Kaifeng

Who holds it

Title

Resident governor of the Southern Capital (Nanjing liushou), also prefect of Kaifeng

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 Nanjing liushou (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 Song palace city and the southern palaces the Jin rebuilt
• The wall circuits
• Kaifeng and Xiangfu, the seat counties east and west of the city
• Daxiangguo Temple, the Iron Pagoda, the synagogue and mosque quarters (religious records)
• The offices of the liushou, the Henan military commission and the two civil commissions
• The city's waters: the Bian, Cai, Jinshui, Guangji and Huimin (Dili zhi, read), the old crossing Gu Tong Jin and the Lincai pass in Kaifeng county

How it was acquired

Fell on 9 January 1127 (Timeline of the Jurchens, read); held for the Jin by the puppet states of Chu and Qi, retaken for the Jin in 1140 after the Song's brief return of 1139 (recalled), confirmed Jin by the treaty ratified in October 1142 (Wikipedia, read), renamed Nanjing in 1153 (recalled).

Allies and rivals

Its governor answers to the emperor at Zhongdu through the Department of State Affairs. The other end of the road is the Song court at Lin'an (the South China sheet's). The Jin carried off the Song court's craftsmen, books, printing blocks and astronomical instruments in 1127 (recalled); the city's old learning went north with them.

How things stand that morning

The Song's old capital under a Jin governor, quiet, reduced and anxious about the river. The new year, Cheng'an 5, begins about 18 January by our computation, and the city's markets and temples will keep the first-month festivals.

Wealth

The Song city's markets, mills, breweries, printing and book trade on a smaller scale; four medicine markets and a licensed market listed for Kaifeng fu (Dili zhi, read); the road and canal trade between the Yellow River plain and the Huai; paper money. The Dili zhi gives the prefecture 235,890 registered households in Tiande 4 (1152) and a far larger figure for the end of Taihe (about 1208) that its editors doubt; neither is a 1200 count.

Military

The palace and gate guards under the liushou, the circuit's garrison and the field commands of the Henan commission; Jurchen meng'an and mouke households on the plain. No numbers.

Threats

• A new break of the Yellow River
• Fire and decay in the old palace city
• Poverty of the Jurchen households on the plain

Charter

None. The city is a prefecture of the highest rank under a resident governor; its liberties are the old customs of a capital, not a charter.

Council

The liushou with a deputy (tongzhi liushou shi) and a vice-governor (recalled); the magistrates of Kaifeng and Xiangfu; ward heads and guild heads. No faction is recorded in anything we could reach.

Communities

A Chinese majority; Jurchen officers and garrison families; the clergy of the great Buddhist and Daoist temples; a Jewish community whose synagogue is said to date from 1163; Muslim families. The last two rest on late evidence (religious records).

Fairs and markets

The Song fair of the Daxiangguo Temple, held several times a month, is the best-known market of the old city (Meng Yuanlao's Dongjing menghua lu, prefaced 1147; recalled). Whether it still ran in 1200 is not known.

Militia

Palace and gate guards and the garrison; no numbers.

Walls and castle

The Song had three nested circuits: an outer city wall, the inner old city wall of Tang Bianzhou, and the palace-city wall. How much of the outer circuit the Jin keep in repair in 1200 is not pinned; the travellers' diaries of 1169 and 1170 describe ruin, which we could not re-read.

Trade and crafts

The city's old quarters of cloth, books, medicine, wine and food; the Song city's markets as Meng Yuanlao and later travellers describe them (recalled); the four medicine markets and the licensed market of the Dili zhi; the Bian and Cai waters, much reduced.

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. 1214 (Zhenyou 2)The Jin court moves from Zhongdu to Kaifeng (Japanese Wikipedia, read).Depends on: The Mongol attacks on North China that begin in 1211. Stopped by: No Mongol war, or a Zhongdu that holds.
2. 1232 to 1233The Mongols besiege Kaifeng and take it in 1233 (recalled).Depends on: The Mongol conquest of North China, which has not begun. Stopped by: No Mongol conquest.

Places of note

• Daxiangguo Temple: The Song state temple and fair ground; see religious record.
• Zhuxian town: Where Yue Fei's northern army halted about 25 km from the city in 1140 before being recalled (recalled; location approximate).

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The dates of 1127 and 1142 and the 1214 move are from pages read this session; the rest of the city's history is recalled and its 1200 state is not described in anything we could reach.

On the map: The near land is drawn as a ring of 8 to 12 km round the modern city, shared out by the nearest-seed rule; the Jin city can lie some kilometres from the modern one and the prefecture's land 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.