Jin Dynasty

  General Description   The Jin Dynasty (also known as the Great Jin or Jurchen Dynasty) ruled north China from 1115 to 1234 CE. ^[1] The dynasty was founded by a confederation of Jurchen tribes from around Manchuria that defeated the Liao in 1115 CE and then ousted the Northern Song. ^[2]
Jin forces captured the Northern Song capital of Kaifeng and forced the Song south in 1127 CE. ^[1] The Jin territory included part of Korea in northeast Asia, and Uighur and Tibetan land in western China. In 1153 CE, the Jurchen government moved its capital from Manchuria to modern-day Beijing.
This period was marked by conflict with the Southern Song and the Mongols. The Jurchen government also struggled with economic inflation and flooding. ^[1] In 1233 CE, the dynasty was conquered by Mongol forces, who then ruled as the Yuan dynasty. ^[1]
Population and political organization
The traditional Jurchen system of hereditary military chieftains was maintained by the first Jin ruler, Emperor Taizu. ^[3] After conquering the Liao and Northern Song, later rulers adopted a Chinese-style imperial central government, which was accepted as legitimate by Chinese Confucian scholars. ^[4] The Jin imperial government copied a number of Song institutions, including the nine-rank system for officials and recruitment by civil service examinations. ^[3]
The Jin Dynasty was the first period in Chinese history in which large populations of ethnic Han citizens were ruled by an outsider government. ^[1] While many Jurchen people moved from Manchuria into China during Jin rule, ^[4] they still only made up about 10 percent of the population of Jin Dynasty China. ^[4] The population of the Jin dynasty was between 45 million and 54 million people in 1200 CE. ^{[5] [6]}

[1]: (Perkins 1999, 246) Dorothy Perkins. 1999. Encyclopedia of China. New York: Routledge.

[2]: (Ebrey 1996, 167) Patricia Buckley Ebrey. 1996. The Cambridge Illustrated History of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[3]: (Theobald 2000) Theobald Ulrich. 2000. ’Jin Empire Government, Administration and Law’. Chinaknowledge.de. http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Song/jinn-admin.html. Accessed 15 March 2017.

[4]: (Holcombe 2011, 135) Charles Holcombe. 2011. A History of East Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[5]: 中國文明史‧宋遼金時期‧金代》〈第十一章 民俗文化與社會精神風貌〉: 第2001頁－第2022頁

[6]: 中国人口发展史》.葛剑雄.福建人民出版社.