Khitans II

916-1125 CE

From 916 to 1125 CE, the Khitans built an empire that Chinese historians would struggle to classify — nomadic warriors who ruled settled farmers, steppe shamans who patronized Buddhist monasteries, illiterate horsemen whose scribes invented not one but two original scripts. Their Liao dynasty held the Sixteen Prefectures that guarded China's northern approaches, extracting silk and silver as tribute until the Jurchens they had once dominated rose up and erased them from history.