Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period/Bahai
BAHAI 巴海 (d. 1696), general, was the eldest son of Šarhûda [q. v.] of the Gûwalgiya clan, which belonged to the Manchu Bordered Blue Banner. Beginning as a captain, he was appointed in 1657 a reader in the Pi-shu yüan (秘書院). In 1659 he was made a commander of the garrison troops at Ninguta to succeed his father who died in that year. At the same time he inherited the rank of baron (男) of the first class which had been granted to his father. In 1660 he reported a complete victory over the Russian troops under Afanasiĭ Filippovich Pashkov (d. 1664, founded Nerchinsk in 1658) at the village of Ku-fa-t'an (古法檀) which was in the Shilka River region. When, in 1661, it was discovered that Bahai had purposely omitted to report some losses among his own troops in this battle he was deprived of his hereditary rank. Nevertheless in the following year he was appointed the first military-governor of Ninguta. As a reward for his success in 1673 in organizing a tribe of natives called the Meljere into 40 companies known as the New Manchus (新滿洲), he was five years later given a minor hereditary rank. In 1676 he removed his headquarters to a city west of Ninguta, called Kirin, and in 1682-83 took part in the preparations for attacking the Russians at Albazin. He was deprived of all offices in 1683 because he reported a famine that did not exist. But from 1684 to 1696 he served in Peking as a lieutenant-general in the Mongol Bordered Blue Banner.
[1/249/2a; 3/267/3b; 4/114/16b; 11/10/10b; Ravenstein, E. G., The Russians on the Amur (1861) pp. 35–36; P'ing-ting Lo-ch'a fang-lüeh which appears in the Shuo-fang pei-shêng 1/3a (for both see under Ho Ch'iu-t'ao); Russkiǐ Biograficheskiǐ Slovaŕ (1896-1913)]