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

Linhuang command

Linhuang fu is the Liao Supreme Capital reduced to a Jin garrison town on the steppe edge, with Khitan pastoralists round it.

The Jin's boundary trench (the Mingchang line) and its forts and signal posts run across the plateau in front of it, and the garrison commander keeps the beacon stations, the jiu horse and the market. In the Tatar war of 1195-1198 it was the base on the Khitan road to the Kherlen; the Khitan rising of 1196-1198 (leaders and exact place not pinned) happened under its eye.

Who he is

Title
Commander of Linhuang fu (zongguan or tongzhi) and of the trench garrisons of the Linhuang line
Since
not pinned
Born
not known
Confidence
low

The Jin kept a prefect and a garrison commander at Linhuang under the Beijing liushou; no name is dated for 1200.

Overlord

The Beijing liushou (Dading fu)

What it holds

  • Linhuang fu, a walled garrison town in the ruins of the Liao Supreme Capital
  • The trench forts, ditch and beacons of the Linhuang line (Mingchang trench)
  • Khitan jiu horse and herds on the Xar Moron

How it was acquired

Taken by Aguda in 1120; a Jin prefecture since.

Allies and rivals

Khitan houses; the Tatars, Onggirat and Mongols across the trench.

How things stand that morning

A tense, thinly manned post after the Khitan rising and the Tatar war.

Military

Garrison, trench forts and Khitan jiu horse; no figures.

Threats

  • Tatar and Onggirat raids
  • Khitan unrest
  • Dzud

Places of note

  • The Mingchang trench (boundary trench) at Linhuang: Ditch, bank and forts of the boundary trench; main works of the 1190s (enlarged from 1192 and completed about 1198 under Wanyan Xiang, on the English Wikipedia page the nce researcher read; we could not check it), exact course not pinned

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Place and function certain; holder and detail not read.

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. Wikipedia: Jin dynasty (1115-1234) (read this session)
  2. Article on the Khitan under the Jin dynasty, gjrwls.com (read this session)
  3. Jinshi (History of the Jin) ch. 24, Dili zhi 1 (Shangjing, Xianping, Dongjing, Beijing circuits): used from memory, the page was blocked this session and must be checked

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