Abraham Lincoln vs Yelu Abaoji

Any comparison between Yelu Abaoji and Abraham Lincoln must acknowledge their profoundly different historiographical traditions. While Lincoln’s letters and speeches offer us direct insight into his constitutional reasoning—his Second Inaugural Address is a masterpiece of political theology—Abaoji’s motivations are mediated through Liao shi, a later dynastic history compiled under Yuan patronage. The dual-administration system (南北面官制) was indeed innovative, but we must remember that Sima Guang, writing in the 11th century, viewed the Khitans as barbarians. Our modern appreciation of multicultural governance shouldn't flatten the contemporary disdain Abaoji faced from Chinese literati. Lincoln’s global influence is undeniable, but Abaoji’s legacy is arguably more foundational for Northeast Asian statecraft.

The military scores here are frankly misguided. Lincoln’s 50 is generous—he never commanded a single field army, and his strategic interference (like the Peninsula Campaign meddling) often hindered operations. Abaoji’s 73 is too low. He didn’t just ‘unify tribes’—he personally led the conquest of the Khitan steppe, defeated the Shiwei and Bohai kingdoms, and created a hybrid cavalry-infantry army that could besiege Chinese walled cities while dominating open plains. Compare that to Lincoln’s record: his Emancipation Proclamation was a political weapon, not a military strategy, and the Union victory relied more on industrial attrition than any tactical genius. If we’re scoring actual generalship, Abaoji deserves at least 80.

This comparison reveals the Eurocentric bias embedded in so-called 'universal' historical rankings. Lincoln gets inflated Influence and Legacy scores because Western historiography treats the Emancipation Proclamation as a global moral watershed—but we conveniently forget it only freed slaves in rebel states, not border states like Kentucky. Meanwhile, Abaoji’s dual-administration system, which allowed nomadic and agricultural peoples to coexist under one legal framework, is dismissed as 'regionally contained.' That’s a colonial mindset: creating a multicultural empire from scratch isn’t ‘influential’ unless it happens in Europe or America. Also, Lincoln’s political score of 88 vs. Abaoji’s 90 is almost ironic—Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and suppressed dissent; Abaoji at least governed with explicit pluralism. Let’s stop naturalizing Western categories as the baseline.

我对这个评分体系有几点质疑。第一，林肯军事50分，耶律阿保机73分——相差23分，但政治只差2分（88 vs 90）。这不合理。林肯是战时总统，直接主导了战略决策，比如任命格兰特为总司令，而耶律阿保机是亲自带兵打仗的君主。如果军事分差那么大，政治分应该也体现这种差距——阿保机政治至少该比林肯高5分以上。第二，影响力72 vs 78——我做过简单计算：以全球知名度、被引用次数、后世政权模仿度三个指标看，耶律阿保机的“双轨制”对元朝、清朝都有直接影响，而林肯的影响力更多是象征性的。我认为这个维度应该倒过来：阿保机78，林肯72。第三，总分79.3 vs 76.7，差距这么小，但两人背景完全不同，这个分数其实是系统性地偏向西方人物在影响力上的加权。

拿耶律阿保机跟林肯比，本身就有点关公战秦琼。我先不说分数，单说政治维度90分——中国史学界对阿保机的评价其实更复杂。他建辽国，创南北面官制，的确是开创性政治智慧。但林肯的88分是不是低了？他面对的是现代宪政危机，十一州脱离联邦，奴隶制撕裂国家，他靠政治手腕和《解放宣言》硬生生重塑了美国国体。而且从中国史观来看，阿保机的“影响”72分合理——辽朝后来被金灭，契丹文化基本消失。林肯的“影响”78分？我觉得低了，全世界的民主运动都受他影响。这个评分系统明显偏重中国史背景，对林肯的全球分量估计不足。