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

Posu route (Yalu command)

The Posu route holds the north bank of the lower Yalu from the sea to the Kuandian hills, with its centre at Posu fu (Jiuliancheng, opposite Uiju).

Goryeo has been a Jin vassal since 1126; the frontier is quiet and managed by yearly embassies, the border market and the commissioner's checks on ferries and passes. His Goryeo counterpart is the military command of the north-west march (Seobuk-myeon), whose posts run from Seogyeong (Pyongyang) to Uiju (Poju) and Cheolli. The upper Yalu beyond Kuandian is forest and wild Jurchen land with no Jin post.

Who he is

Title
Posu lu zongguan (commander of the Posu route)
Since
not pinned
Born
not known
Confidence
low

The Posu route on the Yalu is in the Dili zhi and the Goryeosa's frontier notices; its commander in 1200 is not named in anything we could read.

Overlord

The Dongjing liushou at Liaoyang

What it holds

  • The north bank of the lower Yalu: Posu fu, the Dandong, Fengcheng and Kuandian districts
  • Ferries, the border market and the road to Liaoyang
  • Jin ships and guards on the Yalu mouth (not pinned)

How it was acquired

Jin route on the Yalu since the Jin and Goryeo settlement of the 1120s (Goryeo's king acknowledged Jin lordship in 1126, English Wikipedia); the details of the Poju (Uiju) transfer are to be checked.

Allies and rivals

Goryeo (Uiju, Seonju, Kusong and the Cheolli wall) as vassal; the Changbai wild Jurchens at the upper Yalu.

How things stand that morning

Peaceful. Goryeo is under the strongman Choe Chung-heon (from 1196) with the puppet king Sinjong (r. 1197-1204); the Jin deal with the court at Gaegyeong through embassies.

Wealth

Frontier trade (paper, horses, books, ginseng, sable, silver, cloth), Yalu timber, fish.

Military

Frontier garrison and ferry posts; no figures.

Threats

  • Smuggling and refugee flows
  • Jin-Goryeo quarrels over the border islands

Places of note

  • Posu fu (Jiuliancheng): Jin fortress on the Yalu opposite Uiju

Where the sources disagree

  • The campaign board puts Posu (Jiuliancheng) on neighbouring ground (kja) at 40.17,124.48. The ruins of Jiuliancheng stand on the Chinese bank at Dandong (our sheet); we place the seat at 40.19,124.45.

Evidence: The existence of Posu lu is certain (Dili zhi); the date of the Poju settlement and the name of the commander are not read.

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

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. Wikipedia: Jurchen people (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.