On The Han Officials In The Liao Dynasty From The Epitaph Social Status

The Liao Dynasty was founded by Qidan. It is a very important historical stage in Chinese history. In the research field of Liao Dynasty history, the academic research of the political, social, cultural, customs and geography have made great achievements. But most of them were based on historical documents and only a few stone materials of Liao Dynasty. The epitaph can record the life time of the characters as the carrier. They are the primary information for historical study. This paper uses a lot of epitaphs of Liao Dynasty and summarizes the spread of these epitaphs under the administrative divisions of the Liao Dynasty.By analyzing the epigraph, the paper discuss the active areas, the experiences of being officials, the treatments and their social statuses of Han officials in the Liao according to the epigraphs. Then we can understand the political life of the Han officials in a more ocular way.According to the collation and analysis of the epigraph, the burial places of the epitaphs mainly distributed in the south place of the Liao Dynasty. Combining the personal residences with the burial places of Han officials, we can understand the active areas of the Han bureaucracy in Liao Dynasty.There are not enough records of the Han officials in the historical documents in Liao Dynasty. Most of the records are the people who had high status or who had made outstanding contribution. The identities of the tomb owners are diverse usually. They can be the officials who was born in aristocratic families, the ones who entered political stratum through the imperial examination, and the captives or the officials who were surrendered. There were many descriptions of these Han officials, such as their life treatments and political lives in the Liao Dynasty. Based on all kinds of Han epigraph, we can understand deeply the attitudes of the rulers of Liao Dynasty towards the Han official. Being the different dignity and status of the Han officials, they were divided into three groups:the officials who were surrendered, the officials from aristocratic families and general officials. They were discussed respectively. In the early Liao Dynasty, most of the officials in Han bureaucratic system were captives. They got a better treatment by the Liao rulers than their original countries rulers. A large number of the Han officials supported the law. The Han officials developed their own forces in the Liao Dynasty and formed aristocratic families gradually. These family members enjoyed certain privileges, and also had high statuses in the society. After the opening of the imperial examination system in Liao Dynasty, many general officials who did not have good family backgrounds swarmed into the Han bureaucrat system. Comparing to the aristocratic family members, general officials were not easy to be promoted. So, their living conditions were uneven. In general, the attitudes of the rulers of Liao Dynasty towards the Han officials were very fair. The Han officials had very high social statuses and very good treatments. The rulers of the Liao Dynasty provided them certain privileges in offices, marriage, funeral which set a high value to the Han officials.The paper analyzed the Han officials’ lives and the social statuses. It will enrich the historical material and will reveal the politics, society, customs and geography of Liao Dynasty fully.