©Copyright 2012 Chad D. Garcia Horsemen from the Edge of Empire: The Rise of the Jurchen Coalition Chad D. Garcia A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2012 Reading Committee: Patricia Ebrey, Chair R. Kent Guy Madeleine Yue Dong Program Authorized to Offer Degree: History University of Washington Abstract Horsemen from the Edge of Empire: The Rise of the Jurchen Coalition Chad D. Garcia Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Patricia Ebrey History This dissertation examines the formation and rise of the Jurchen Coalition under the leadership of the Anchuhu Wanyan clan during the late 11 th and early 12 th centuries. The Anchuhu Wanyan utilized their political and geographical position along the periphery of the Liao Dynasty in order to consolidate power among the many Jurchen groups of the northeast. It is well established that the Anchuhu Wanyan served the Liao Dynasty as enforcers of imperial rule within Jurchen territory. However, this role as a policing force for the empire was only part of their success in consolidating power among the other Jurchen tribes of the northeast. The early Anchuhu Wanyan leaders utilized diverse tactics to allow them to maintain a dual-façade as both servants and rivals of the Liao Empire. The expansion of the Jurchen Coalition brought them into conflict with various groups seeking to challenge their power. Many of these early conflicts were with rival Jurchen leaders who would often flee to the Liao Empire for political asylum. However, the Jurchen Coalition also had a major confrontation with the kingdom of Goryeo. The war between Goryeo and the Anchuhu Wanyan has not been adequately covered in the literature and yet was a crucial event during the years immediately prior to the Jurchen invasion of the Liao Dynasty. Finally, the war with the Liao Empire and the earliest most crucial phase of invasion is examined along with potential answers to questions surrounding the motivations, and key factors of Jurchen success. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Introduction ………………………………………………………………………... 1 Chapter One: Rise of the Anchuhu Wanyan ………………………………………. 13 Chapter Two: Crisis within the Coalition …………………………………………..49 Chapter Three: Manipulating an Empire ………………………………………….. 87 Chapter Four: War with Goryeo ……………………………………………………129 Chapter Five: Prelude to Invasion …………………………………………………. 168 Chapter Six: The Fall of an Empire ……………………………………………….. 214 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………….254 Full Map: Lands of the Jurchens ………………………………………………….. 258 Glossary …………………………………………………………………………… 259 List of References …………………………………………………………………. 308 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have no doubt that were it not for the amazing support and assistance of many, this dissertation would never have been attempted, let alone completed. My experience of researching and writing this dissertation has convinced me that without the emotional and financial buoys of my loving family members, supportive faculty advisors, and the generosity of a number of fine academic organizations, I would have long since abandoned both my efforts and sanity. But here I am, still sane and happy to have completed this work. Thus, it is with a grateful heart that I now take the time to thank the many groups and individuals who made this dissertation possible. First, I would like to thank my Advisor and Committee Chair, Patricia Ebrey. Her kindness and professionalism has inspired my entire outlook on what the academy can be. She is and will always be my ideal of what a mentor should be. I am so grateful for her patience and her thoroughness in giving constructive comments and direction. I would also like to thank the other members of my doctoral and dissertation reading committees: Kent Guy, Madeleine Yue Dong, Florian Schwarz, and David Spafford. Each have left a strong impression on me and have influenced how I approached the topic of this dissertation and graduate work in general. A special thanks goes to Kent Guy, who gave me fantastic advice and instruction during the earliest phases of planning and crafting this work. Even though the final product is far removed from the work we envisioned, his initial guidance was crucial in helping me to tackle this potentially daunting assignment. Next, I would like to express my deep gratitude for the many organizations and foundations that provided generous financial assistance and support during my years of study at the University of Washington. To the donors and administrators of the Culp-Jackson Recruitment Fellowship and the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, I give my most sincere and humble thanks. My experience at the University of Washington would have been infinitely more difficult if not for their years of support and encouragement. The same sentiment can be applied to the University of Washington’s Department of History and the Hsiao Endowment. I am confident that if not for the help of these organizations, I would not have had the stamina to complete my degree requirements while meeting the demands of tuition and living expenses. I can only hope that I will have the opportunity to pay-forward the generosity that has been extended to me during my graduate school career. Finally, I would like to thank my loving family members and friends who dwell far outside the realms of Chinese history and premodern borderlands. Their unwavering support and company has carried me through the most difficult times of research and writing. My extended family, my brothers-in-arms within Tredub, my lasting friends from Bloomington, and my peers at the UW, have all helped me stay grounded and have reminded me how ii fortunate I am to have such a wonderful band of supporters and friends. In closing, I reserve my fondest and deepest gratitude for my wife, Lisa, who has listened to all of my ideas, victories, and insecurities with the greatest patience and love. Her confidence in me has carried me farther than I ever could have traveled alone. iii 1 Introduction Many questions surround the meteoric rise of the Jurchen people within the region of North China during the 12 th century. The history of the first Jurchen emperor, Aguda (r.1113-1123), is relatively well known within the field and was familiar to me as I began to investigate his story. The invasion and conquest of the formerly dominant Kitan-Liao Dynasty (907-1125), followed by the successful invasion and occupation of the northern territories of the Song Dynasty (960-1276) makes the story of the Jurchen-Jin (1115-1234) a remarkable chapter in China’s premodern history. The Jurchen people not only conquered their neighbors, but they also established a lasting and successful administration over their conquered populations. Like the Kitan and Tangut empires before them, the Jurchens developed their own written script and used it alongside the standard administrative language of premodern East Asia: Chinese. Like scholars before me, I was compelled to ask the question of how. How did they do it? How were the Jurchens able to succeed and accomplish so much in so short a span of time? What factors contributed to their success? This dissertation contains my answers to these questions surrounding the rise of the Jurchens. The scope of the narrative told here favors the earliest days of the coalition of tribes led by the Anchuhu Wanyan: the Jurchen clan that eventually became the imperial clan of the Jin Dynasty. This is due in large part to my own naiveté when approaching my original questions. I decided to “begin at the beginning” in order to discover whether or not the later success of the Jurchens under Aguda could be attributed in some part to his predecessors within the Anchuhu Wanyan clan and their efforts at state-building within the frontier zone 2 of the Liao Empire. My findings revealed that Aguda’s predecessors had indeed done much to provide a foundation upon which the later emperor would build his authority and legitimacy. Furthermore, I discovered that the story of these pre-Jin Dynasty, or pre-imperial Jurchens was not well covered in the scholarly literature. I found this surprising due to the intrinsic value of the story as an approximate record of a group living within the shadow of a strong imperial border in premodern East Asia. Thus, much of this project is an investigation of the frontier world of the northeastern borders of the Liao Dynasty, and how the Anchuhu Wanyan flourished within that complex political environment. The narrative of the early Anchuhu Wanyan is contained primarily within the first chapter of the Jin Dynastic History, or Jinshi 金史. This record was initiated early in 1343 under the direction of a Mongol minister of the late Yuan Dynasty named Tögtö (1313- 1355). 1 The Jinshi compilers drew heavily from the private writings of Jin Dynasty scholars as well as the official records kept by the Jin government. 2 However, the origins of the Anchuhu Wanyan clan and their creation of a Jurchen state predates the establishment of the Jin Dynasty and thereby predates many of the later records written about this period. The original documentation of the pre-imperial Jurchen was possibly recorded soon after the establishment of the dynasty by educated Jurchens seeking to record the stories of their past. For example, the illustrious war hero Zonghan 宗翰 (d.1136) was known to enjoy visiting with elderly Jurchens to ask them about their histories, presumably so they could be recorded 1 Tögtö, or Tuotuo 脫脫 was Chief Minister of the Right ( you chengxiang 右丞相) at the time of the Jinshi project, but resigned from his post in early 1344 before its completion. 2 For a more comprehensive account of the compilation of the Jinshi and the myriad issues surrounding this Yuan Dynasty project see Hok-lam Chan, The Historiography of the Chin Dynasty: Three Studies (Wiesbaden: F.