Hebei West circuit

Who holds it

Title

Circuit officers: the Transport commissioner, the Provincial Surveillance commissioner and the yin of Zhending fu with the military command, none named

Confidence

low

No source we could open names the officeholder on 1 January 1200.

Overlord

Emperor Zhangzong, through the Department of State Affairs and the circuit commissions

What it holds

• Zhending fu (circuit seat), Zhongshan fu, Baozhou, Ansu zhou, Qizhou, Zhaozhou, Xingzhou, Mingzhou, Cizhou
• Linzhang, listed by the campaign board under Zhangde fu

How it was acquired

Conquered from the Song in 1125-27; the dates of individual prefectures are not pinned.

Allies and rivals

Neighbours: Hedong North and South across the Taihang (ncw), Zhongdu circuit to the north, Hebei East and Daming to the east, Zhangde fu and Henan to the south (ncn).

How things stand that morning

Quiet interior ground. The Taihang passes are garrisoned as roads, not as a frontier; nothing is known to me of unrest here in the winter of 1199-1200.

Wealth

The kilns of Ding (Quyang), Xing (Neiqiu) and Cizhou; silk and grain; the north-south road. No figure.

Military

County and prefectural garrisons, with the Jurchen colonies of the plain (see Jurchen colonies of the plain); no figure.

Threats

• Floods at the foot of the hills
• Famine in dry years

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. 1213 to 1214Mongol columns ravage Hebei West and Zhending; local militias and warlords hold the towns afterwards.Depends on: The Mongol war that opens in 1211. Stopped by: A settlement or a Mongol defeat before 1211.

Where the sources disagree

• Linzhang: the campaign board lists it under Zhangde fu (Anyang), which is not on our board file; we treat it as the southern edge of Hebei West and leave Zhangde fu to the Henan researcher.
• Xingzhou: the Song had renamed it a fu in the 1110s and we recall the Jin calling it Shunde fu; we keep the campaign board's Xingzhou and do not pin the Jin rank for 1200.

Evidence: The seat, rank and county names are the OMNIA board's, checked against general knowledge of the Jin Dili zhi. The Jinshi text could not be opened in this session, so county lists, ranks and promotions are not verified, and no prefect or commissioner is dated for 1 January 1200.

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

On the map: A rough outline along the Taihang crest; the western edge follows the hills where the Jin's Hedong circuit begins.

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.