Nanjing liushou

Who he is

Title

Resident governor (liushou) of the Southern Capital, who is also prefect of Kaifeng (Kaifeng yin) and general commander of the circuit's troops (bingma duzongguan)

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

• Kaifeng (Bianjing), the Southern Capital, with the old Song palace city and the southern palaces the Jin rebuilt
• Kaifeng fu, with fourteen counties on 1 January 1200 (province record)
• Command of the Nanjing circuit's troops (Dili zhi, read)
• Oversight of the circuit's twenty-one units, nineteen of them on this sheet's ground (circuit record)

How it was acquired

Bianjing fell on 9 January 1127 (Timeline of the Jurchens, read). The Jin ruled Henan first through the puppet states of Chu (1127) and Qi (1130 to 1137) and held Kaifeng again after the failed return of Henan to the Song in 1139 and 1140 (all recalled, not re-read). The Huai was fixed as the boundary in the treaty ratified in October 1142 (Wikipedia, read). The prince of Hailing renamed the city Nanjing in 1153 and rebuilt its palaces in the late 1150s, meaning to move his capital south, and made it his base for the campaign against the Song in 1161 (recalled).

Allies and rivals

He answers to the emperor and the Department of State Affairs at Zhongdu. He works beside the Henan military commission (set up at Kaifeng in 1150), the fiscal and judicial commissions, and the water bureau (separate records). Across the Huai stand the Southern Song's commands (the South China sheet's). No feud or rival is named in anything we could reach.

How things stand that morning

On the morning of 1 January 1200 (day 14 of the twelfth month of Cheng'an 4, by our own computation) we cannot name the man who holds the office. The emperor Zhangzong is at Zhongdu and the Southern Capital is a quiet second seat, not a court. If the Song sent its New Year embassy on the usual timetable, its envoys are on the road to Zhongdu and the liushou is the officer who passes them through Kaifeng (the diaries of Lou Yue, 1169, and Fan Chengda, 1170, both pass through the city; recalled, not re-read).

The new year, Cheng'an 5, begins about 18 January by our computation.

Wealth

Tax grain and silk of the circuit passing through the capital; the city's markets, with four medicine markets and a licensed market listed for Kaifeng fu (Dili zhi, read); beeswax, scented tea, cinnabar and medicinal herbs listed among its products (Dili zhi, read); paper money. No figures.

Military

The palace and gate guards and the circuit's garrison troops under the liushou, the field armies under the Henan military commission, and Jurchen meng'an and mouke households settled on the plain. No numbers are given in the sources we could reach.

Threats

• The Yellow River's southern arm of 1194 and the next break
• Poverty of the Jurchen households on the plain
• Runaways and bandits from the flooded counties
• Song border incidents (none before 1204 in what was read; from 1204 is the likely course, not yet true)

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. From 1204 (month not pinned)Armed bands from the Song side begin to raid Jurchen settlements, and Song forces show aggression along the border (Wikipedia pages on the Jin-Song wars and the Jurchen timeline, read).Depends on: The northern policy of Han Tuozhou, who has run the Song court since about 1195, and a Song court that wants a war. Stopped by: A Song court that keeps the peace, or Han Tuozhou's fall before 1204.
2. Mid-June 1206 (the two Wikipedia pages give 14 and 20 June)The Song declare war. Bi Zaiyu takes Sizhou; the Jin besiege the Song town of Chuzhou on the canal for three months and take Zaoyang and Guanghua on the central front (Wikipedia, read).Depends on: The raids of 1204 to 1206 and the Song court's choice for war. Stopped by: A settlement of the border incidents before the summer of 1206.
3. 24 November 1207 and 2 November 1208Han Tuozhou is killed (24 November 1207) and peace is made (2 November 1208): the Song payment is restored and enlarged and Han Tuozhou's head is sent (Wikipedia, read).Depends on: The war of 1206 to 1208 having gone badly for the Song. Stopped by: A different outcome of the war.
4. 1214 (Zhenyou 2)The Jin court moves from Zhongdu to Kaifeng under pressure from the Mongols (Japanese Wikipedia, read).Depends on: The Mongol attacks on North China that begin in 1211. Stopped by: No Mongol war, or a Zhongdu that holds.

Places of note

• Kaifeng: The Southern Capital: the palace city, the liushou's office and the Henan military commission.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The office, its powers and its colleagues are from the Dili zhi (read); the dates 1127 and 1142 and the 1204 to 1208 events are from Wikipedia pages read this session. The holder, the rebuilding of the palaces and the embassy custom are not.

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.