Maohai

Overview

Maohai was a member of the Tongyan Gioro clan, of the Bordered Blue Banner, and lived in Yarhu for generations. He submitted to the Qing dynasty at the beginning of the dynasty. Volume 18 of the official Qing dynasty genealogy, *The General Genealogy of the Manchu Clans of the Eight Banners*, records that he was awarded the title of Cavalry Captain and fought against invading troops at Yaozhou. He later died in battle while besieging Jinzhou and was posthumously awarded the title of Second-Class Light Cavalry Captain. Cavalry Captain and Light Cavalry Captain were hereditary titles of merit, the former being of a different rank than the latter and inheritable according to the system; the posthumous title cannot be written as the actual position Maohai held during his lifetime. His son, Mongol Erdai, inherited the title but was later dismissed due to some incident. The hereditary title was then passed on to relatives such as Tulai and Korkun. Mongol Erdai later again received the title of Cavalry Captain for military merit, and his grandson, Luozhan, merged the hereditary titles from different sources when he inherited it; later, there were further divisions of inheritance, reflecting the institutional differences between conferment, merging, and distribution, and cannot be simplified into a simple father-son chain. The original genealogy lists multiple names of Mongol Erdai's brothers and descendants; any variant spellings in modern transcriptions still require verification against the original engraving. Yarhu was the family's ancestral home, while Yaozhou and Jinzhou were battlegrounds; their natures should be distinguished. Furthermore, the surname Gioro cannot be used alone as proof of imperial lineage.