Xiao Feng Frees Song Captives Taken by the Liao Army is a turning point in which Xiao Feng uses his Liao office to release civilians taken in a cross-border raid. Faced with the captives’ vulnerability and the logic of reciprocal plunder, he refuses to treat them as spoils of war. His act gives concrete form to a moral question that his divided identity makes impossible to leave abstract: what separates people who share ordinary human lives, and what justifies making them enemies?

Background: An Appointment in a Contested Empire

Xiao Feng reaches this encounter as Lord of the Southern Chancellery, an office he holds because his sworn brother, YeLu HongJi, appointed him after the rebellion. The political settlement that precedes the appointment is shaped by Liao’s succession history. YeLu ZhongYuan had once been positioned to succeed his brother YeLu ZongZhen, but relinquished the throne; later, YeLu HongJi inherited it instead. HongJi compensated his uncle with exceptional status and military power, while ZhongYuan’s son, YeLu NieLuGu, controlled the Southern Chancellery. The resulting concentration of authority helps explain both the rebellion and the office Xiao Feng later receives.

That office carries an obligation Xiao Feng does not welcome. Though he is a Khitan by birth, he grew up in the Southern Song and is reluctant to lead a campaign against it. He considers serving for a time before seeking resignation, hoping not to insult HongJi or damage their sworn-brother bond. His reluctance matters here: he is not presented as a settled advocate of imperial policy, but as a man whose public position forces him to confront the consequences of state power at close range.

The Liao–Song frontier is also described as a strategic and economically burdened zone. The Liao’s possession of the Sixteen Prefectures, acquired after Shi JingTang ceded them, gives its forces an advantage in campaigns against the Song; generations of fighting have failed to restore the territory to Song control. Against that larger history, raids are not isolated acts of battlefield violence. They are part of a recurring system in which armies obtain supplies by seizing goods and people from neighboring populations.

The Captives Arrive

During a hunting outing near the city, Xiao Feng sees Liao soldiers returning with captured civilians. Their horses carry silk and other possessions, while roughly seven or eight hundred captives are bound behind them. Most are young women, with some young men among them; all wear Song clothing, and many are crying. The display makes the raid’s human cost visible at the moment the soldiers present its material gains.

The unit’s captain treats the capture as a routine success and says his men have come back from raiding near Zhuozhou, close to the Song border. He orders the best-looking young women and finest goods brought forward for Xiao Feng to choose from, apparently expecting the new Lord of the Southern Chancellery to accept the customary share. The soldiers’ respect for his rank does not alter what they have done: civilians have been taken and their possessions divided as spoils.

Xiao Feng recognizes the pattern from both sides. At Yanmen Gate he had seen Song soldiers capture Khitan civilians; now Liao soldiers have seized Song people. The account explains that Liao troops are not supplied with provisions or paid salaries, and are expected to obtain what they need by raiding neighboring lands. Liao calls these raids “Beating The Grass Valley”; Song retaliatory raids are called “Beating The Standing Valley.” For people living near the border, this cycle means daily fear of capture, rather than a clear distinction between military victory and civilian safety.

A Captive’s Accusation

Among the captives, a young woman from Zhang village kneels and asks to be released so she can return to her parents. Most of the others also kneel. One youth, about sixteen, remains standing. He says he has an important secret to disclose privately, leading Xiao Feng to suspect that he may know something about Song military movements. The supposed secret proves to be a pretext: when the youth approaches, he throws a small cloth bag of quicklime toward Xiao Feng’s face. Xiao Feng knocks it aside with his whip before the powder can reach him.

Asked why he tried to harm him, the youth says he failed to avenge his parents and uncle. He identifies Xiao Feng by his former name, Qiao Feng, and accuses him of killing his family. He then tries to take his own life with a short knife, but Xiao Feng stops him with the whip. The youth gives his name as You TanZhi and continues to direct his anger at Xiao Feng. The encounter therefore places two claims on Xiao Feng at once: the immediate responsibility to decide the captives’ fate, and the unresolved personal accusation carried by a captive who sees him as an enemy.

A'Zi urges Xiao Feng to punish You TanZhi for attempting to blind him. Xiao Feng does not follow that suggestion. Instead, he turns to the captain and asks for all the Song captives. The soldiers are pleased to comply; Xiao Feng tells them to return to his residence for a reward, although they say they do not need one. Their deference shows how readily his authority can redirect the outcome, but it also exposes the ordinary assumptions underlying the raid. The captain even asks whether Xiao Feng intends to use the captives as live targets, a practice he associates with the previous Prince of Chu.

Release and Moral Reckoning

The captain’s remark forces Xiao Feng to imagine what such a practice would mean: captives treated as targets for amusement, while those in power watched. The civilians before him are already frightened, and some understand enough Khitan speech to fear that possibility. Against that threat, Xiao Feng’s decision to release them is immediate and explicit. He tells them they can go, but they hesitate, unsure whether they are being ordered to run only to be shot at.

Xiao Feng assures them that he means to let them return home and advises them to move farther from the frontier, where they are less likely to be caught in another raid. He cannot promise to protect them in the future. Once they believe him, the captives kneel and thank him, aware that poor people like themselves have no gold or silk with which to buy release. For them, the order changes the likely outcome from disappearance into captivity to a difficult journey home.

Their gratitude does not settle Xiao Feng’s own judgment. Watching them help one another south, he questions whether releasing people who have already suffered a dangerous journey can count as kindness. His doubt prevents the scene from becoming a simple portrait of benevolent authority: he has intervened, but he has not undone the violence that brought them there, nor can he guarantee their safety beyond his immediate reach.

Identity Beyond the Border

Xiao Feng’s response is sharpened by the fact that he once understood himself as a citizen of Song. He reflects that he and the captives speak the same language and eat the same food, and questions the divisions that turn Khitan, Song, Jurchen, and Korean people into mutually plundered populations. His thought links identity to the border’s repeated acts of capture and reprisal: one side raids, the other answers with a raid, and civilians bear the cost of the cycle.

The scene also places his conduct beside the Liao title that gives him power. As Lord of the Southern Chancellery, he could have accepted the captives and their property as part of the spoils; instead, he uses that position to free them. Yet his compassion is not the same as an uncomplicated rejection of his Khitan affiliation. He recognizes the captors as his own people and still refuses to treat that connection as a reason to condone their actions. His choice makes belonging a source of responsibility rather than an excuse for collective hostility.

You TanZhi’s continued presence complicates the release. While the other captives begin their journey south, he remains standing, and Xiao Feng asks whether he has enough money to return. Xiao Feng reaches into his robe to offer him money but finds none. Instead, his hand encounters the oilcloth bag containing the Sanskrit Tendon-Changing Sutra, which A'Zhu had stolen from Shaolin and insisted he keep. Its presence recalls her death and brings private grief into the aftermath of the public act. The captives are free to leave, but the scene closes with Xiao Feng still facing the unresolved consequences of his past and unable to turn every encounter into a clean reconciliation.