Ke Pan

Overview

Kepan (originally written as "Kepan") appears in Volume 59 of the *Comprehensive Genealogy of the Manchu Clans of the Eight Banners*, under the section on surnames related to the Bordered Yellow Banner and the Plain Yellow Banner. The genealogy explicitly states that he was a member of the Plain Yellow Banner and that he submitted to the Qing dynasty during the Tiancong era. Here, "during the Tiancong era" only indicates that his submission occurred during the reign of Emperor Taizong (Huang Taiji) of the Qing dynasty, without specifying a particular year or date; the original text also does not record Kepan's official position.

The genealogy preserves the positions held by several of his great-grandsons: Juehetuo served as a military officer, Sangge as a city garrison commander, Secheng'e as a military commander (equivalent to a deputy military commander) at the time the genealogy was compiled, and Wude served as a deputy military commander (equivalent to a deputy military commander); his great-great-grandson, Youde, served as a Blue-Lanyard Guard. There is a distinction between a military commander and a deputy military commander in terms of both title and rank, and a city garrison commander cannot be generalized as a guard, while Blue-Lanyard Guards belonged to the imperial guard system.

These historical records show that his descendants were distributed among the Eight Banners guards, city defense forces, and imperial guards, but this cannot be used to say that Kepan himself participated in a war or served as a city garrison commander. Even if some of his descendants appeared in the military system, the original book does not prove that these official positions were inherited by the same person; the accurate description should be limited to the descendants listed in the genealogy and their respective titles.