Yelü Hongji’s last stand in the mountains and retreat

Yelü Hongji’s last stand in the mountains and retreat is the turning point at which an emperor’s field army, apparently capable of resisting a vastly larger rebel force, is undone by the captive families brought into view on the battlefield. Hongji rallies his troops, fortifies a position, and leads them through a fierce initial counterattack; when soldiers break ranks to reach their loved ones, he salvages the remaining force by withdrawing northwest into the mountains. The episode makes the limits of battlefield discipline stark: soldiers can be commanded to fight, but not to watch their families die without consequence.

Causes and the weakening of the army

The crisis begins with a succession dispute that has become a rebellion. Hongji’s grandfather, Yelü Longxu, had named his elder son Yelü Zongzhen as successor, although the empress favored her second son, Yelü Zhongyuan. Zhongyuan gave up his own chance at the throne and supported his brother, who later made him royal emperor brother and next in line to succeed. Yet when Zongzhen died, the throne passed instead to his son Hongji. After becoming emperor, Hongji sought to honor Zhongyuan with the title of royal emperor uncle, precedence in succession, supreme command of the army, and exceptional court privileges. He also gave Zhongyuan’s son Yelü NieLugu the title Prince of Chu and control of military affairs in the Southern Chancellery. These concessions placed immense power in the hands of the very family now challenging Hongji.

When the rebellion breaks into the open, a scout reports that the Prince of Chu has proclaimed Zhongyuan emperor and declared Hongji a usurper. The edict’s charge is politically dangerous: its version of the succession could persuade soldiers and civilians that the rebels, rather than Hongji, possess the legitimate claim. Hongji burns the document, but recognizes the force behind it. Zhongyuan, as supreme commander, could call upon an army of 800,000; Hongji has only about 100,000 troops with him. A further report puts the rebel force approaching to intercept him at 500,000.

Even before the armies meet, the crisis of allegiance is visible in camp. Hongji’s soldiers fear for relatives in the capital, where the emperor’s own parents and wife are also believed to be vulnerable. Their distress spreads into open crying, and attempts by commanders to silence the men do not restore confidence. Hongji understands that loyal ministers and officers cannot by themselves guarantee the army’s spirit. At first light, he resolves that retreat is impossible and orders the force to prepare for a fight to the death.

Building the stockade and fighting back

Hongji personally leads three units toward the enemy, promises promotion and substantial rewards after the crisis, and rides in golden armor and helmet. His visible presence restores some courage: the troops cheer and pledge to fight to the death. The army forms advance, left, right, and main divisions, while a smaller squad ranges along the flanks. Xiao Feng accompanies Hongji with bow and spear as his personal bodyguard; AhZi travels behind the main force under the protection of the Flying Bear troops.

On the approach, Hongji explains the Khitan practice of dismounting before battle on flat ground, where horse strength can determine whether cavalry can break through and press relentlessly. But when dust rises and rebel cavalry appears on both flanks, their force is five times the size of Hongji’s. The emperor orders the divisions to turn back and form a stockade. Soldiers hammer the pillars of a great leather tent into the ground, spread its covering, set abatis around the perimeter, and erect a wooden enclosure on the grassland. About 10,000 archers take position inside, bows ready. The improvised fortification converts an exposed force into a defended position, but it cannot erase the disparity in numbers.

The rebels first assemble beyond arrow range, surrounding the stockade from all sides. Then drums answer drums. More than a hundred rebel skin-drums thunder as tens of thousands of cavalry charge; drums inside the stockade sound in reply. At the signal, the defenders stop drumming and release a coordinated volley. Arrows bring down the leading attackers, but the next wave presses forward, using fallen horses as cover, while infantry archers advance behind shields and shoot toward the enclosure. The stockade’s defenses can blunt the assault, but each wave tests whether its defenders will hold.

Hongji’s courage grows once the battle begins. Standing on a raised platform with his blade in hand, he directs the fighting in person. His soldiers see him supervising the front and shout their allegiance; the cry unsettles the rebel troops, who look up at the emperor in his golden armor and falter. Hongji seizes that hesitation and orders the left cavalry to outflank them. The Northern Chancellery’s commander leads 30,000 horsemen around the enemy; the sudden charge throws the rebels into confusion, and they retreat under pursuit. Xiao Feng welcomes the apparent victory, but it is only a momentary reversal: the rebel main force soon drives forward again, and the renewed fighting sends arrows and spears through a field of screams and casualties. Xiao Feng recognizes that martial skill cannot decide a battle of armies on this scale; at most, it can protect an individual within it.

Captive families and the collapse of the position

The rebels next attack the loyalty on which the stockade depends. Hongji’s soldiers are personally attached to the emperor, who has treated them well and allowed their families to live in the capital. That arrangement was meant both to reward the troops and to keep them under imperial control during expeditions. Now it gives the rebels leverage. At the Prince of Chu’s command, bamboo whistles sound and the army parts to reveal rows of men, women, elderly people, and children in iron shackles. Their cries fill the battlefield. More than 200,000 soldiers’ family members are said to be in the capital, though only 30,000 have been brought forward; some of those seized are innocent, and the crowd is too chaotic for anyone to distinguish them reliably.

A rebel general promises that soldiers who surrender will be reunited with their families, promoted three ranks, and rewarded. Those who refuse are told that the people before them will be killed. The threat is not an empty one, and soldiers recognize their parents, spouses, and children in the captive ranks. The drums continue to beat inside the stockade, while the men’s attention shifts from the enemy beyond the walls to the relatives within reach of the rebel army.

The first break comes when a soldier cries out that his mother must not be killed, drops his spear, and runs toward her. An arrow from the stockade strikes him in the back, but he continues crawling. The desperate calls between captives and soldiers spread, and hundreds leave the formation. Another thousand follow. Hongji’s trusted generals draw their swords in an effort to stop them, but force cannot restore the line: of an original 150,000 troops, roughly 60,000 to 70,000 run across to the rebel side. The loss is not simply a change of numbers. It is the collapse of the position’s cohesion at the precise point where commanders need soldiers to remain in formation.

Retreat into the mountains

Hongji sees that the situation cannot be recovered. As families embrace amid the confusion and rebel troops divide to make space for them, he orders a retreat toward the vast mountains in the northwest. The remaining 80,000 men withdraw quickly, with the rear guard becoming the front of the moving column. The rebels try to pursue, but civilians crowd the battlefield so densely that their horses cannot pass at speed. That delay gives Hongji and his surviving force time to escape.

By dusk, the 80,000 reach the foot of the mountains. Exhausted and hungry, they occupy high ground and build a second stockade on a slope. Their rice has not yet been cooked when the Prince of Chu arrives and sends his troops uphill. The defenders rain arrows down on the attack and repel it; the prince judges the position unfavorable and withdraws to camp below. The high ground gives Hongji a temporary defensive advantage, but not a route out of encirclement. From the cliff, he sees fires in the rebel camp and more rebel forces joining it. He also learns that 15,000 troops under the Northern Chancellery commander have surrendered. The force that has reached the mountains is already diminishing.

That evening, Hongji tells Xiao Feng that the rebels will probably win the next morning and that he will become their prisoner. As emperor, he says, he cannot endure humiliation and intends to take his own life; he urges Xiao Feng to use the darkness to escape, since the rebels cannot easily stop his martial skill. Hongji regrets that, despite having intended to make his sworn brother wealthy and influential, he has instead drawn him into danger. The retreat therefore ends not in safety or triumph but in a precarious mountain refuge, with Hongji anticipating capture and considering death. Its immediate achievement is narrower: the survivors have escaped the stockade and repelled one assault, but the rebellion’s numerical advantage and the fracture in Hongji’s ranks remain unresolved.

Military and political significance

The episode sets two kinds of power against each other. Hongji’s personal command and the loyalty he has cultivated can steady the army, shape an effective stockade defense, and exploit a brief hesitation in the rebel ranks. But authority has limits when it rests on soldiers whose families can be used against them. The imperial policy that tied military households to the capital was at once a method of rewarding and controlling troops; in the rebellion, that same structure became a tool of coercion. The soldiers’ flight is presented not as simple treachery but as the collision between service to the emperor and the immediate demand to protect loved ones.

The battle also contrasts organized warfare with the world of individual martial combat. Drums, divisions, archers, cavalry, fortifications, signals, and the movement of civilians shape the outcome on a scale no single fighter can command. Xiao Feng can serve as Hongji’s bodyguard, but he cannot make a force facing overwhelming numbers invulnerable. The turning point comes not from a duel or a display of personal prowess but from the rebels’ use of captives to fracture the army from within. In that sense, Hongji’s retreat is both a military withdrawal and the exposure of how succession claims, inherited military authority, and family ties converge in civil war.