Xijing liushou

Who he is

Title

Resident Governor (liushou) of the Western Capital, Datong fu

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

• Datong fu and its county ring
• The circuit command of Xijing
• The garrison and the road to the Yin Shan front

How it was acquired

By appointment of the Jin court; the date of the present appointment is not known.

Allies and rivals

The Ongud and Alaqush Tegin as Jin wardens on the Yin Shan front (the Mongolia sheet writes them); the neighbouring Hedong North command to the south.

How things stand that morning

In post at the Western Capital in peace time after the campaigns of 1195-1198. The incumbent's name is 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

The circuit garrison of Jin soldiers and settled Jurchen meng'an and mouke households; no numbers are given by any source we could read.

Threats

• Steppe unrest on the Yin Shan front; none known for the winter of 1199-1200.

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. 1210-1211Temujin, by then Genghis Khan (1206), breaks off tributary relations with the Jin (1210) and invades; the Jin army is beaten at Yehuling in October 1211 (Wikipedia, Timeline of the Jurchens).Depends on: Genghis Khan choosing war with the Jin after settling the steppe and the Xia Stopped by: A Mongol civil war, a Jin-Mongol settlement or a Mongol defeat on the steppe
2. spring 1213The Mongols break through the Juyong Pass and plunder Hebei, Shandong and Shanxi (same timeline).Depends on: the Mongol campaign of 1211-1212 having gone on Stopped by: a Jin recovery or a truce

Places of note

• Xijing (Datong): The governor's seat

Where the sources disagree

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".

On the map: The command is drawn on the seat prefecture; its authority ran over the whole circuit, shown in the province records. The atlas draws this territory itself: the ground nearer to the seats of this record than to the seats of any other record of the same kind, out to about 30 km of travel from a seat (less in hills and marsh, where travel is slow). The edges are the atlas's own drawing, not a boundary from a source.

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.