Dongjing liushou

Who he is

Title

Dongjing liushou (resident governor of the Eastern Capital) and commander of the Dongjing circuit

Since

not pinned

Born

not known

Confidence

low

Office from the Jinshi's Baiguan zhi and Dili zhi; the holder on 1 January 1200 is not dated in anything we could read.

Overlord

The Jin emperor Zhangzong through the Department of State Affairs

What it holds

• Liaoyang fu (Dongjing) and its counties on the Taizi and Hun rivers
• The Dongjing circuit: Shenzhou, Guide zhou, Chengzhou, Gaizhou, Fuzhou, the Posu route, the Liaodong coast
• The road to Huining and the road to the Yalu and Goryeo
• The Bohai, Han, Khitan and Jurchen households of the Liaoyang plain

How it was acquired

Taken from the Liao in 1116 (after Gao Yongchang's revolt was put down); capital title Dongjing since the 1120s.

Allies and rivals

The Bohai families of Liaoyang (Li, Gao and others), the Posu route commander on the Yalu, and the Xianping and Beijing circuits.

How things stand that morning

A rich, quiet circuit; Liaoyang is the Jin's largest city in the north-east. No emperor is in residence. The Bohai gentry are loyal to a dynasty whose founder-line is half Bohai.

Wealth

Grain from the Liao and Hun river plains, salt and fish from the coast, iron and silk workshops, Yalu timber, the Goryeo trade by the Posu route. Tax in kind and paper money in use (jiaochao).

Military

Garrison of the Eastern Capital and the circuit's meng'an and mouke households; Bohai and Khitan units mixed in (no figures).

Threats

• Land quarrels between Jurchen households and Han and Bohai tenants
• Flood of the Liao and Hun rivers
• Khitan unrest on the northern edge

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 governance; nothing recorded in what we could read.Depends on: Peace on the Yalu and in the Song and Xia frontiers Stopped by: A sea raid, a Khitan rising or a levy order

Places of note

• Liaoyang White Pagoda (Guangyou temple): Great brick pagoda of the Liao and Jin age, tied by tradition to Shizong's mother

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board says only 'Eastern Capital, seat over the Liaodong plain and the road to the Jurchen cradle'. Fine. The 1161 acclamation of Shizong at Liaoyang is from memory (October 1161), high confidence on the fact, medium on the day; English Wikipedia's Shizong page (read this session) gives 27 October 1161 as the start of his reign, names his mother as Lady Li of a sinicised Balhae gentry family from Liaoyang, and does not name the place of his proclamation.

Evidence: The role of Liaoyang in 1116 and 1161 is a well-known part of Jin history; the holders in 1200 are not known and the Jinshi could not be read this session.

"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.