Jingzhao fu

Who holds it

Title

The fu yin of Jingzhao fu, who is also commander of the Jingzhao circuit; the Shaanxi military commissioner (tongjun shi) has his command here. Names not known.

Since

not pinned

Confidence

low

No source consulted dates the office-holder for the winter of 1199-1200.

Lord in 1200

The fu yin of Jingzhao fu, who is also commander of the Jingzhao circuit; the Shaanxi military commissioner (tongjun shi) has his command here. Names not known.

Overlord

The Jin emperor Zhangzong, through the circuit command

What the town holds

• Jingzhao fu (Xi'an): the old Chang'an as the Jin's Shaanxi command city

How things stand that morning

Quiet. The Jin holds all of Guanzhong; the Song line is at the Dasan pass and the Qinling ridge; the Xia is a vassal. Names of the officers are not known.

Charter

none known: a Chinese prefectural city or county town with no municipal charter

Council

No town council. The prefect (zhizhou) or county magistrate governs with the staff of the prefecture; Jurchen military commanders hold the garrison. Names are not known.

Communities

Chinese, Jurchen garrison households; the old Tang temples (Daxingshan, Daci'en, Jianfu); the Quanzhen in the hills; a Muslim community in the western quarter by tradition, not dated for 1200 (see the religious record). No Nestorian community is known: the Tang church had died out and its stele of 781 lay buried.

Fairs and markets

Markets and temple fairs on the usual Chinese pattern; none dated for this town.

Militia

No citizen militia; the garrison is the Jin's own (Jurchen meng'an and mouke households and Chinese soldiers), not numbered in any source we could read.

Walls and castle

The small walled city of 904 inside the Tang Chang'an, with the circuit yamen and the arsenal. The Tang ruins lie outside.

Trade and crafts

Silk and cloth of Guanzhong, grain of the Wei plain, the Wei-valley roads east to Tongguan and west to Fengxiang and Pingliang, the timber and herb trade of the Qinling, and trade with the Xia and the Tibetans along the north-western roads.

Places of note

• Big Wild Goose Pagoda: Tang pagoda of Daci'en Temple, rebuilt 704; stands
• Beilin (Stele Forest): Tang steles gathered in the Confucian temple in 1087
• Daxingshan Temple: Tang esoteric Buddhist temple, much reduced
• Great Mosque of Xi'an: Muslim mosque by tradition from the Tang; earliest dated evidence is later

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board (xi-an-jingzhao) puts Xi'an at 34.342, 108.94, which is the Weiyang district; the walled city stands at about 34.26, 108.95. The Tang walls of 904 are the ones that stand; the large Ming walls are later.

Evidence: Seat and general character follow the standard Jin geography and the usual accounts; we could not open the Jinshi text in this session, and no dated detail of the town in 1199-1200 was found. The description is indicative.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: A seeds recipe of about 12 km round the walled city; the prefecture is in the province record.

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.