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Wanyan Yongji

Jin dynasty emperor

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 9, 2026
Entity authorityQ5076 ↗
Source-derived summary

Wanyan Yongji (died 11 September 1213), childhood name Xingsheng, was the seventh emperor of the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty of China. He reigned for about five years from 1208 until 1213, when he was assassinated by the general Heshilie Zhizhong. Despite having ruled as an emperor, Wanyan Yongji was not posthumously honoured as such. Instead, in 1216, his successor, Emperor Xuanzong, reverted his status to "Prince of Wei" (衛王) – the title Wanyan Yongji held before he became emperor – and gave him the posthumous name "Shao" (紹), hence Wanyan Yongji is generally known in historiography as the "Prince Shao of Wei" (or Wei Shao Wang).

Life

Wanyan Yongji's birth name was "Wanyan Yunji" (完顏允濟); his given name was changed to "Yongji" later to avoid naming taboo because Emperor Zhangzong's father was Wanyan Yungong (完顏允恭). He was the seventh son of Wanyan Yong (Emperor Shizong) and an uncle of Wanyan Jing (Emperor Zhangzong). His mother was Lady Li, a Balhae concubine of Emperor Shizong. In 1171, he was given the title "Prince of Xue" (薛王) but was later changed to "Prince of Sui" (禭王). His princely title had subsequently been changed to "Prince of Lu" (潞王), then "Prince of Han" (韓王), and finally "Prince of Wei" (衛王). When Emperor Zhangzong died without a male heir in 1208, Wanyan Yongji was selected to be the new emperor.

Editorial summary

“Wanyan Yongji” enters the record as jin dynasty emperor. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Wanyan, Yongji and dynasty can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA strong contextual entry point for chronology, institutions and public events when official records are distinguished from later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1213, 1208, 1216, 1171—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1168-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Wanyan, Yongji and dynasty.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Wanyan Yongji” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Wanyan, Yongji and dynasty provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5076. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1213, 1208, 1216 and 1171.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

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  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
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Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

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  2. Expand the search: follow Wanyan Yongji primary sources, Wanyan Yongji archive and Wanyan research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Wanyan Yongji” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.