North and east of Goryeo's long wall lies the Jurchen country that the Jin rule: the Hamhung plain and the coast to Kilju and the lower Tumen, the Paektu uplands and the upper Yalu valley.
It is thinly settled, with villages of Jurchen farmers, hunters and horse-keepers under hereditary chiefs (mengan and mouke in the Jin system [not yet checked against the source]), and it answers to the Jin through the officers of the Helan route and the Yalu routes. Yun Gwan's nine forts, taken in 1107 and handed back in 1109 [not yet checked against the source], lay on the Hamhung plain; the Goryeo frontier now stands at Jeongpyeong and the wall. Goryeo trades here at Doryeonpo, but its writ stops at the wall.
The Tumen valleys across the border and Hunchun belong to the North China map (nch); the ground drawn here is the Korean-side part of the Jurchen country, which the ownership tool gives to this sheet. We name no chief.
Who holds it
- Title
- Jurchen chiefs under the Jin officers of the Yalu and Helan routes (names not known)
- Confidence
- low
No source we could read names the officer in 1200
Overlord
The Jin emperor Zhangzong (Wanyan Jing) through the Helan and Yalu route officers
What it holds
- The Hamhung plain
- The Tumen villages on the Korean bank
- The Paektu uplands and the upper Yalu
How things stand that morning
Quiet. The Jin hold it by their chiefs and their roads; no frontier fighting is recorded.
Threats
- A Goryeo push north (none since 1109)
- Jurchen unrest at the Jin's levies
Places of note
- Hamhung plain: Plain north of Jeongpyeong
- Chongjin: Tumen coast
- Hyesan: Upper Yalu
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: The Jurchen side of the frontier is thinly sourced; it is the North China map's ground in the main. We use the brief's statement that the Tumen valleys are Jin.
On the map: Polygon = the modern North Korean ground north of the wall, cut from the realm outline; the Jin presence in the high hills is a claim.
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
- Cheolli Jangseong (English Wikipedia)
- Goryeosa, Goryeosa jeoryo, Samguk yusa, Lee Ki-baik, Shultz: not opened in this run (Wikisource could not be reached); facts marked recollection come from these as remembered
- Sheet brief KJA_BRIEF.md and the OMNIA board notes (leads, not sources)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.