Sixteen Prefectures

Tang dynasty political geography

The Sixteen Prefectures were administrative units established during the Tang dynasty. Under the Tang, each prefecture or zhou was a unit of administration larger than a county but smaller than a province. The Sixteen Prefectures stretched from Ji County in modern-day Tianjin Municipality to Datong in Shanxi Province, extending contiguously along the mountains that divide the agrarian plains of central China from the pastoralist steppes to the north. Several dynasties including the Qin and the Northern Dynasties before the Tang built the Great Wall along these mountains. Seven of the Sixteen Prefectures were located inside (south) of the Inner Great Wall. The other eleven were located in between the Inner and Outer Great Walls. The Tang did not build Great Walls but used frontier military commanders to guard against the northern tribes. The Fanyang or Youzhou-Jizhou Commandery, based in modern-day Beijing commanded 11 of the Sixteen Prefectures. The other seven were commanded by the Hedong Commandery based in Yunzhou, modern Datong.

The historian Frederick W. Mote writes that there were actually 19 prefectures but does not specify them. Chinese historians do not consider Yíngzhou (营州; modern Qian'an, Hebei) and Pingzhou (平州; modern Lulong, Hebei) to be part of the Sixteen Prefectures because they had already been occupied by the Khitans during the Later Tang, prior to Shi Jingtang’s cession. Yizhou (易州; modern Yi County, Hebei), which fell to the Khitans after the cession, is also excluded from the count of 16. The Liao created two new prefectures, Jingzhou (景州, modern Zunhua, Hebei) from Jizhou and Luanzhou (滦州; Luan County, Hebei) from Pingzhou, which have not been included in the original sixteen.

Cession to the Khitans during the Five Dynasties

The year 907 was a turning point in East Asian history. On that year the pastoral and nomadic people known as the Khitan crowned Abaoji as their new Great Khan, the first from the Yila tribe after some two centuries of leadership by the Yaolian clan. Abaoji coveted the plains of North China, a rich source of plunder that was guarded by a line of passes and fortifications stretching from mountainous northern Shanxi to the Bo Sea. In 905 Abaoji had already started to intervene in northern China by leading a massive army to Datong in Shanxi to swear brotherhood with Li Keyong, a "partially sinified Shatuo Turk" who nominally served the severely weakened Tang dynasty as Military Governor of Shanxi on the westernmost point of that defense line.

The rise of Khitan power under Abaoji occurred just as China was falling into turmoil. The fall of the Tang dynasty in 907 led to power struggles among rival warlords and to the creation of a number of short-lived polities known as the Five Dynasties. The first of these dynasties was founded by Zhu Wen, another military governor, who declared himself emperor of the Later Liang in 907 after deposing the last Tang heir. In 923 his dynasty was overthrown by Li Keyong's son, who had just founded the Later Tang (923–936).

The Sixteen Prefectures passed into Khitan hands in 938, when the Khitan supported Shi Jingtang, another Shatuo Turk and military governor of Shanxi, in his revolt against the Later Tang. Confident in his own military strength, the Khitan leader, Abaoji's second son Yelü Deguang, convinced Shi to found a new dynasty (the Later Jin, 936–946), but also to cede a large band of territory to the Khitan that represented the entire North China defense line. The Khitan now possessed all the passes and fortifications that controlled access to the northern China plains.

Liao rule

The Khitan kept using Chinese administrative forms to administer the counties and prefectures they had captured. They named Datong (on the western end of the Sixteen Prefectures) their Western Capital, and in 938 built a new fortified city at Youzhou (near modern-day Beijing), which they turned into their Southern Capital. Under Khitan rule, the Sixteen Prefectures thus represented two of the Liao Empire's five divisions. Both sections were part of the Southern Chancellery, one of two broader divisions the Liao state had been divided into. The Sixteen Prefectures had become the springboard from which the Liao dynasty would exert its influence on northern China.

Shi Jingtang, the Later Jin ruler who had ceded the Sixteen Prefectures to the Khitan in 937, died in 942. He had been a staunch ally (some say a puppet) of the Khitan, but his successor Shi Chonggui refused to recognize the Khitan Khan as his superior. After a year of tense diplomatic exchanges, in 943 the Khitan finally resolved to punish Shi for his insubordination. For two years the engagements were indecisive, until in 945, Yelü Deguang, who was leading his troops in battle, was almost killed in a route of his forces in southern Hebei; he had to flee the battlefield on a camel. The following year, however, the Khitan sovereign launched a new campaign from his Southern Capital (within the Sixteen prefectures), triggering the collapse of the Later Jin. Having seized the Later Jin capital of Kaifeng in early 947, later that year he declared the foundation of the Liao dynasty and proclaimed himself Emperor of China. Known posthumously as Emperor Taizong of Liao, Deguang quickly became disillusioned with governing so many sedentary people who resented Khitan rule, and decided to retreat back to his Southern Capital. Heavy Chinese resistance on the retreat route and Taizong's death in 947 provoked a succession crisis in the Liao government, and an opportunity for a new dynasty in northern China.

Still, the territory remained in Liao hands. However, by 960, the Song dynasty had ended the turmoil that northern China had endured since 907, and by 979, they had essentially unified the kingdom, with the exception of the Sixteen Prefectures.

Liao-Song contention

The Liao and Song were actually developing reasonably amicable relations in the 960s into the mid-970s, during the reign of Emperor Taizu of Song. Of course, the Song dynasty was still focusing on the south where it was attempting to reunite the bulk of the Chinese realm. However, despite the exchange of embassies in 974 and the growth of profitable trade between the two, there were still two fatal flaws to the relationship. One concerned continued support for the remnant Shatuo Turk Northern Han state. The other was the Song dynasty’s refusal to accept continued Liao possession of the Sixteen Prefectures.

When the Song were successful in finally incorporating the Northern Han in 979, the emperor decided to launch an offensive against the Liao in the Sixteen Prefectures. Emperor Taizong led his weary and ill-supplied troops from toward the Liao Southern Capital (present-day Beijing.) The Liao boundary was reached in May and they initially encountered little resistance. By July 20, they had attacked the Southern Capital. Ten days later, the first contingent of Liao cavalry arrived. The ensuing Battle of Gaoliang River on August 1 near the Southern Capital resulted in a complete rout of Song forces, who had to retreat back to Kaifeng. The Sixteen Prefectures would remain in Liao hands.

After Emperor Jingzong died, Empress Dowager Chengtian took power at age 30 in 982, serving as a regent for her 11-year-old son Emperor Shengzong and led military campaigns along with her son until her death. The Song once again tried to attack in 986, to take advantage of Shengzong's youth. They sent forces against the territory on three fronts, but the Liao scored decisive victories over all three Song forces. Empress Dowager Chengtian personally led the Liao army in campaigns against the Song Chinese during their invasion of Liao in 986 and defeated them in battle, fighting the retreating Chinese army. She then ordered the castration of around 100 ethnic Chinese boys she had captured in China, supplementing the Khitan's supply of eunuchs to serve at her court, among them was Wang Ji'en. The boys were all under ten years old and were selected for their good looks. The History of Liao (遼史) described and praised Empress Chengtian's capture and mass castration of Chinese boys in a biography on the Chinese eunuch Wang Ji'en. The fifteen-year-old Emperor Shengzong led the Liao’s decisive victory at the Battle of Qigou Pass.

Han Chinese elites held a prominent position in the Liao state along with Khitan elites. One of them was a lineage with the surname Han (韓). The Khitan had abducted the Han clan from Jizhou and despite being Han Chinese, they were thoroughly Kitanized culturally and linguistically and served the Liao Khitan loyally in military and political positions along with several other Han Chinese elite families who were Kitanized. The loyalty of the Han Chinese population of the Liao to the Liao Khitan rulers frustrated the Song Chinese. Khitan women from the imperial consort clan were given to the men of the Chinese Han family for marriage. One member of this lineage was Han Derang (韓德讓), who was close to the Khitan royal family and whose paternal ancestors served the Liao from the time of Abaoji's reign. Han Derang was the Chinese minister who the Khitan Empress Dowager Chengtian had a love affair with, and Chengtian was rumoured to have a son with him.

Through the 990s, relations between the Song and Liao steadily worsened. Beginning in 999, the Liao would use the Sixteen Prefectures as the launching pad for victorious, but inconsequential attacks on the Song. Then, in 1004, Liao emperor Shengzong launched another major campaign against the Song. The Shanyuan Treaty signed in early 1005 resulted in annual tribute paid to the Liao dynasty by the Song dynasty.

This treaty was the guide by which relations between the two dynasties would progress until the fall of the Liao dynasty. The Sixteen Prefectures would remain in their possession until that time.