Xijing northern belt

Who holds it

Title

Prefect (zhizhou) of Xijing northern belt, under the Xijing circuit (Xijing lu) commander

Since

not pinned

Confidence

low

No source consulted dates the office-holder for the winter of 1199-1200.

Overlord

The circuit command at the circuit seat, and through it the emperor Zhangzong

What it holds

• Xijing northern belt and its counties (Xijing circuit (Xijing lu))

How things stand that morning

The Jin side of the steppe line. The boundary trenches and forts have been built since 1192; the Tatar war of 1196-1198 is over, and the garrison belt is not known to be on alert that winter. Holder not known.

Places of note

• Huanzhou (Zhenglan): Jin frontier prefecture near the later Shangdu site; the campaign board's coordinate, not checked

Where the sources disagree

• The ground beyond the trench is the Mongolia sheet's. Which of these banners lie north of the trench is not pinned; the map takes the whole banners.

Evidence: Seat and general extent follow the standard Jin administrative geography (Jinshi 24 to 26, Dili zhi). We could not open the Jinshi text in this session (the Chinese-language sites would not load), so which counties belonged to which prefecture is reasoned from the old units and the modern map and is indicative; no holder is dated for 1 January 1200.

On the map: Whole modern banners and counties are drawn; the real Jin line is the boundary trench, not the banner edge, and the northern banners are partly beyond it. The atlas draws this territory itself: the ground nearer to the seats of this record than to the seats of any other record of the same kind, out to about 30 km of travel from a seat (less in hills and marsh, where travel is slow). The edges are the atlas's own drawing, not a boundary from a source.

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.