The Amur, Ussuri and Changbai peoples, 1 January 1200

East and north of the settled Jin routes, the lower Sungari, the Amur from the Sungari mouth to the Ussuri, the Ussuri and Bikin valleys, the Sikhote-Alin ridge and the Changbai uplands are held by forest and river peoples who recognise no state.

The Jurchens among them are the ones later Chinese call 'wild' (yeren Nuzhen, a Ming-age label and not a Jin one; the Liao called the Jurchens beyond its control 'raw', sheng), as against the Jurchens of the settled routes; others are the descendants of the Heishui Mohe and, further down the river, the ancestors of the Nanai, Ulchi, Udege and Nivkh (the Chinese names of the age are Wuguo, Wudigai, Jilimi and others, and which modern people each covers is not settled). They fish for salmon and sturgeon, hunt sable, marten and tiger, take falcons and pearls, dig ginseng, keep pigs and dogs, and grow millet in the warmer valleys. They are not unarmed: the Jurchens themselves came out of this country in 1115.

The Jin keep a loose lordship: tribute of furs, hunting birds and pearls to the Hulihai route at the Mudan and Sungari junction and to the Xupin route on the Suifun, and Jin garrison forts on the Ussuri plain that may have drawn tribute from the nearer valleys.

Who rules

Title: No ruler: village and clan headmen (the Jurchen bojile or beile) and the elders of each river group speak for their own people
Since: not pinned
Born: not known
Confidence: medium

The Chinese sources of the Jin age give group names (Wuguo, 'wild' or 'raw' Jurchens, Heishui descendants, Wudigai, Jilimi, Guwei) and almost never a personal name for a chief of the far east. We found none for 1 January 1200.

Overlord

None. The Jin claim tribute and take furs and falcons from the nearer groups through the Hulihai route and the Xupin route; the farther groups answer to no one.

What the realm holds

The lower Sungari from Jiamusi to the Amur, the Amur from the Sungari mouth to the Ussuri and past Khabarovsk
The Ussuri and Bikin valleys and the Sikhote-Alin ridge down to the Pacific shore
The Changbai uplands, the head of the Yalu and Tumen: the Changbai wild Jurchens
Fishing grounds, sable and marten country, falcon cliffs, pearl rivers, ginseng slopes

How it was acquired

Not acquired: these are the old lands of the Mohe and Jurchen peoples. The Jin built their tribute lordship over the nearer groups after 1115.

Allies and rivals

Between the Jin tribute routes and nothing: each group trades with the nearest Jin market (Yilan, Ussuriysk plain, Hunchun) and fights its neighbours. The Daur and Evenk to the north-west (peoples) and the Nivkh and Ainu down the Amur and over the sea (outside) are their neighbours. Goryeo meets the Changbai Jurchens at the upper Yalu and Tumen.

The realm that morning

Quiet and self-governing. The Jin hold the settled routes up to the Mudan, the Suifun and the Tumen and take what tribute they can get; beyond that line there is no Jin officer. We found no recorded war or revolt of these peoples in the winter of 1199-1200. Who stands where in detail is not pinned: the evidence is the Jinshi's few lines, Yuan and Ming gazetteers of later date, and the archaeology of the Jin forts on the Ussuri plain.

Wealth

Furs (sable, marten, squirrel, fox), gyrfalcons (the 'haidongqing' of the Jin court), pearls, ginseng, fish and fish oil, honey, horses and iron from Jin traders. In exchange: cloth, grain, salt, iron tools, metal ware and bronze mirrors, and Chinese coin.

Military

Hunters' bows, small boats on the rivers, winter mobility on skis and dog sledges. No fortified towns of their own are known. Jin-period fortresses on the Ussuri plain (Nikolaevskoye, Shaiga, Krasnoyarovskoye) are Jurchen-built; whether Jin garrisons held them in 1200 is not pinned.

Threats

Jin demands for tribute and falcon-catching parties
Raids by neighbouring groups
A hard winter

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.

In 1200

Winter and spring 1200 (not pinned)The yearly tribute of furs, falcons and pearls goes in to the Jin at Yilan (Hulihai route) and on the Suifun; Jin envoys travel the Sungari by boat after the thaw.Depends on: Open rivers in spring; the routes' officers present Stopped by: Flood, a hard winter or a quarrel over falcon prices

Later, on the likely course

1215-1233 (later than the start of play)After the Mongol attack on the Jin north-east, Puxian Wannu (a Jurchen of Xianping, a Jin officer and pacification commissioner of Xianping, who had fought the Mongols at Yehuling in 1211 and then Khitan rebels) raises a Jurchen state in Liaodong (Dazhen, then the Eastern Xia); in 1217 he moves to the Tumen basin, where his capital Nanjing stands near Yanji (English Wikipedia, Puxian Wannu, read this session). Russian archaeologists link the Primorye fortresses to the same state (from memory). The Mongols destroy it in 1233.Depends on: Mongol invasion of the Jin north-east (1211-1214) and the loss of the Jin court's control Stopped by: A Jin success against the Mongols; nothing of this is in play before 1211

Places of note

Fuyuan (Amur and Ussuri junction): Where the Amur and the Ussuri meet: the old fishing and tribute country of the lower river peoples
Changbai mountain (Baitoushan): Sacred mountain of the Jurchens; the Jin made its god a king in 1172 and an emperor in 1193 (see the religious record)

Where the sources disagree

'Wild Jurchens' (yeren Nuzhen) is a Ming-age name; English Wikipedia (Jurchen people, read this session) says so. The brief and the assignment use it as a label for the Jurchens beyond Jin administration (the campaign board says 'forest Jurchen'), and we keep it as a label, but no Jin text of 1200 uses it. The brief wants 'the chiefs of the wild Jurchens and the Amur peoples where named'. None is named in anything we could read for 1200. Modern ethnic names (Nanai, Ulchi, Nivkh, Udege) are later usage for peoples whose Jin-age names are Wuguo, Wudigai, Jilimi and others; the match is not settled.
The regional brief already puts the wild Jurchens and the Amur peoples beyond the Jin's administration, and the campaign board has only two relevant lines: Huligai (Yilan) as 'the Sungari route seat among the forest Jurchen who never moved south' and Puyu (far Nen) as 'the northernmost yamen of the settled world'. The assignment asks how far administration reaches. We draw direct administration only to the Puyu route (the Keshan uplands), the Hulihai route (the Mudan and Sungari junction at Yilan), the Xupin route on the Suifun plain and the Helan route on the Tumen; beyond that we mark peoples without Jin officers. This follows the archaeology (Jin forts on the Suifun plain, nothing further down the Amur) but is thin.

Evidence: No text from the age names a chief of these peoples for 1200. The Jin dynasty and Jurchen pages of English Wikipedia (read) give the Mohe and Wuguo background; the Jin fortresses of Primorye are known from Russian excavation (from memory, ru.wikipedia pages blocked).

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

On the map: A tribute-and-forest country with no fixed boundary. The outline is a rough range, not a border; Jin influence fades along it.

Primary sources for this realm

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.

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

Sources and studies

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.