Lezhou (Xia)

Who he is

Title

Prefect (zhizhou) and garrison commander of Lezhou, for the Xia

Since

not known

Born

not known

Family

not known

Confidence

low

No holder named in any source reached.

Overlord

Huanzong at Xingqing; the supervisory command over the lower Huangshui is not pinned (the Zhuoluo Henan command is the neighbour to the east).

What it holds

• The town of Lezhou and its fields on the Huangshui
• The valley road between Xining and the Yellow River, with its tolls
• The Minhe end of the valley, where the Huangshui meets the Yellow River

How it was acquired

By 1136 with the other Qinghai prefectures (see the Xining card for the 1136 question).

Allies and rivals

Xining (west), the Zhuoluo Henan command (east), the Jin at Lanzhou across the river, the Tibetan tribes of the hills.

How things stand that morning

Held in peace; no incident known for the winter. Holder not known.

Wealth

Valley farming (barley and wheat on irrigated terraces; general pattern), road tolls, the trade between the Hehuang country and the Hexi.

Military

Garrison and local call-up; no numbers survive.

Places of note

• Ledu (Lezhou): Seat of the prefecture.

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board entry xining-xia, lezhou-xia, kuozhou-xia and jishi-xia say the four prefectures were a gift of the Jin to the Tanguts in 1136. English Wikipedia's Tsongkha article agrees (the Jin ceded the area to Xia in 1136, citing Twitchett 1994, p. 180), but its Timeline of the Tanguts says 'Western Xia conquers the Kokonor region' in 1136, and its Western Xia article says Xia took the Qingtang region in 1113 (the Song answered with the war of 1113-1119). Not pinned: we take the Xia hold as complete by 1136 and unbroken to 1200, and do not decide between gift and conquest.
• The campaign board entry lezhou-xia puts the castle at Ledu (36.48 N, 102.40 E); Wikipedia's table says the prefecture lay 'south of Ledu'. We keep the campaign board point as the seat and draw the valley.

Evidence: The existence of Lezhou as a Xia prefecture in Qinghai is in Wikipedia's prefecture table; everything else is the pattern of the neighbours.

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

On the map: Rough drawing; the sources give no boundary.

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.