737 CE–793 CE
大钦茂
Dae Qinmu (d. 793) was the third ruler of Balhae and a son of its second ruler, Dae Muye. He came to power in 737, after the death of his father and the earlier death of the crown prince, Dae Dorihaeng. He ruled for more than five decades and was posthumously honored as King Mun. His reign encompassed the expansion of Balhae's administrative institutions, the development and relocation of its capitals, and sustained…
Dae Qinmu (d. 793) was the third ruler of Balhae and a son of its second ruler, Dae Muye. He came to power in 737, after the death of his father and the earlier death of the crown prince, Dae Dorihaeng. He ruled for more than five decades and was posthumously honored as King Mun. His reign encompassed the expansion of Balhae's administrative institutions, the development and relocation of its capitals, and sustained diplomatic exchanges with Tang China and Japan. Tang records document his investitures and appointments, while inscriptions from the tombs of his daughters preserve an extended royal title and evidence of Balhae's written culture.
737 CE（18th year of the Bohairenan era; 25th year of the Kaiyuan era, Tang） ｜ Dae Muye died. Dae Qinmu assumed responsibility for state affairs and began the Daeheun ｜ Dae Muye died. Dae Qinmu assumed responsibility for state affairs and began the Daeheung era.
738 CE（2nd year of the Daxing era, Bo Hai; 26th year of the Kaiyuan era, Tang） ｜ Tang envoy Duan Shoujian invested him as Prince of Balhae and appointed him Governor of ｜ Tang envoy Duan Shoujian invested him as Prince of Balhae and appointed him Governor of Huhan Prefecture, together with a Tang military title.
739 CE（3rd year of the Daxing era, Bo Hai; 27th year of the Kaiyuan era, Tang） ｜ Balhae sent an embassy to Japan under Xu Yaode and Yi Jinmong ｜ Balhae sent an embassy to Japan under Xu Yaode and Yi Jinmong; the mission also escorted the Japanese envoy Heguri no Hironari home.
755 CE（19th year of the Daxing era, Bo Hai; 14th year of the Tianbao era, Tang） ｜ Tang conferred additional honorific and court appointments on Dae Qinmu. ｜ Tang conferred additional honorific and court appointments on Dae Qinmu.
762 CE（26th year of the Daxing era, Bo Hai; 1st year of the Baoying era, Tang） ｜ The Balhae court moved from Zhongjing Xian defu to Shangjing Longquanfu. ｜ The Balhae court moved from Zhongjing Xian defu to Shangjing Longquanfu.
785 CE（49th year of the Daxing era, Bo Hai; 1st year of the Zhenyuan era, Tang） ｜ Tang recognized Balhae as a kingdom and elevated Dae Qinmu to King of Balhae ｜ Tang recognized Balhae as a kingdom and elevated Dae Qinmu to King of Balhae, adding the title of Defender-in-chief.
Dae Qinmu belonged to the ruling house of Balhae. He was a grandson of Dae Joyeong, who established the polity in the late seventh century, and a son of Dae Muye, its second ruler. Balhae had grown through the military and political consolidation of the two preceding reigns. Dae Muye's crown prince, Dae Dorihaeng, had died before his father. When Dae Muye died in 737, Dae Qinmu took charge of state affairs and succeeded to the throne. The surviving record offers little detail about his childhood or early career, so his biography is best traced through the policies, diplomatic exchanges, and institutional developments recorded during his reign.
At the beginning of Dae Qinmu's rule, Balhae had to consolidate a large and diverse realm. He emphasized civil administration and amnesty, while continuing the diplomatic relationship with Tang. In 738, Tang envoy Duan Shoujian formally invested him as Prince of Balhae, Governor of Huhan Prefecture, and holder of a senior military title. The investiture recognized his succession and gave the relationship a formal framework. It did not by itself define every aspect of Balhae's internal government; Dae Qinmu continued to rule through the institutions of his own state.
Dae Qinmu also sought books and institutional knowledge from Tang. Balhae missions requested works that included the Records of the Three Kingdoms, the Book of Jin, the Spring and Autumn Annals of the Thirty-Six States, and the Tang Code and Rites. The Tang court authorized the requests. The circulation of these texts formed part of a broader cultural exchange and supplied material for the Balhae court's own administrative and literary life.
During Dae Qinmu's reign, Balhae developed a central government with three ministries, six departments, and several specialized agencies. Local administration was organized through prefectures and counties, and the kingdom developed a system of five capitals. Offices concerned with public works, agriculture and storage, and the management of state resources supported the operation of government and the economy. These arrangements adapted institutional forms familiar from Tang while serving the requirements of Balhae's own territory and monarchy.
The growth of government was accompanied by agricultural, craft, and commercial activity. Iron tools were widely used, and the administration maintained offices responsible for forests, fields, construction, grain storage, and the management of goods. Trade linked Balhae with Tang territories and Japan. Shandong became an important area for exchange between Balhae and the mainland. A Balhae mission to Japan returned with a large shipment of cotton in 759, illustrating the scale such exchanges could reach.
Cultural activity also flourished. The court sought Chinese books, and Balhae writers, artists, sculptors, and musicians participated in a literary culture that drew on both local traditions and continental forms. The poet Yang Taishi, a Balhae military official, was known for poetry composed during a mission to Japan. The tombs of Princess Zhenhui and Princess Zhenxiao contain inscriptions and other material remains that document the use of Chinese characters and the artistic practices of the Balhae royal house. Their inscriptions preserve the extended title “Great King Daxing Baoli Xiaogan Jinlun Shengfa,” associated with Dae Qinmu.
Dae Qinmu's reign saw major changes in the location of the political center. Around 755, the court moved from Zhongjing Xian defu to Shangjing Longquanfu. Shangjing, in the Mudan River basin, became a major political and economic center. Its remains show a planned urban layout, with successive enclosures and organized streets and wards. The capital's scale and layout provide evidence for the administrative resources available to the Balhae court.
In 785 the court moved again, this time to Dongjing Longyuanfu near present-day Hunchun. The sequence of capital locations reflects the changing priorities of Balhae's government and its management of the kingdom's regions. Rather than treating a single city as the whole story of the reign, the moves should be understood alongside the development of the five-capital system and the kingdom's broader territorial administration.
Balhae maintained frequent contact with Tang. Its missions requested books, presented local products, and negotiated court recognition. Dae Qinmu received a series of Tang appointments, including elevation from Prince of Balhae to King of Balhae in 762 and the titles of Minister of Works and Defender-in-chief in 766. These titles show the changing formality and rank of the relationship, while Balhae continued to conduct its own government.
Relations with Japan were also sustained. In 739, Xu Yaode and Yi Jinmong led a mission that escorted the Japanese envoy Heguri no Hironari home. Xu Yaode and members of the party died at sea, while Yi Jinmong reached Japan. Later embassies grew in size: a mission led by Yi Wanfuk included 325 people in 771, and a mission led by Gao Panbi included Balhae and Tieli participants in 779. Music and other cultural practices circulated along with diplomatic exchange.
Dae Qinmu died in 793 after a reign of more than fifty years. His death was followed by a brief succession crisis. Dae Yuanyi took the throne but was soon killed, and the kingship passed to Dae Hwayeo, Dae Qinmu's grandson. Dae Qinmu's long reign left a durable institutional and urban legacy, although Balhae's subsequent prosperity resulted from the work of the polity and its rulers across generations.
Dae Qinmu's government developed central and local institutions, including the three ministries, six departments, specialized agencies, and a five-capital framework. The state also organized prefectures and counties. These institutions helped coordinate taxation, public works, agriculture, storage, and the administration of a large realm. Their forms show sustained engagement with Tang models, but their operation belonged to the Balhae state and its political needs.
Balhae's requests for historical works and legal texts connected the court to the scholarship and book culture of Tang. The presence of literary figures such as Yang Taishi, together with inscriptions and art from royal tombs, demonstrates that this exchange supported more than government administration. It contributed to a court culture in which written Chinese, local political traditions, poetry, music, sculpture, and painting coexisted.
The relocation to Shangjing and later to Dongjing was among the defining administrative decisions of the reign. Shangjing's surviving urban remains provide material evidence of planned construction and a substantial royal center. The moves also indicate that the location of the capital was an active instrument of governance, connected to regional administration, agricultural resources, and communication.
Dae Qinmu's court maintained repeated missions to Tang and Japan. Tang investitures gave formal expression to interstate relations; missions to Japan carried envoys, goods, and cultural practices. These contacts connected Balhae to northeastern and broader East Asian networks. They should be understood as continuing diplomatic activity undertaken by Balhae, not simply as one-way cultural transmission.
Two threads run through his reign, the moving of capitals and the investiture by the Tang: in 755 (nineteenth year of Daxing; fourteenth year of Tianbao in the Tang) the capital was moved to Shangjing Longquanfu; in 762 (twenty-sixth year of Daxing; first year of Baoying) the Tang advanced Da Qinmao's title to King of Bohai; in 785 (forty-ninth year of Daxing; first year of Zhenyuan) the capital was moved again to Dongjing Longyuanfu; and he died on the fourth day of the third month of 793 (fifty-seventh year of Daxing) with the posthumous title King Wen. Over nearly sixty years the five capitals of Bohai and the prefectural, district and county establishments gradually took shape, Chinese writing and Central Plain institutions were more widely used at court, and envoys to Japan were frequent, Xu Yaode being sent there in 739 (third year of Daxing), part of the mission being lost at sea. Bohai's relations with the Tang and Japan largely took their definitive form during his reign.
His reign of nearly sixty years was the key period when Bohai's institutions and foreign relations took shape: the two moves of the capital, to Shangjing Longquanfu in 755 and to Dongjing Longyuanfu in 785, ran roughly parallel with the two Tang investitures, as Prince of Bohai Commandery in 738 and King of Bohai in 762, showing how Bohai's internal organisation and its titular relation with the Tang court worked together.
Bohai's position between the Tang and Japan likewise took shape in his reign: towards the Tang it maintained its standing through investiture and tribute, while with Japan it exchanged envoys on terms of parity, the institutions and books brought back by its embassies being one of the important channels through which Bohai absorbed Tang culture.
Bohai's territory and institutions also expanded in his reign, and the establishment of the five capitals together with the prefectural, district and county system makes his time the most fully documented phase of Bohai institutional development.
His posthumous title, and the continuation of the royal line after him, show the Bohai court adopting the Central Plain system of posthumous names.
His posthumous title King Wen likewise corresponds to Bohai's adoption of Central Plain posthumous practice.
Tang court records document Dae Qinmu's investitures and official titles, showing how Tang recognized his succession and the status of Balhae. The records also provide evidence of continued embassy exchange. The inscriptions from the tombs of Princess Zhenhui and Princess Zhenxiao preserve Balhae's own royal titulature and dating practices, supplementing the accounts transmitted in dynastic histories.
Later histories describe the institutional and cultural development of Balhae during Dae Qinmu's long reign. The capital system, administrative offices, and regular contacts with Tang and Japan are central to that account. The later description of Balhae as a flourishing “Prosperous State East of the Sea” reflects the development of the polity across several reigns; it should not be attributed to Dae Qinmu alone.
Modern studies combine dynastic histories with inscriptions, tomb remains, and archaeological work at sites such as Shangjing Longquanfu. This evidence helps researchers examine urban planning, administrative organization, writing, court culture, and regional exchange. The combination also makes it possible to study both Balhae's engagement with Tang institutions and the ways the Balhae court maintained its own political structures.
FIGURES ASSOCIATED WITH THIS DYNASTY