The Jurchen great houses are the Wanyan (the imperial clan, with senior and junior branches from the ancestors Hanpu and Wugunai to Aguda) and the clans that married into it and fought beside it: Pucha, Tushan, Wulinda, Wugulun, and others such as Nahe, Jiagu and Heshilie.
In the founding age they held the homeland by blood and by their meng'an; since the court moved south in 1153 most of the leading men live in Zhongdu, Kaifeng and their circuit estates, and the Anchuhu country keeps the old kin seats, graves and lineage rites. Shizong made the language and manners of the homeland a court cause (Jurchen schools and examinations, the visit to Huining of the 1170s, in our memory), and Zhangzong keeps the fashion alive at some distance.
Who he is
- Title
- The Wanyan imperial clan's homeland branches and the leading consort and service clans
- Since
- not pinned
- Born
- not known
- Confidence
- low
The clan names are in the Jinshi's glossary and consort biographies. Which houses actually live at the homeland in 1200, as against living in the Central Plain, is not pinned. Empress Qinhuai, Zhangzong's first consort (d. 1189), was of the Pucha clan (English Wikipedia).
Overlord
The Jin emperor Zhangzong
What it holds
- Lineage seats and graves on the Anchuhu, Lalin and Sungari rivers (not located)
- Hereditary meng'an and mouke commands
- Offices at court and in the circuits for their sons (see the Zhongdu records for the men at court)
How it was acquired
Wanyan rule from Aguda's rising of 1114-1115; the consort clans by marriage and service in the 1100s.
Allies and rivals
Consort clans compete for the empress's place and the offices; the emperor's favourite Li Shi'er, whose relatives gained government posts (English Wikipedia), is a rival power at court (see the nce records).
How things stand that morning
The clans are the Jin's military and political elite but are far from their homeland; the homeland branches are the poor cousins.
Where the sources disagree
- The brief lists Wanyan, Tushan, Wugulun, Nahe, Wulinda and Pucha; the nce researcher writes the Tushan clan as Tudan or Tushan, one clan with two renderings. We have not located any clan's seat in the homeland and make no claim.
Evidence: Clan names are well known; their homeland seats in 1200 are not in anything we could read.
On the map: The clan lands cannot be drawn parcel by parcel; this marks the ancestral valley.
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
- Wikipedia: Emperor Zhangzong of Jin (read this session)
- Wikipedia: Jin dynasty (1115-1234) (read this session)
- Wikipedia: Jurchen people (read this session)
- Jing-shen Tao, The Jurchen in Twelfth-Century China (1976) and his Jin chapter in Cambridge History of China vol. 6 (from memory, not re-read)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.