Irchile

Overview

Irchile was a member of the Namudulu clan of the Plain White Banner in the early Qing Dynasty. His ancestral home was in Woji, and he submitted to the Qing Dynasty at the beginning of the dynasty. The official Qing Dynasty genealogy, *The Comprehensive Genealogy of the Manchu Clans of the Eight Banners*, Volume 21, records that his son Luoda served as a cavalry officer, Hali and Wohe as infantry officers, and his grandson Dege as a doctor. The cavalry officer was a junior officer in the Eight Banners' cavalry battalion, assisting in the management of their subordinate banner soldiers and military affairs; the infantry officer was part of the infantry management system, involved in city guarding and patrolling, etc. The two positions had different battalion structures and responsibilities. In these Qing Dynasty records of official appointments, "doctor" was an official title, not a degree in modern higher education. Institutions such as the Imperial Academy appointed doctors to handle corresponding teaching and ritual studies. The original genealogy did not specify Dege's institution, so we can only interpret the nature of the doctor's position, and cannot directly confirm his position at the Imperial Academy. Woji is the name of the ancestral home region, and should be distinguished from the name of his son Wohe, who is listed in the same entry. The existing materials mainly indicate that Irqile's sons entered the banner camp and his grandsons held doctoral positions, which is insufficient to confirm the family's examination experience or Irqile's own official career.