been vassals of Tartar Khans, and next of Chinese Emperors. They were divided into eight tribes, each with its own chief or manager. Abaki, the head of the Sheliyu tribe, which owned the district known at the present as Parin, gained supreme power in 907, and used the whole strength of the Kitans to subdue Northern Asia. In 916, he proclaimed himself sovereign, and when he died, ten years later, his dominion extended eastward to the ocean, and westward to the Golden Mountains or to the Altai.
Tekoan, the son of this first Kitan ruler, by giving the aid of his arms to a rebel chieftain in China, secured victory, and a throne for him. In return for such service the newly made Emperor, who fixed his residence or capital at the present Kai fong fu on the south bank of the Hoang Ho, or Yellow River, ceded sixteen districts to Tekoan in Pehche li, Shan si and Liao tung, engaging also to furnish three hundred thousand pieces of silk as his annual tribute.
The new Chinese Emperor took the position of vassal to the Kitan, and termed himself his grandson and subject. The [[80]]successor to this Chinese ruler sought to modify these conditions. Tekoan made war on him; conquered all the provinces north of the Hoang Ho, seized Pien (Kai fong fu), captured the Emperor and sent him to regions north of China.
Following Chinese usage the Kitan took a new name for his dynasty, calling it Liao, that is Iron.