An Analysis Of The Political Choices Of The Liao People In The Late Liao Dynasty

After the fall of the dynasty,Liao people,including Bohai(渤海)people,Xi(奚)people,Qidan(契丹)people and Han Chinese in territory of the Liao Dynasty,had to rethink their political affiliation.And they had multiple political choices,different from other people faced with regime change.Meanwhile the political choices of different ethnic groups showed their own characteristics and trends.It is the focus of this article to find the reason behind this phenomenon.The first chapter mainly summarizes Liao people’s political options,including loyal to death,surrendered to the Song Dynasty or to the Jin Dynasty,finding shelter in Korea and to be independent out of the mess.At the same time,it sums up the overall trend and the characteristics of the various stages of Liao people’s political decisions at the end of the Liao Dynasty.The following three chapters analyze political choices of Liao people,Bohai people and Qidan people in detail respectively.First of all,all the ethnic political choices are summarized to explore the cause of them;Secondly,on the basis of cases recorded in appendix,maps are made to show the trend of ethnic choices,summing up the overall trend of their political choices and the trend of each stage;Finally,combining with the related historical data and research,this paper discusses the specific reason for the change of these ethic groups.This paper argues that the general trend of the political choices by Liao people rose to a peak and then fell down.Group factors affects the political choices of different groups,of which concrete manifestation is that many Qidan people’s loyalty to Liao Dynasty,Bohai people’s support to the Jin Dynasty and their strike to the Liao Dynasty,and Han people’s hesitation between the Song and Jin Dynasty,Realistic interests also affect the political choices of different classes,which is reflected in that Qidan people’s passive surrender to the Jin Dynasty,Bohai people’s approach to the Jin Dynasty because of social status reverse,and Han people’s hesitating between the Song and Jin Dynasty but ultimately turning to Jin.And for ordinary people during wartime,to make a living is the main factor they consider.