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

Tang-Deng command

The Jin's western frontier with the Song, where the Funiu and Tongbai hills close the plain and the Han valley opens to the south.

Dengzhou (Rangcheng) is a military governorship over Rangcheng, Nanyang and Neixiang, facing the Song's Zaoyang and Xiangyang; Tangzhou (Biyang), with Biyang, Tanghe, Huyang and Tongbai, lies to its north-east. The Dili zhi (read) records a licensed market at each as once held, border towns (zhen) at Dengzhou (Shunyang, Xinye, Rangdong, Banqiao, Zhangcun, Xiakou) and Tangzhou (Huyang, Yangpeng, Luoqu, Xufeng), and, in Dading 28 (1188), an order to plan a border wall (jieyuan) between Tang and Deng. Whether the wall was built is not stated.

Who he is

Title
Military governor (jiedushi) of the Wusheng army at Dengzhou; prefect of Tangzhou
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

  • Dengzhou (Rangcheng) with Nanyang and Neixiang
  • Tangzhou (Biyang) with Tanghe, Huyang and Tongbai
  • Xinye and Tongbai on sch ground
  • The planned Tang-Deng wall

How it was acquired

Both prefectures were given back to the Jin in the settlement of 1165 (recalled; not confirmed by the Wikipedia page we read).

Allies and rivals

Faces the Song's Zaoyang, Xiangyang, Guanghua and Junzhou across the line. (In 1206 the Jin took Zaoyang and Guanghua, Wikipedia, read: a later event, not a fact of 1200; see the likely course.)

How things stand that morning

At peace; the 1188 wall plan is the one recorded frontier work.

Wealth

Nanyang basin grain, hill timber and herbs; the licensed markets when open.

Military

The Wusheng army and prefectural garrisons; no numbers.

Threats

  • Frontier bandits across the Han
  • A Song war party that has not yet formed

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. 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.

Where the sources disagree

  • The campaign board entry puts Tangzhou at Tanghe and Fangcheng in it; see the province record.

Evidence: Offices, towns and the wall plan from the Dili zhi (read); the 1165 handover recalled.

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

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. 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.