The Jin's frontier prefecture on the north bank of the Huai, facing the Song's Xuyi, the main crossing of the frontier and the one licensed market the court set when it closed the rest in the first month of Zhenglong 4 (1159; Dili zhi, read).
The Song hand over their yearly payment here (the treaty of 1142 named Sizhou and the spring as the place and season; we take the 1165 text to have kept the place; all recalled, none re-read). Of its three counties, Huaiping was called Xuyi until 1195 so that it should not be taken for the Song's Xuyi. The Seng-jia pagoda and temple (Puzhao Wang Temple), a famous pilgrimage place, stood in the city (recalled); the old city lies under the Hongze lake today.
Who holds it
- Title
- Defence commissioner of Sizhou (fangyushi)
- 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
- Linhuai (the seat), Huaiping, Hong
- The licensed market
- Towns: Qianxian, Tonghai, Anhe, Wucheng, Qingyang, Zhaijiawan
How it was acquired
Held by the Jin since the 1130s; fixed by the treaty of 1142; given back by the Song in 1165 (recalled); joined the Nanjing circuit in 1166.
Allies and rivals
Faces the Song's Xuyi jun across the water, the South China sheet's; the officers of the two courts meet at the market.
How things stand that morning
The most watched point on the frontier, at peace: the Song envoys cross, merchants trade at the market, and the yearly payment passes through when it is due.
Wealth
The market, the Huai crossing, tolls.
Military
Defence commissioner's force; there is no standing Huai-line patrol of the inspectors' name before 1208 (Dili zhi, read).
Charter
None. A Jin prefectural seat has no charter of liberties; the prefect, the county magistrates and the commissions of the circuit govern it.
Council
The prefect (name not known) and the magistrates of the seat counties govern; ward and tithing heads and the heads of the merchants' and craftsmen's guilds (hang) speak for the townsmen. No faction or quarrel is recorded in anything we could reach.
Communities
Chinese townsmen and merchants; Jurchen officers; Buddhist pilgrims; visiting Song merchants and envoys.
Fairs and markets
The market is the standing fair; the handing over of the payment is its great day (recalled).
Militia
The prefectural garrison under the prefect or military governor, with Jurchen meng'an and mouke households in the district. No numbers are given in the sources we could reach.
Walls and castle
A walled city on the north bank; the ground has since been drowned by the Hongze lake (1680s), and the campaign board's coordinate may be some kilometres out.
Trade and crafts
Cloth, tea, salt, books, silver and horses under licence; ferrymen and boatmen on the Huai.
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.
- Mid-June 1206The Song declare war and Bi Zaiyu takes Sizhou (Wikipedia, read).Depends on: The raids of 1204 onward and the Song court's choice for war. Stopped by: No Song war.
Where the sources disagree
- The campaign board entry places Sizhou at 33.24, 118.22; the real city (now drowned) probably lies some kilometres south-east, near the line the tool uses for South China's ground.
Evidence: The prefecture's rank, counties and towns are from the Jinshi Dili zhi (read through a summariser). The city's earlier history is recalled from standard works and not re-read. No source we could reach describes the city in the winter of 1199 to 1200.
"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.
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.
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.