Biography of Empress Dowager Xiao

Author: Li Danlin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2000-06-01
Features: China is a multi-ethnic country, where the Han and minority ethnic groups have jointly created the splendid civilization of the Chinese nation for thousands of years. The term "minority ethnic groups" here not only refers to the 55 ethnic groups that still exist today but also includes those that have disappeared in the course of history, such as the Di, Yi, Xiongnu, Donghu, Shi, Jie, Xianbei, Turkic, Rouran, Khitan, and Jurchen, etc. When they rode their iron horses into the Central Plains, along with the shift in production methods from nomadism to agriculture, their lifestyles, customs, language, and clothing gradually changed. The protagonist of this book, Empress, was a Khitan military leader and stateswoman who ultimately promoted ethnic reconciliation. The period in which Empress lived—over 40 years from the late Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms to the establishment of the Song Dynasty—was another large-scale period of ethnic conflicts and integration in northern China after the Five Barbarians and Sixteen Kingdoms and the Northern and Southern Dynasties. The two large-scale northern campaigns launched by Emperor Taizong of the Song Dynasty to reclaim the Sixteen Prefectures of Youzhou, as well as Empress's frequent southward expeditions in a preemptive strategy, all resulted in widespread suffering and economic devastation. From a military perspective, the Liao Dynasty established by the Khitan held a clear advantage, but the one who first sent out signals for peace was not the Song Dynasty emperor who was repeatedly threatened by Liao forces, but rather Empress, who held the initiative in the war. She turned swords into plowshares and ultimately led both sides to end their 44-year-long hostile relationship, thus opening a new chapter of 120 years of friendly coexistence between the Song and Liao dynasties.