Western Xia (1038): Li Yuanhao's Tangut Empire in China

Western Xia, also called Xi Xia, was a kingdom of the Tangut people in northwest China that its ruler Li Yuanhao proclaimed an empire in 1038. Balanced between the Song dynasty, the Khitan Liao and the peoples of Central Asia, it survived for almost two centuries, created its own script and a rich Buddhist culture, and was destroyed by the Mongols in 1227.

Origins of the Tangut state

The Tanguts, who called themselves Mi or Minyak, were related to the Qiang peoples of the Tibetan borderlands. Under pressure from the rising Tibetan empire they moved northeast in the 7th and 8th centuries and settled in the Ordos region inside the great bend of the Yellow River.

Their leading clan, the Tuoba, served the Tang dynasty and received the imperial surname Li. After the Tang collapsed, Tangut leaders ruled the Xiazhou region almost independently. Li Jiqian (died 1004) broke with the Song in the 980s, and his son Li Deming expanded westward into the Gansu corridor, gaining control of profitable Silk Road trade.

Li Yuanhao proclaims an empire

Li Yuanhao (1003–1048), Deming’s son, succeeded in 1032 and set about creating a state that was clearly not Chinese. He issued decrees on Tangut dress and hairstyle, organised a bureaucracy and army, and ordered the creation of a national script. In 1038 he proclaimed himself emperor of the Great Xia; Chinese sources called it Western Xia. In Tangut texts the state was known as the Great State of White and High.

The Song court refused to accept an emperor on its frontier, and war followed. Between 1040 and 1042 Tangut armies won major victories at Sanchuankou, Haoshuichuan and Dingchuanzhai. In 1044 the two sides agreed a peace: Yuanhao accepted the title of a Song subject, while the Song agreed to pay annual gifts of silver, silk and tea. The same year Xia forces defeated a Liao army at Hequ. Yuanhao was murdered in 1048 by his own son in a palace conflict.

Script, Buddhism and culture

The Tangut script, traditionally credited to the scholar Yeli Renrong and promulgated around 1036, contained roughly 6,000 characters. Although it resembles Chinese at a glance, its characters were constructed differently, and it was used for laws, poetry, dictionaries and an enormous Buddhist literature.

Buddhism was the state religion. Western Xia translated the Buddhist canon into Tangut and became an important centre of printing, including some of the earliest surviving books printed with movable type, a technique first described in Song China in the account of Bi Sheng. Its law code of the Tiansheng reign (1149–1169) survives almost complete.

The economy combined farming on irrigated land along the Yellow River, where canals dating back to earlier dynasties watered the plain around the capital, with herding of horses, camels and sheep in the steppe and desert margins. Control of routes between China and Central Asia brought trade revenue, and border markets with the Song were valuable enough that closing them was a weapon in diplomacy. The population was mixed, including Tanguts, Chinese, Tibetans and Uyghurs.

Modern knowledge rests heavily on the ruined city of Khara-Khoto in Inner Mongolia, where the Russian explorer Pyotr Kozlov found thousands of Tangut texts in 1908–1909. A bilingual Tangut–Chinese glossary of 1190, the Pearl in the Palm, became a key to decipherment.

Wars with Song and Jin

Western Xia remained a serious military power. Conflict with the Song flared repeatedly, and the cost of frontier warfare contributed to Song fiscal strain and to the reforms of Wang Anshi. After the Jurchen Jin destroyed the Liao and seized north China in the 1120s, Western Xia accepted Jin overlordship and enjoyed a long period of relative stability in the 12th century.

Destruction by the Mongols

The rise of Genghis Khan ended this balance. The Mongols raided Western Xia in 1205 and 1207 and in 1209–1210 besieged the capital, forcing the Tangut ruler to submit as a vassal. When the Tanguts later refused to send troops for the Mongol campaign against the Khwarazmian Empire, Genghis returned in 1226 with a major army.

Tangut cities fell one after another. Genghis died in August 1227 while the capital, Zhongxing, was under siege; soon afterwards the last emperor, Li Xian, surrendered and was killed, and the Mongols carried out large-scale massacres. Tangut identity survived for a time in Mongol and Yuan service, but the state and much of its culture disappeared.

The imperial tombs

West of Yinchuan, at the foot of the Helan Mountains, stand the Western Xia imperial mausoleums: nine imperial tombs and more than 200 subsidiary burials spread over some 50 square kilometres. Their tall, conical earthen mounds, once faced with timber and tiles, are among the most striking monuments of medieval China. The site was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2025.

Myths and facts

Myth: Genghis Khan was killed by a captured Tangut queen. This story appears in later Mongol chronicles written centuries after the event. Earlier sources say he fell ill, possibly after a fall from his horse, and the exact cause of his death is unknown.

Fact: Western Xia was not a Chinese dynasty in the usual sense. It was a multi-ethnic state ruled by Tanguts. No official dynastic history of Western Xia was compiled; the Yuan-era histories of the Song, Liao and Jin describe it in sections on foreign states.

Timeline

• 980s: Li Jiqian breaks with the Song and builds Tangut power in the Ordos.
• 1032: Li Yuanhao succeeds his father, Li Deming.
• c. 1036: The Tangut script is promulgated.
• 1038: Li Yuanhao proclaims himself emperor of the Great Xia.
• 1040–1042: Tangut victories over Song armies.
• 1044: Peace with the Song; Xia forces defeat the Liao at Hequ.
• 1209–1210: Mongols besiege the capital and force Xia submission.
• 1227: Western Xia falls to the Mongols; its last ruler is executed.

Why it matters

Western Xia shows that medieval China was a world of several competing states, not a single empire. The Tanguts built a distinctive civilisation with its own script, laws and Buddhist learning, and its abrupt destruction is one of the starkest examples of the impact of the Mongol conquests.