Liaoyang (Dongjing)

Who holds it

Title

Dongjing liushou

Since

not pinned

Born

not known

Confidence

low

Post certain; holder in 1200 not read.

Lord in 1200

The Dongjing liushou, under the Department of State Affairs

How things stand that morning

Held by the Jin as the Eastern Capital under its liushou; quiet, no emperor in residence; the largest city of the north-east.

Council

The liushou and prefecture officials, with Bohai, Han and Khitan gentry; no municipal body.

Communities

Bohai and Han majority, with Jurchen officers and mouke, Khitan families and Buddhist monasteries.

Militia

Circuit garrison and mouke (no figures).

Walls and castle

Walled city on the Taizi river; the Dongjing palace of the Liao and Jin; the White Pagoda (Guangyou temple).

Trade and crafts

Grain, silk and cotton weaving, ironwork, salt from the coast, Goryeo trade, timber from the Yalu.

Places of note

• White Pagoda (Guangyou temple): Great brick pagoda, repaired in the Jin age

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: 1116 and 1161 are well known; the daily life of the city in 1200 is inference.

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.