Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period/Bolo
BOLO 博洛 d. April 23, 1652, age 40 (sui), Prince Tuan-chung (端重親王), was a grandson of Nurhaci [q. v.] and the third son of Abatai [q. v.]. He was made a prince of the fourth degree in 1636 and took part in the campaigns against the Mongols, Chinese, and Koreans. In 1644 he went with Dorgon [q. v.] to Peking. He accompanied Dodo [q. v.] in pursuit of Li Tzŭ-ch'êng [q. v.], and was raised one degree in rank for his achievement. In 1645 he followed Dodo to Nanking where he was given command of half the army to pacify nearby cities. He succeeded in taking Ch'ang-chou, Soochow, and Hangchow, but returned to Peking late the same year. In 1646 he was again sent to Chekiang, this time as commander-in-chief of the Manchu troops with the title P'ing-nan Ta Chiang-chün 平南大將軍. His aim was to conquer Chekiang and Fukien and this he accomplished in that year (1646, see under Chu I-hai, Chu Yu-chien, and Chêng Chih-lung). From Fukien he sent a detachment south, which took Canton early in 1647. On his triumphal return to Peking he was made a prince of the second degree with the designation, Tuan-chung. In 1648 he and Ajige [q. v.] were commissioned to inquire into the situation in Mongolia, but a rebellion broke out simultaneously in Tatung, Shansi, and both laid siege to the city. When Dorgon personally conducted the siege of Tatung in 1649 he made Bolo a prince of the first degree, and placed him in command of an expedition to suppress another uprising in the same province. When the insurgents were subdued (late in 1649) Bolo returned to Peking. In the following year he was entrusted with the supervision of the Six Boards of the central government but was soon degraded to the rank of a prince of the second degree for failure to inform against the president of a Board, who had disobeyed orders. Early in 1651 he was reinstated in his original rank. He and the Princes Nikan (d. 1652) and Mandahai [qq. v.] were trusted by Dorgon and were left in power after the latter died. Before long, however, Bolo aligned himself with the princes who had opposed Dorgon. Later he was once more degraded, this time for failure to report that Ajige, then in prison, was in possession of weapons. Eventually, the rank of a prince of the first degree was restored to him. After his death in 1652, he was canonized as Ting 定, and his rank was transmitted for a time to one of his sons. But when it was disclosed that Bolo while living had appropriated for his own use property which had belonged to Dorgon, he was posthumously (1659) deprived of all honors, and his descendants were also deprived of their ranks.
A small work, entitled 過墟志 Kuo-hsü chih, written about 1673, tells the story of a Manchu prince who, while engaged in the conquest of South China, married a Chinese widow, née Liu 劉. This work seems not to have disclosed the name of the prince in question, but according to internal evidence, Bolo is probably the one to whom it refers (see under Dodo).
[1/223/8a; 2/2/39a; 3/首7/12a; W.M.S.C.K. 19/15a.]
Fang Chao-ying