Wumaka

Overview

Wu Maka was a member of the Wuse clan in the early Qing Dynasty. Volume 50 of the officially compiled *the Comprehensive Genealogy of the Manchu Clans of the Eight Banners* lists him as a member of the Plain White Banner, whose family had lived in the Changbai Mountains region for generations and submitted to the Qing Dynasty at the beginning of the dynasty. The same volume also records the Yehe branch of the Plain Red Banner under the Wuse clan, demonstrating that different ancestral homes and banner affiliations existed within the same clan. It is impossible to attribute the ancestral home, submission experience, or military achievements of another branch to Wu Maka.

The official positions and military achievements explicitly stated in this entry came from his descendants: his fourth-generation descendant, Seleng'e, served as a Xiaoqixiao (Military Qiduwei (hereditary merit rank)) and distinguished himself in the Yunnan campaign, earning the title of Yunqiwei (Military Qiduwei (hereditary merit rank)); after Seleng'e's death, his grandson, Alantai, inherited the title. The genealogy also records that Wu Maka's sixth-generation descendant, Baozhu, served as a Xiaoqixiao. Xiaoqixiao were low-ranking military officers in the Eight Banners, responsible for training and disciplining banner soldiers; Yunqiwei, on the other hand, was a hereditary title for meritorious officials, with separate regulations for its granting and inheritance. Therefore, Seleng'e held both a substantive military position and a hereditary title earned through military merit, and neither could be substituted for the other.

In the genealogy, Changbai Mountain is a broad historical and geographical term, while "fourth-generation descendant" and "sixth-generation descendant" are generational markers used to arrange descendants. Existing records can explain the military service of later generations of the family, but Wu Maka's birth and death dates, official positions, specific settlements in Changbai Mountain, and the date of the Battle of Saileng'e still need to be supplemented.