How did the warlike Khitan ethnic group that once occupied half of China disappear?

The Dan is a martial and brave nation. During its heyday, the Khitan dynasty, known as Dai Liao, used to occupy half of China's territory.

The Dan is a martial and brave nation. During its heyday, the Khitan dynasty, known as Dai Liao, used to occupy half of China's territory.

On June 21, 1922, Kervan, a Belgian missionary, went to Inner Mongolia's Batingue district (China) to preach. He was led by followers to see an ancient tomb that had been excavated by thieves. He discovered a stone stele engraved with symbols like very strange writing that the locals called Thien Thu (the book of heaven).

The Mystery of Heaven

According to the evidence, this is the grave of a Khitan who died about 900 years ago. Are those strange symbols in the heavenly books written by the ancient Khitan people?

During its heyday, the Khitan dynasty, known as Dai Liao, used to occupy half of China's territory.

History books record that the Khitan ethnic group founded the Liao state in 907 and once created the Khiet Dan script. But about 900 years ago, the Khitan script was lost, and the people of the next generation could not read it even if they saw it. Experts speculate: The Book of Heaven is the Khitan script that has been buried for hundreds of years. From then on, in the vast territory of the vast Liao state, people occasionally probed, excavated, and discovered many historical texts and artifacts of the Khitan ethnic group.

In 1986, in Tong Lieu city of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, an ancient tomb was discovered with the burial of a princess and her concubine Khiet Dan. This is the tomb with the most valuable burial artifacts to this day. The form of burial and burial accessories show that the Khitan people were influenced by the culture of the Han people in the Central Highlands.

Although the remains in the grave have been destroyed, through the mesh woven with extremely thin silver thread and the wide thin gold leaf covering the corpse's face, it shows the noble identity of the owner of the living tomb. Funeral items ranging from gold, silver, ivory, precious stones to ceramic and precious wood utensils are all exquisitely crafted, showing a superior level of contemporary handicrafts.

The Dan is a martial and brave nation.

Khidan (Qidan) originally means 'Wind Steel', meaning extremely solid and durable. This is a noble and brave nation. Since more than 1,400 years ago, the Khitan are the Northern Chinese ethnic group that appeared in the book of Wei. They are strong, brave, and brave soldiers. A tribal leader named Yelii Abaoji (Jia Lu A Baoji) unified the Khitan tribes. In 916, he established the Khitan state, in 947 changed the country's name to Dai Lieu.

During its heyday, the Dai Liao dynasty once occupied half of China's Jiangshan. Their territory is vast: North to Lake Baikal, beyond Dai Xing An; East close Sakhalin; West over the Altai Mountains; South to Hebei and north of present-day Shanxi province. It can be said that they are kings of a realm.

The Khiet Dan dynasty, the mighty Dai Liao, remained in Northern China for more than 200 years, with the Northern Song dynasty forming a rival situation. During this period, the trade silk road from China to the West was cut off, leading to the countries in Eurasia mistakenly thinking that the entire country of China was under the domination of ethnic minorities. Khiet Dan. So Khiet Dan suddenly became the word representing China.

Marco Polo first wrote in his travel book introducing the East to the Western world, and named China after Khiet Dan. To this day, Slavic-speaking countries still call China Khitan (Kitan or Kitai).

The Khitan people created a powerful military kingdom and a brilliant culture. Lieu pagoda and Lieu tower show their level of civilization. Up to now, ancient pagodas and towers have been preserved on the north bank of the Yellow River. The works are all majestic and majestic, over thousands of years they are still brave in the face of snow, wind and rain.

The Shakyamuni Tower in Ung district, Son Tay province is the oldest and tallest wooden structure tower in the world, having experienced several earthquakes without being damaged. A nation that created such a brilliant civilization must have an economic base and a strong technical strength.

It can also be seen that the Khitan dynasty absorbed all things good and bad. In addition to acquiring a large number of talented Han Chinese from the Trung Nguyen ethnic group, they also acquired and learned many advanced production techniques through trading with the Song dynasty. Khiet Dan clearly ushered in a prosperous era in Northern China.

Da Liao perishes

According to records, Dai Lieu faced the Northern Song for more than 160 years. In the end, the country that destroyed Dai Lieu was the Nu Zhen (Niizhen) ethnic group, which used to depend on the Khitan ethnic group.

The leader of the Nu Chan ethnic group, Wanyan Aguda (Hoan Nhan A Cot Da), led a large army to attack the citadel to rob Dai Lieu. When the land occupied was large enough and the population was relatively large, A Cot Da immediately established the Kim dynasty in 1115. Ten years later, the Kim dynasty replaced the Khiet Dan dynasty.

A part of the Khitan people who were lucky to survive gathered members of the royal family to evacuate to the West, establishing the Western Liao dynasty in Xinjiang. They established the country of Ha Lat Khitan (Hala Qidan). This empire was once strong, but was eventually destroyed by the great army of Genghis Khan (Gengis Khan). Later, the Khitan remnants drifted to present-day southern Iran and established the Qierman dynasty. Not long after, this dynasty also died out.

In the territory of China, from the Khiet Dan dynasty (916) to the Yuan dynasty (1271), just over 300 years, the Dai Liao, Northern Song, Western Xia, Jin, and Southern Song dynasties appeared. and Nguyen… This is a very special period because the rulers won over the world belonging to different ethnic groups in turn.

Therefore, the rise and fall of the dynasty also led to the status of the whole nation. Correlated cultures also undergo transformation. The Jin dynasty of the Jurchens, after taking over the Khitan empire, ordered a thorough purge of the protesting Khitans. History records show that there was a mass carnage that lasted for more than a month. It is possible that the Khitan culture was also eliminated during this period.

When the Kim dynasty was first created, it still did not have its own script, so they had to borrow Chinese characters to convert it to Kim. Emperor Kim officially issued a decree to remove the Khitan script completely and maybe because of that, the Khiet Dan script was lost.

Descendants of the Khitan people

The Khitan is a large ethnic group but is not named among the 56 ethnic groups in China today. When people are intently looking for evidence of the Khitan ethnic group, the Dawr ethnic group residing in the junction between Dai Xing An, Non Giang and the Hulunbeier grasslands especially attracts people's attention.

Legend has it that nearly a thousand years ago, a Khitan army unit was sent here to build a fortress to defend the border. They live here forever. The highest commander leading this border guard is Sagil Dihan, who is the ancestor of the Dawr ethnic group, an ethnic Dawr community in China today.

Comparing the production methods, activities, customs, religion, language, and history between the Khitan and Dawr ethnic groups, scholars have found a large amount of evidence that Dawr is the most inherited ethnic group. tradition of the Khitan people. But these are only indirect evidence, for reference, but not confirmed.

Scientists decided to study DNA techniques to solve the mystery. They took and compared the arm bone DNA believed to belong to the corpse of a Khitan woman obtained from Leshan area, Sichuan province; The teeth and skull bones of the ancient Khitan people were discovered when excavating an ancient tomb at Chifeng in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and blood samples of the Dawr people. In the end, they came to the conclusion: The Dawr people are genetically closest to the Khitan people. They are descendants of the Khitan people.

Historians have finally found out what to look for in the Khitan people. The Mongols, under the leadership of Genghis Khan, established the Mongol empire across the Eurasian continent, conquering all over the world, so they continuously captured soldiers to compensate. The young warrior Khiet Dan was forced to go to war, dispersed everywhere, in some areas where a relatively large population was maintained, such as the Dawr ethnic community. There is also a group of people who are quickly assimilated by the local population, i.e., the hidden descendants of the Khitan people.