Officers: prévôtés, bailiwicks, seneschals · The Jin empire of Zhangzong · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Beijing liushou

Dading fu is the old Liao Central Capital (Zhongjing) on the Laoha river, renamed Beijing by the Jin; it is the working capital of the northern circuit and not to be confused with Zhongdu, the real capital, at modern Beijing.

The Beijing circuit takes in the Khitan and Xi country (Linhuang, the Xar Moron pastures, the Daling and Laoha hills), the Liaoxi corridor to Jinzhou and Guangning, and the Jin end of the steppe road to the Onggirat and the Tatars. The liushou is the man who keeps the Khitan quiet, feeds the northern armies with horses and grain, and stands behind the frontier commissions when the steppe is disturbed, as in the Tatar war of 1195-1198.

Who he is

Title
Beijing liushou (resident governor of the Northern Capital) and commander of the Beijing circuit
Since
not pinned
Born
not known
Confidence
low

Office from the Jinshi; no holder dated for the winter of 1199-1200 in anything we could read.

Overlord

The Jin emperor Zhangzong through the Department of State Affairs

What it holds

  • Dading fu (Beijing) and the Laoha valley
  • The Beijing circuit: Xingzhong fu, Linhuang fu, Guangning fu, Jinzhou, Ruizhou, Yizhou and the Liaoxi corridor
  • Khitan and Xi units in the circuit
  • The southern end of the north-east boundary trench in the circuit

How it was acquired

Taken from the Liao in 1122; Beijing title since 1153.

Allies and rivals

The Khitan and Xi houses; the frontier commissions; Zhongdu and the Hebei East circuit to the west and south; Dongjing and Xianping to the east.

How things stand that morning

The most exposed of the three north-eastern circuits: Khitan unrest (1196-1198, not pinned), Tatar and Onggirat raids on the trench (1195-1198) and the Mongols behind them. Quiet on the morning of 1 January 1200, but garrisoned.

Wealth

Laoha and Daling farmland, horses from the Xar Moron pastures, the Linhuang road's trade, iron and salt works, tax in kind.

Military

Garrisons of Dading, Linhuang and the trench forts; Khitan meng'an and mouke and frontier jiu horse under Jurchen commanders (no figures).

Threats

  • Khitan rising
  • Steppe raids on the trench forts
  • Dzud on the Xar Moron pastures

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. 1200 (not pinned)Routine: rotation of trench garrisons, horse levies, and watch on the Khitan.Depends on: Quiet steppe Stopped by: A Tatar or Mongol move on the trench

Where the sources disagree

  • The campaign board's 'Dading fu: the Northern Capital in the old Liao Zhongjing, seat of the empire's dealings with the steppe' is right. Note the Jin's Northern Capital is Dading fu (Ningcheng), while Zhongdu is the working capital at Beijing.

Evidence: The Beijing circuit's structure is clear in Jin history; the holder in 1200 and the details of the Khitan rising are not known to me.

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

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: Jin dynasty (1115-1234) (read this session)
  2. Article on the Khitan under the Jin dynasty, gjrwls.com (read this session)
  3. Jinshi (History of the Jin) ch. 24, Dili zhi 1 (Shangjing, Xianping, Dongjing, Beijing circuits): used from memory, the page was blocked this session and must be checked
  4. Jing-shen Tao, The Jurchen in Twelfth-Century China (1976) and his Jin chapter in Cambridge History of China vol. 6 (from memory, not re-read)

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