The narrow gate between the Yellow River and the Song mountains on the road from Luoyang to Kaifeng, listed by the Dili zhi (read) among the passes of Fanshui county in Zhengzhou.
It is famous from the wars of Chu and Han and from the Tang victory over Dou Jiande in 621 (recalled). In 1200 it is a toll post and a place on a quiet road; no war is near.
Who holds it
- Title
- Officer of the Hulao pass post (name not known)
- Since
- not known
- Born
- not known
- Family
- not known
- Confidence
- low
Not known. The Jinshi names prefects only inside individual biographies, which we could not reach; the office, not the man, is what the map can show.
Lord in 1200
The Jin emperor Zhangzong, through the prefect (name not known).
Overlord
the Jin emperor Zhangzong (Wanyan Jing), Cheng'an 4, through the Department of State Affairs at Zhongdu
What the town holds
- The pass
- Fanshui county (Zhengzhou)
How it was acquired
Taken by the Jin in the campaigns of 1127 to 1141 and held since (recalled); the Huai line of 1141 to 1142 was confirmed in 1165.
Allies and rivals
Answers to the Southern Capital's governor and the circuit commissions; no feud is recorded in anything we could reach.
How things stand that morning
A road post at peace.
Wealth
Road tolls.
Military
A small post; no numbers.
Council
The local magistrate or garrison officer (name not known).
Communities
Not recorded.
Militia
A small post or garrison; no numbers.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: A minor place: what is said comes from the Jinshi Dili zhi lists (read) and from general knowledge (recalled). No source we could reach describes it in the winter of 1199 to 1200.
On the map: A point only: the coordinate is the modern place or the campaign board's, good to a few kilometres at best.
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, 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)
- 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.