Dalchong'a Clan

Overview

The Dalchong'a clan is a Manchu surname recorded in Volume 58 of the *Comprehensive Genealogy of Manchu Clans of the Eight Banners*, an official compilation of the Qianlong Emperor's reign. Their ancestral home was in Jiyang and Heilongjiang. Basai of the Plain Yellow Banner resided in Jiyang; his grandsons, Duonai and Dunduo, served as cavalry captains; his great-grandsons, Sanbao, served as a secretary; Jiuzhu as a guard captain; and Shizhu as a personal guard captain; and his great-great-grandson, Tuolun, was an eighth-rank official. Mochuohai of the Bordered Blue Banner resided in Heilongjiang; his great-grandson, Hupuba, served as a cavalry captain. Both branches submitted to the Qing Dynasty at the beginning of its rule.

A secretary was a civil official in the government office responsible for handling and managing related affairs; a personal guard captain was part of the emperor's personal guard system; a guard captain managed his subordinate guards; and a cavalry captain participated in the training and management of the banner troops. These titles reflected both civil and military distinctions and divisions of labor within the military organization, and cannot all be simplified into a single "Eight Banners official."

The eighth-rank official designation only indicates the grade; the genealogy does not specify Tuolun's specific duties, and he should not be replaced by a commonly used eighth-rank position. Basai is the starting point of the genealogy, but the official positions of his descendants cannot be attributed to him alone; two branches with the same surname do not directly prove the order of migration or close kinship. The location of Jiyang, the Manchu spelling of the surname, and the government office to which the descendants belong still need to be checked in the archives, and the ancestral home in Heilongjiang cannot be directly equated with the modern provincial border.