The system of” selection of talents in North and South China" in the early Jin(金)dynasty was established in Emperor Xizong’s reign. The division into North and South was made on the basis of the former watercourse of the Yellow River and was unrelated to the division by native place of the Song and the Liao. Related content in the "Treatise on Selection" in the Jin Dynastic History, which formed the basis of the traditional definition, is actually wrong and should not be relied on. In their dual political environment, both the Liao and the early Jin embraced a northern tribes-centered view of the border that took the then course of the Yellow River as the dividing line, but after the thorough sinicization and institutional reforms of Emperor Xizong’s reign, this was replaced by a north-south separation that broadly followed the Yellow River, with a strategy for governing the Han territories through Jin policies on ethnicity, politics, the economy, etc. The “ selection of talents in North and South China" is just one important example of this. The differential treatment of insiders and outsiders brought on a corresponding split in the Han territories in terms of national identification, and had a deep influence on the dynasty’s geopolitical situation. The question of” selection of talents in North and South China" under the early Jin in fact reveals a facet of the long developmental journey of the northern ethnic groups as a political factor across the whole of the Liao and Jin period.