The officer who keeps the pass where the Yellow River bends east and the road from Guanzhong to Luoyang runs between river and Qinling: a customs and defence post, not a war front.
Who he is
- Title
- Commander of the Tongguan garrison
- Since
- not pinned
- Confidence
- low
No source consulted dates the office-holder for the winter of 1199-1200.
Overlord
The Jin emperor Zhangzong at Zhongdu, through the Department of State Affairs
What it holds
- The Tongguan pass and its toll post
How it was acquired
By appointment of the Jin court; the date of the present appointment is not known.
Allies and rivals
Works with the neighbouring circuit commands; no quarrel is known to me.
How things stand that morning
In post at peace. Name not known.
Wealth
The revenue of the office comes from the circuit's taxes in kind and the frontier tolls; no figures are given by any source we could read.
Military
A pass garrison; no numbers.
Threats
- None specific known for the winter of 1199-1200.
Places of note
- Tongguan: The pass
Where the sources disagree
- The campaign board (tongguan) puts Tongguan under Nanjing lu; we put it in the Jingzhao circuit.
Evidence: The existence and general role of this office follow the standard Jin administrative accounts (the Jinshi Baiguan zhi and Dili zhi, via the secondary literature). We could not open the Jinshi text in this session. No source we could read names the holder in the winter of 1199-1200, so the holder is "not known".
"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.
On the map: The command is drawn on the seat prefecture; its authority ran over the whole circuit, shown in the province records.
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
- Jinshi (History of the Jin), juan 24 to 26, Dili zhi (geography); cited from the standard reference, the text itself could not be opened in this session
- Jing-shen Tao, The Jurchen in Twelfth-Century China (University of Washington Press, 1976); not consulted in this session
- Herbert Franke and Denis Twitchett (eds.), The Cambridge History of China vol. 6: Alien Regimes and Border States, 710-1368 (1994); not consulted in this session
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.