Yelu Chucai

Also known as Zi Jinqing

Yelu Chucai, courtesy name Jinqing, sobriquet Zhanran Jushi, was a Khitan descended in the eighth generation from the Liao prince Yelu Bei; his father Yelu Lu had been a chief minister of the Jin. Widely read in astronomy, calendrics and Buddhism, he served the Jin as an official in Yanjing. Genghis Khan summoned him in 1218, nicknamed him Long Beard, and took him on the western campaign the next year, which he later described in his *Xiyou lu*. When Ogedei's courtier Bedei proposed emptying north China of its farmers to make pasture, Yelu Chucai argued for taxing them instead, set up tax offices in ten circuits, and in 1231 became head of the Secretariat. During the 1236 census he urged that tax be levied by household rather than by head, and in 1238 he arranged an examination that freed more than four thousand scholars from bondage. Sidelined under the regency of Toregene, he died in 1244 at fifty-five and was later named Wenzheng by the Yuan.