Life Stories of Han Yanhui and Zhang Li: Allegiance and Crossing the Border

In Unbounded Loyalty: Frontier Crossings in Liao China: “Chapter 4, Loyalties in the Borderlands”, the life stories of Han Yanhui and Zhang Li demonstrate how allegiances and loyalties changed over the 10th century and how they crossed borders. Information on Han Yanhui is very little but they are biographies written by historians during his lifetime. Han was born in the 800s and he and his father lived in a world where allegiances were prone to change. The reign of succession changed so many times during Han’s lifetime and he served many masters but the most influential masters were Abaoji and Liu Shouguang. Liu Shouguang was his first master but in 907, Han received a new post and master, Abaoji. Han refused to bow and show any manners towards his new master so Abaoji punished Han. In the end, Abaoji appointed Han as a planner in his court. As a planner, Han’s job was to manage displaced populations of the Southern nations, establish a Tang-style administration within the government, and even helped appease several of the tribal groups along the borders. Some of the sources, the Tongjian for example, written at the time emphasized some insight about what kind of qualities Han Yanhui had: “moral uprightness, civil influence, and a prodigy”. Part of his job being was to appease tribal groups, Han had to have knowledge and understanding of the social varieties of the frontier zones; for example, its assortment of farmers, herders, and traders, diversity of languages, and cultural variations. Since he was born in an official family in Lulong, he would have been exposed to the administration of a frontier population while in the meantime, giving him the experience with the patterns and needs of foreigners.

After most of the tribal groups were handled and the city’s population was settled, Han Yanhui left Abaoji’s side for the southerner nation of Taiyuan prince of Jin, Li Cunxu. Many people speculated this betrayal as evidence that Han Yanhui changed allegiance back to the south and had more of a desire to serve a Chinese king but that was not the case. Li Cunxu was Turkish, not Chinese. In several biographies, Tongjian and Qidan guo shi, they emphasize that Yanhui was genuinely loyal to his masters and filial. His reason for departing Liao was pure animosity towards an enemy and fear for his well-being so he used filial piety to visit his mother in the South to escape. In conclusion, Han Yanhui was a southerner who missed his homeland but was loyal to the master he served. Han was more concerned with breached loyalty in his homeland compared to loyalty in Liao.

Sources for Zhang Li’s life are more copious compared to Han Yanhui. Zhang Li’s patron was Li Yu, who had exemplar talents and Confucian virtues that would eventually influence Zhang Li during his lifetime. During the Zhenming reign, Zhang Li pledged his loyalty to Li Cunxu and received a post. Later on, he becomes disassociated with Li Yu and associated himself with Guo Chongtao. The difference between Han Yanhui and Zhang Li is Zhang Li’s loyalty remained more to individuals, not to devotion of a ruler or regime. Also, his loyalty was for the order and authority of the state.

Han Yanhui and Zhang Li changed allegiances but only Han crossed borders into Liao by living and joining the court. They both changed allegiances early in their livelihoods. Sources from later time periods dropped details pertaining to Li’s virtues, loyalty, and filial piety. All that was left was the weeping for Guo Chongtao’s murder incident and his merciless advice. The contrast between these two is not about one leaving one master for another and the other staying behind; it’s about the logician with an administrative skill and an idealistic person who was prepared to risk everything for personal loyalty to certain individuals. However, they both earned tremendous rewards when they left their first masters voluntarily and sought work elsewhere.