Emperor Xizong of Jin, who has reigned from 1135 as an emperor of the Jin Dynasty that controls northern China from 1135-1149, is the eldest son of the founder of the Jin Dynasty Wanyan Aguda.
His birth name was Wányán Hélá; his Han Chinese name is Wányán Dǎn.
Although after Aguda's death in 1123 the Jin throne had been inherited by Aguda's brother Wuqimai, Aguda's top general Nianhan and chancellor Xiyin had convinced Wuqimai to declare young Dan his heir apparent in 1132.
Accordingly, Dan had inherited the Jin throne after the death of Wuqimai in 1135.
He is murdered in a coup d'état on Julian calendar day January 9, 1150, by his marshal Wanyan Liang, a son of the influential Wanyan Woben, who in his turn was a son of the dynasty's founder Wanyan Aguda.
As a usurper of the Jin throne, Liàng, who takes the reign name Hailing, is suspicious of other members of the Jurchen aristocracy, and, immediately upon seizing the power, starts assassinating or executing potential rivals.
In a mass execution of several aristocratic families, the lineage of Wanyan Wuqimai is exterminated, to secure the position of the lineage of Wuqimai's brother Aguda, to which Hailing himself belongs.
Hailing, capitalizing on the Jin Empire's being recognized as the "superior" state by other powers of the region after its victory over Song had been formalized in 1141, embarks on a program of making Jin Empire the Chinese Empire.
To legitimize himself as a Chinese ruler, he lifts Wuqimai's prohibition of wearing Chinese dress, and adopted an array of Chinese practices and institutions, such as holding of sacrificial ceremonies in the northern and southern suburbs of his capital.
