Jin Empire

Jin Empire

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Jin Empire (simplified: 金国, traditional: 金國, pinyin: Jīn Guó), also called Great Jin (大金) and the Jin dynasty (金朝), was the empire of the Jurchen Wanyan clan, which ruled northern China from 1115 to 1234. It conquered the north from the Song in 1127 and held the Southern Song Dynasty as a tribute-paying vassal, until the rising Mongol Empire broke its power.

History

Foundation and conquest of the north

The Jin was founded in 1115 by Emperor Taizu, who united the Jurchen tribes. In 1127 it took northern China from the Song, whose court re-established itself in the south.

Song vassalage

The storyteller Zhang Shiwu told how Emperor Gaozong of Song had declared himself the Jin’s vassal, promising that his descendants would keep a subject’s duty for all generations, send envoys every year for the Jin emperor’s birthday and the new year, and pay an annual tribute of 250,000 taels of silver and 250,000 bolts of silk. Shortly before the Guo and Yang families were destroyed, the Song official Wang Daoqian, sent north to congratulate the Jin ruler on his birthday, conspired with the Jin to invade Jiangnan.

Wanyan Honglie recalled that in the Zhenglong era the Jin ruler Wanyan Liang, taken with Liu Yong’s poem on West Lake, had a painter depict Lin’an with himself on horseback on the summit of Wu Hill, and wrote on it that he would lead a million troops to West Lake. His invasion of the south failed.

The Mingchang Emperor and the Mongols

The Jin emperor on the throne when the Mongol steppe grew strong was Wanyan Jing, the Mingchang Emperor (Emperor Zhangzong). Fearing that Wang Khan, Temüjin and the other northern tribes would become a threat, he sent his third son, Prince Rong Wanyan Hongxi, and his sixth son, Prince Zhao Wanyan Honglie, to confer titles on them, both to keep them in check and to spy on them. Wanyan Hongxi read out the edict that made Temüjin Commissioner for the Pacification of the Northern Marches of the Great Jin, hereditary for his descendants, to serve for ever as a shield on the empire’s northern frontier.

The Mongol invasion

Later the Mongols invaded the Jin in force. Zhongdu was besieged for almost a month, the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun fell to the Mongols, and Jin armies ten times the size of the enemy broke in battle after battle. Fearing for the empire, Wanyan Honglie went south to steal Wumu’s Art of War. The Mongols later sacked Zhongdu, and Genghis Khan took the Jin emperor’s golden throne for himself.

Wanyan Honglie took refuge with the Khwarezmian Empire and urged its shah to kill Genghis Khan’s envoys. He was captured at Samarkand and put to death. Genghis Khan then planned his campaign against the Jin at Daliang, where the Jin emperor now lived, in alliance with the Song, luring the Jin’s best troops from Tongguan to be destroyed outside the city.

Notable members

  • Emperor Zhangzong (金章宗 — Jīn Zhāngzōng) — Wanyan Jing, the Mingchang Emperor
  • Wanyan Honglie (完颜洪烈 — Wányán Hóngliè) — Prince Zhao, the emperor’s sixth son
  • Wanyan Hongxi (完颜洪熙 — Wányán Hóngxī) — Prince Rong, the emperor’s third son
  • Wanyan Kang (完颜康 — Wányán Kāng) — Yang Kang, raised as Wanyan Honglie’s son
  • Emperor Taizu (金太祖 — Jīn Tàizǔ) — Founding emperor of the Jin

Behind the scenes

Historical background

The historical Jin dynasty (1115–1234) was founded by the Jurchen Wanyan clan, conquered the Liao and Northern Song, and ruled northern China from Zhongdu until the Mongols destroyed it.1 Jin Yong’s Condor novels inherit that geography: the Jin hold the north while the Southern Song cling to the Yangtze south.

Wanyan Honglie

Wanyan Honglie is a fictional prince. In a note to the revised edition, Jin Yong gave him Emperor Zhangzong as his father, observing that Zhangzong was accomplished in calligraphy and painting and wrote poetry in both forms, and that his Slender Gold calligraphy was almost indistinguishable from that of Emperor Huizong of Song.

See also

Footnotes

  1. Jin dynasty (1115–1234) on Wikipedia. ↩

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