Song Jin – A Capital for the Jin
For a hundred years after Kaifeng was recaptured from the Khitan, it grew and flourished. Scholars and artists made our great city the cultural center of the world. But our leaders took one step too many. Emperor Huizong, his mind on excelling at the three perfections, calligraphy, poetry, and painting, did not pay attention to his empire. His devotion to a pleasure park of man-made mountains and exotic beasts distracted him from leading our people.
And so, disaster has struck. At first, combining our forces with the Jurchens — the new threat from Manchuria — to defeat the hated Khitans, seemed like such a good idea. But our military has grown soft. The Khitans repulsed our attack and the Jurchens had to conquer the Liao Empire on their own. And then the Jurchens turned against us.
All of Northern China has been overrun. The Imperial family has been taken prisoner and marched north into the Jurchen lands. China has new, tougher leaders now. The Jin Dynasty has been born!
The Jurchen need a capital to rule over their new domains. They have picked a spot in the north, just west of the Bo Hai Sea, along the Yongding River. We will call it Zhongdu. Our geomancers are confident tht this capital can be the imperial seat of China for at least the next thousand years. Just make sure Zhongdu is a strong fortress, for even the wisest sage could not say what invaders we might have to fight off in the future.
City – Zhongdu
Starts Feb 1127 CE
25000 starting cash on Normal
Requirements:
- Large Palace must be built
- Population of 3000
- 4 trading partners
- 50 people in Impressive Compound or better
Large Palace Requires:
- 54 wood
- 1 stone
- 1 clay
- 256 dirt
Note that these Large Palace requirements differ from those shown in the original version of Emperor. These are the correct amounts.
You will be returning to this city in the final mission of this dynasty, to build the largest city required in any of the campaigns, so plan carefully how you use your space.
I decided to place one Common housing block and one Elite housing block as I would need at least 10 Elite houses in the final mission. I placed the Large Palace to one side of the Elite block and left space on the other side of the Large Palace for another common block later. Since there are 2 important water trade routes I decided to have main production and trading area in the south, just above the river.
After placing the Common housing block I started by putting in hemp farms and then importing jade and exporting carved jade. The first food for my houses was imported fish then by late in the first year I had started farming my own food and was producing many goods. The Elite housing block was started in early 1129, which met the Impressive Compound goal, though I placed many more Elite houses than was needed for that goal, mainly to get the taxes from them. I was taxing all housing at Outrageous from the end of 1127.
I imported steel and started producing weapons almost from the start as from the briefing I thought an invasion was a possibility. I built 2 forts before I started to instead sell the weapons. I never was invaded but possibly without forts I would have been seen as vulnerable and attacked, or an attack may come later.
I used excess pottery and paper to call Xi Wang Mu to the city by June 1128. I chose her mainly because she speeds up monument construction, but also for her blessing of jade carvers. I was only able to import 12 jade from the cities I had open but was able to export 48. I had her regularly filling jade carvers with raw materials, though you do need to give large homage gifts to keep her in the city doing this. Selling these jade carvings contributed to the high profits I was able to make in this city. After a loss of about 10,000 in the first year then breaking even in the 2nd by the 3rd year I was making a profit and finished with over 90,000 cash. The other large money maker was silk which was started in the 2nd year.
The goal of 4 Trading Partners was already met when the mission started, with 5 being open then. I opened one more during the mission. The population goal was met in October 1129 and I finished with a population of 3556 The other goal was the Large Palace. I started producing wood for it in 1127 but it was the last goal met, being finished in March 1132.
Trade
City | Buys | Sells |
---|---|---|
Pingyao (open) Land route | *Silk 12 Tea 24 *Wheat 12 *Ceramics 12 | Steel 12 Stone 12 Bean curd 12 Game meat 12 |
Chengdu (open) Land route | Spices 12 *Wheat 12 Fish 12 | Salt 12 Lacquer 12 Jade 12 Tea 12 |
Jiangling (open) Land route | *Wheat 24 *Cabbage 12 Steel 12 #Weapons 12 | Salt 12 Tea 24 Hemp 12 Wood 24 |
Lin’an (open) Water route | #Carved Jade 24 #Lacquerware 36 #Weapons 24 | Fish 24 Salt 36 |
Guangzhou (open) Water route | *Silk 24 Salt 36 Tea 36 #Carved Jade 24 | Fish 24 Rice 24 Steel 12 |
Kaifeng Land route | Stone 12 #Weapons 12 Steel 12 | Ceramics 12 Wheat 12 Cabbage 12 Silk 12 |
Xia Xia Empire Land route | *Silk #Weapons Tea | Spices Jade |
*Can produce
#Can produce if raw materials are imported