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

Jin outposts

Three Jin county seats lie in the far south of the Jin frontier belt: Xinye (Jin Dengzhou), Tongbai (Jin Tangzhou) and Xi county (Jin Caizhou).

They are the Jin side of the Longxing line against the Song prefectures of Xiangyang, Suizhou and Xinyang. The Jin realm and the prefects of those three prefectures are written in the North China records; this record fixes only the ground.

Who he is

Title
Jin county magistrates under the prefects of Dengzhou, Tangzhou and Caizhou
Since
not pinned
Born
not known
Confidence
low

Not named; the realm is written in the nch records.

Overlord

Zhangzong of Jin (Cheng'an 4).

What it holds

  • Xinye
  • Tongbai
  • Xi county

How it was acquired

Jin possession since the 1120s and 1140s; confirmed by treaty.

Allies and rivals

Border markets with the Song across the line.

How things stand that morning

Peace with the Song since 1165; Jin garrisons watch the line.

Wealth

Border-market duties and grain.

Military

Jin frontier garrisons (meng'an and mouke households settled in the region); no numbers.

Threats

  • A Song attempt to recover the north (none expected while the peace of 1165 holds)

Places of note

  • Xinye: Jin county, southernmost of Dengzhou.
  • Tongbai: Jin county of Tangzhou on the Huai headwaters.
  • Xi county: Jin county on the north bank of the Huai.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The Jin held Dengzhou, Tangzhou and Caizhou after the 1142 settlement and 1165 peace; Tongbai is a county of Tangzhou and Xi county (Xinxi) one of Caizhou in the Dili zhi (juan 85); Xinye is not in the Dengzhou list of the Dili zhi as we read it and rests on the campaign board.

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

On the map: Three county cells; the Jin realm record is in the North China records.

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. Songshi, juan 85 (Dili zhi 1): Jingxi South and North as listed from the Northern Song (zh.wikisource)
  2. Background knowledge of Southern Song administration and the middle Yangtze (Cambridge History of China vol. 5 part 2; Hymes; Clark; Von Glahn; Bol; the travel diaries of Lu You, 1170, and Fan Chengda, 1177), recalled and not re-read in this pass

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