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

Nanjing commissions

Two civil commissions sit at the Southern Capital beside the liushou.

The fiscal commission (zhuanyun si) gathers the circuit's grain and cash taxes and moves them; the Dili zhi (read) says it was set up at Kaifeng after Tiande 2 (1150). The judicial commission (tidian xingyu si) hears serious cases and inspects the circuit's officials; the Dili zhi's editors doubt that it existed in 1150 and date the circuit's commission to Mingchang 4 (1193). The Zhangzong annals (Jinshi juan 10) record that the circuit's judicial commission moved its seat from Xuzhou (Changshe) to Nanjing, without a date on the page we read, and a surveillance commissioner (anchashi) of the Nanjing circuit appears in another biography (juan 96), so the title changed in these years.

The diplomatic tables (juan 60 and 62) show officers of the fiscal commission used as envoys to the Song and as the men who question Song envoys: Yelü Long, associate commissioner, as birthday envoy, and Feng Bi, deputy commissioner, as questioner (no dates on the page we read, and either may be after 1200).

Who he is

Title
Fiscal commissioner (zhuanyun shi) and judicial commissioner (tidian xingyu shi) of the Nanjing circuit
Since
not known
Born
not known
Family
not known
Confidence
low

No holder is named for 1 January 1200 in anything we could reach. The Jinshi names officers only inside individual biographies (zh.wikisource, ctext, Baidu Baike and CBDB were all unreachable from here), so the office, not the man, is what this record gives.

Overlord

the Jin emperor Zhangzong (Wanyan Jing), Cheng'an 4, through the Department of State Affairs at Zhongdu

What it holds

  • Collection and transport of the circuit's taxes
  • Review of cases and inspection of officials in the circuit
  • Reception and questioning of the Song envoys at the Southern Capital (juan 62)
  • Seat at Kaifeng

How it was acquired

The fiscal commission from Tiande 2 (1150); the judicial commission from the early 1190s (Dili zhi and its editors' note, read).

Allies and rivals

Checks the prefects and county magistrates; works with the liushou and the military commission. The judicial commissions of the Jin had their title changed during Zhangzong's reign (recalled, not pinned).

How things stand that morning

Not known for the winter of 1199 to 1200. The flood of 1194 and its refugees are the commissions' chief business: relief, tax remission, resettlement.

Wealth

Receives the circuit's land and household taxes, the salt, iron and wine revenues, and the paper-money duties.

Military

No troops of its own.

Threats

  • Failed harvests and unpaid taxes in the flooded counties
  • Corrupt or absent local officials

Places of note

  • Kaifeng: Seat of both commissions.
  • Xuchang: Seat of the judicial commission before its move to Kaifeng (year not pinned).

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The commissions' existence and rough dates are from the Dili zhi and its editors' notes and from example sentences of the Jinshi on the Chinese Notes page (all read); no sentence there carries a date. Their staff and doings in 1200 are not known to me.

On the map: An office record draws the ground the office directly works, not the whole circuit; the prefectures themselves are in the province records. Edges follow modern county seats and the nearest-unit rule.

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. Jinshi, juan 25, Dili zhi 2 (the Nanjing lu, Shandong East and West and Hebei West sections), text hosted at donglishuzhai.net; read through a page summariser, the Nanjing lu section read entry by entry (read this session)
  2. Chinese Notes corpus: example sentences from the Jinshi for the Nanjing lu (juan 10, 24, 46, 60, 62, 96), read this session
  3. Recalled from standard works and NOT re-read this session: Tao Jing-shen, The Jurchen in Twelfth-Century China (1976); Franke and Twitchett (eds.), Cambridge History of China 6 (1994), the Jin chapter; Jinshi Hequ zhi, Bing zhi, Baiguan zhi, Shihuo zhi; the Song envoys' diaries (Lou Yue, Beixing rilu, 1169; Fan Chengda, Lanpei lu, 1170)

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