Circuit, prefecture or people · The Jin empire of Zhangzong · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Flood land of 1194

Not an administrative unit but a physical belt the Jin has to rule.

In the eighth month of Mingchang 5 (autumn 1194; the Julian dates of that month shift by a month with the calendar's leap month) the Yellow River broke its old bank at Yangwu and flowed east over Fengqiu. The river then ran as two arms: a southern one that took the Bian, Sui and Si beds past Kaocheng, Guide and Xuzhou into the Huai, and a northern one still reaching the sea (the Hebei arm, written by the Hebei researcher). The belt drawn here is the southern arm's probable plain, not a surveyed bank; the Dili zhi notes the river at Yangwu, Yanjin and Kaocheng and says nothing about the lower reach.

Who holds it

Title
Water bureau (Du shuijian) and the county magistrates along the new course
Since
not known
Born
not known
Family
not known
Confidence
low

Not known. The Jinshi names prefects only inside individual biographies, which we could not reach; the office, not the man, is what the map can show.

Overlord

the Jin emperor Zhangzong (Wanyan Jing), Cheng'an 4, through the Department of State Affairs at Zhongdu

What it holds

  • Yangwu
  • Fengqiu
  • Yanjin
  • Changyuan
  • Kaocheng
  • Guide fu north
  • Dangshan
  • Xiao
  • Xuzhou

How it was acquired

Conquered from the Northern Song between 1127 and 1141 and held by the Jin directly after the puppet states of Chu and Qi were closed (1127 to 1137); the Huai line was agreed in 1141 and confirmed in 1165.

Allies and rivals

Answers to the Southern Capital's governor and the Henan military commission; faces the Song across the Huai only if it lies on the frontier.

How things stand that morning

A zone of dikes, silt, shifted villages and displaced households; no source we could reach shows revolt or raiding in it that winter.

Wealth

Grain and silk land of the Huang-Huai plain taxed by the book; canal and river tolls; salt and iron under the state monopolies; paper money (jiaochao) as the common medium.

Military

Prefectural garrison under the Henan military commission; Jurchen meng'an and mouke households are settled in the circuit; no numbers are given in the sources we could reach.

Threats

  • New breaches each flood season
  • Silted fields and lost villages
  • Corvée for the dikes

Where the sources disagree

  • Board's Yangwu note ('the scar runs east from here') matches this account; the course below Kaocheng is the campaign board's and mine to guess, not a source's.

Evidence: The break at Yangwu and the two-arm outcome are in the Jinshi's river treatise, which we recall but could not re-read, and in the short Wikipedia article (read). Where the southern arm actually ran in January 1200, and how wide the flooded land was, is not pinned.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: The outline is the Huai researcher's own drawing, not a surveyed line and not from a source: only the break of the Yellow River at Yangwu in autumn 1194 is firm. Where the southern arm ran in January 1200 (the Bian, Sui and Si beds past Kaocheng, Guide fu and Xuzhou into the Huai) and how wide the flooded land was are guesses, and the campaign board's course below Kaocheng is the campaign board's own.

Primary sources for Jin empire

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

  • Annals of the Western Xia, Wu Guangcheng (吳廣成) (1825 to 1827, compiled from Song, Liao, Jin and Yuan sources). A Qing scholar's year-by-year reconstruction of Tangut history from the Chinese histories, since the Xia left no surviving annals of their own in Chinese. Read online
  • Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government, Bi Yuan (畢沅), completed by Feng Jiwu after his death (late eighteenth century, finished after 1801, from Song and Yuan sources). A Qing scholar's continuous month-by-month chronicle of the Song and Yuan centuries, compiled from the Song shi, the Liao, Jin and Yuan histories, Li Tao, Li Xinchuan and other Song sources. Read online
  • Essentials of the History of Goryeo, Kim Jong-seo (金宗瑞) and the Joseon history office (1452). The chronological companion to the Goryeosa, finished a year after it and drawing on the same lost records, sometimes with entries the Goryeosa omits. Read online
  • Outline and Details of Two Reigns (thirteenth century, after 1224). A Song outline-and-detail chronicle of exactly the two reigns around 1200, drawn from the court's daily records. Read online
  • Record of the Personal Campaigns of the Holy Warrior (Chinggis Khan) (presented to Khubilai in 1288, finished in Mongolian in 1290; the surviving Chinese version dates from 1369). A year-by-year Chinese account of Temujin's wars, drawn from the lost Altan Debter (the same source behind the Yuan shi's first chapter and Rashid al-Din). Read online
  • The Secret History of the Mongols (1228 or 1240 (the colophon's Year of the Rat is disputed), with later additions; the surviving Chinese transcription and gloss were made under the Ming in the 1380s). The only Mongol account of Temujin's rise, written within living memory. Read online
  • History of the Jin, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office, with Ouyang Xuan among the chief compilers (1343 to 1344, from the Jin veritable records and the Jin national history). The official history of the Jurchen empire that ruled north China and Manchuria in 1200. Read online
  • Record of the Great Jin State, Attributed to Yuwen Maozhao (宇文懋昭); the attribution is doubtful (preface dated 1234; probably assembled in the Southern Song from Song and Jin material, with later accretions). A Song-side history of the Jin, with annals for each emperor and chapters on institutions, customs, the capitals and the Jurchen way of life. Read online

14 more in the sources library for North China and Manchuria.

Sources and studies

  1. Wikipedia: 1194 Yellow River flood (read this session; short)
  2. Jinshi, juan 25, Dili zhi 2 (the Nanjing lu, Shandong East and West and Hebei West sections), text hosted at donglishuzhai.net; read through a page summariser, the Nanjing lu section read entry by entry (read this session)
  3. Recalled from standard works and NOT re-read this session: Tao Jing-shen, The Jurchen in Twelfth-Century China (1976); Franke and Twitchett (eds.), Cambridge History of China 6 (1994), the Jin chapter; Jinshi Hequ zhi, Bing zhi, Baiguan zhi, Shihuo zhi; the Song envoys' diaries (Lou Yue, Beixing rilu, 1169; Fan Chengda, Lanpei lu, 1170)

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.