The Jurchen military caste lives in colonies planted among the Chinese villages of the plain, on allotted land.
A mouke is a company of households and a meng'an is a battalion of seven to ten mouke (English Wikipedia's military page; the sizes given for a mouke differ between places and the page's own figures differ, so no number is repeated here). The offices are hereditary. Poor Jurchen households in the southern routes, Daming and Shandong among them, sold daughters into slavery and rented their land to Han tenants (English Wikipedia).
Shizong reformed two hundred meng'an in the early 1180s to remove tax abuses; Zhangzong, the same page says, confiscated land from Han owners accused of tax evasion and redistributed it to Jurchen households, with friction. Jurchens are told to speak Jurchen, keep to Jurchen dress and pass an archery test, but many have already adopted Chinese ways. These households are the Jin's soldiers and its weakness at once: the court needs them but cannot afford to maintain them.
Who he is
- Title
- Mouke and meng'an chiefs (hereditary)
- Confidence
- low
Individual chiefs are not named; the units are hereditary.
Overlord
Emperor Zhangzong
What it holds
- The allotted lands of the Jurchen colonies of the Hebei and Shandong plains
- Hereditary posts in the meng'an and mouke
How things stand that morning
No source we opened describes the colonies of this winter; the general picture (poverty, rented land) is from the pages cited.
Threats
- Poverty, sale of land and daughters
- Anger of the dispossessed Han owners
- Further confiscations of Han land for Jurchen households (English Wikipedia reports one such measure under Zhangzong, undated)
Places of note
- Zhongdu: The Central Capital.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: From English Wikipedia (military, Jin and Shizong pages); site-level evidence is missing.
On the map: The plain as a whole; real colonies were scattered villages.
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
- Military of the Jin dynasty (1115-1234) (English Wikipedia)
- Jin dynasty (1115-1234) (English Wikipedia)
- Emperor Shizong of Jin (English Wikipedia, with the list of his consorts, sons and daughters)
- Emperor Zhangzong of Jin (English Wikipedia)
- Jinshi (History of the Jin), Benji of Zhangzong, Dili zhi, Hequ zhi, Shihuo zhi and Bing zhi (recalled from memory and the secondary literature; the text itself could not be opened in this session)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.