Gansu district

Who he is

Title

Supervisory military commander (jian jun si) of the right wing, with his supervising officers

Since

not known

Born

not known

Family

Tangut tribal and official families of the district

Confidence

low

Chinese Wikipedia (Xixia, military system) lists the twelve districts and their seats; no holder is named for any district in the sources we read.

Overlord

The Military Affairs Bureau (shumi) at Xingqing and the emperor.

What it holds

• The district garrison and its registered households (the chao teams of three)
• The frontier posts, wells and pastures of the district
• The local tribes' call-up

How it was acquired

The twelve districts were set up under Jingzong (1038 to 1048) for administration and frontier defence (Chinese Wikipedia).

Allies and rivals

Neighbours the Xiliang fu to the east, the Xiping district to the west and the Zhenyan district to the north. The Qilian Tibetan and Sari Uyghur tribes lie behind it.

How things stand that morning

Quiet and rich. The corridor tolls and the horse pastures are the district's weight.

Wealth

Corridor tolls, the Shandan horse pastures, the irrigated oases, caravan halts.

Military

A standing garrison plus the call-up of the district's tribes and farmers; no numbers survive for 1200.

Threats

• Tibetan tribes of the Qilian (none recorded as restless).

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. 1226 (after 1200)Ganzhou and Suzhou fall to the Mongols; the Ganzhou garrison commander's son Chagaan is captured in a raid of 1205 and later serves the Mongols.Depends on: Chinggis Khan's last Xia campaign. Stopped by: A different outcome of the Mongol wars.

Places of note

• Gansu district seat: Seat of the district; position approximate.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Seat from Chinese Wikipedia's list of the twelve districts; boundaries are our rough drawing; no commander is named.

On the map: The area is our rough drawing round the seat and the ground the district must watch; the sources do not give boundaries.

Primary sources for Great Xia

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
• 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 Song, the chapters on Xia and on foreign states, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345). The Song court's accounts of its neighbours, each arranged as an annal of embassies and wars. Read online
• Compendium of Chronicles: the Turkic and Mongol tribes and the life of Chinggis Khan, Rashid al-Din Hamadani (about 1300 to 1311, in the Ilkhanate). The fullest description of who held what on the steppe around 1200, written a century later from Mongol court records (the Altan Debter) and from informants such as Bolad Chingsang. 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
• History of the Song, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345, from the Song veritable records, state histories and the Huiyao). The official history of the Southern Song, which ruled from Lin'an (Hangzhou) in 1200. Read online

5 more in the sources library for The Tarim, the Uyghurs and Xia.