Zhongdu

Who holds it

Title

Prefect or governor

Confidence

low

No holder is dated for 1 January 1200.

Lord in 1200

Emperor Zhangzong; the governor (liushou) of Zhongdu, not named

Overlord

Emperor Zhangzong

What the town holds

• The palace city, the Imperial City and the outer wall
• Thirteen gates and the wards
• The markets and the mint, the paper-money office
• The Guozijian and the Jurchen and Chinese schools

How it was acquired

Held by the Jin since the conquest of the 1120s.

How things stand that morning

The court is probably in residence for the New Year, when the Song's embassy comes to Zhongdu. The Tianning temple's Liao pagoda and the temples of the old Yanjing still stand; the Daoist Tianchang guan in the north-west quarter is, as we recall, a major Daoist house of the capital and the place where the Daoist canon was cut and kept (thin). The Song and Xia and Goryeo embassies lodge here. Winter ice holds the canals.

Wealth

Grain and cloth tribute from every circuit, the court's spending, the salt revenues, the luxury trade of Song silk and Goryeo goods. No money figures.

Military

The Palace Command and the Imperial Guard Army at the capital; the Zhongdu governor's city watch. No numbers.

Threats

• The grain barges failing
• A fire in the old wooden halls
• The Yellow River flood spilling into the canal supply

Council

The liushou and prefect of Daxing fu; the Censorate's watchers; the wards under the city administration. Leading families: the Jurchen court clans, the Han official families of the Hanlin, the merchant houses of the south gate.

Communities

Jurchen nobles and guards; Han officials, merchants and craftsmen; Khitan and Bohai families; the Buddhist and Daoist clergy; Muslim traders of the Niujie quarter; a small Nestorian community (thin evidence); embassies.

Fairs and markets

Temple fairs at Tianning, Tianchang guan and the Buddhist houses; the New Year and Lantern fairs. None dated.

Militia

The Palace Command, the Imperial Guard Army and the personal guard; the city watch. No numbers.

Walls and castle

Walled city of thirteen gates, the palace city near the centre, the Imperial City, the Daning palace and Taiye lake north-east.

Trade and crafts

Silk, grain, salt, tea from the south, furs, horses and sheep from the north, books (the Daoist canon printed here in the 1190s), lacquer, Ding and Cizhou ware, money-changing in paper notes.

Places of note

• Tianning temple pagoda: The Liao brick pagoda of 1100-1119 (English Wikipedia).
• Tianchang guan: The Daoist house in the north-west quarter (its later names are in the likely course of Tianchang guan).
• Niujie mosque: The Muslim quarter in the south-west of the city.

Where the sources disagree

• English Wikipedia's pages give three years for the new capital: its Zhongdu page says it served as the Jin capital from 1153; the Jin dynasty page says in its text that Wanyan Liang moved to Yanjing and renamed it the Central Capital in 1152 (its infobox says 1153); the History of Beijing page lists the name from 1151. We use 1153 for the move and the title (the year the Zhongdu page and the Jin infobox give); the pages do not explain the earlier years.
• Population: English Wikipedia's History of Beijing page says the city grew from 82,000 in 1125 to 400,000 in 1207 (no basis stated; the 1207 figure lies after the start date), and its Zhongdu page says nearly one million by the late twelfth century, citing a popular guidebook (Kaiser Kuo, The Insider's Guide to Beijing). The two differ by a factor of about two and a half and we do not know which is nearer. We give no figure for 1 January 1200.
• The campaign board's note calls it 'the largest city of the north' without a figure; no figure is repeated here.

Evidence: Secondary sources and general knowledge; the Jinshi's Dili zhi could not be opened in this session.

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

On the map: The tierra is the capital district of about twelve kilometres round the palace.

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.