City · The Jin empire of Zhangzong · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Huining (Shangjing)

The first Jin capital, on the Anchuhu (Ashi) river, named a capital under Aguda and built up as a city from 1124 under Taizong, with plans and craftsmen taken from Kaifeng after 1127 (from memory, medium confidence).

Hailing Wang took the court to Yanjing (1153) and razed the palaces (1157); Shizong restored the title and the ancestral rites. In 1200 it is a walled prefecture town with a great empty palace platform, a Taizu temple, the graves of the Wanyan princes (Aguda himself lies at Fangshan) and the garrison and offices of the homeland. The dynasty's memory is here, its power is not.

Who holds it

Title
Shangjing liushou (governor of the Supreme Capital)
Since
not pinned
Born
not known
Confidence
low

The post is certain; the man in 1200 is not named in what we could read.

Lord in 1200

The Shangjing liushou, under the Department of State Affairs; no court in residence

How things stand that morning

A ritual and military centre, quiet.

Wealth

Tax in kind from the Sungari plain; tribute.

Council

The liushou and his prefecture staff, with the Jurchen household heads of the circuit; no municipal body.

Communities

Jurchen households, Bohai and Khitan families, Han craftsmen and clerks, a few Buddhist temples.

Fairs and markets

Not known; tribute and trade of the lower Sungari peoples arrive here (furs, falcons).

Militia

Garrison and mouke levy of the homeland (no figures).

Walls and castle

Two adjoining walled wards on the Anchuhu (northern and southern), earthen walls with gate towers; the palace platform in the southern ward; the old palaces razed in 1157; the Taizu temple.

Trade and crafts

Ironwork, weaving, brewing, hunting goods, fur trade, grain from the Sungari plain.

Places of note

  • Palace platform and Taizu temple: Ritual centre of the dynasty

Where the sources disagree

  • The campaign board's 'tombs and the memory of Aguda keep it holy' is wrong on the tomb: Taizu's remains were moved to Fangshan by Hailing in 1155 (from memory, high confidence). The Taizu temple and princely tombs remain.

Evidence: The history of the city is well known (English Wikipedia on the Jin dynasty read); details of the walls and the Song craftsmen are from memory.

"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
  4. 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.