Wu Sangui, the character Changbo. The son of Wu Xiang, the chief soldier of Jinzhou, and the nephew of Zu Dashou, he was born as a general and was good at riding and shooting, and during the Chongzhen years, he was admitted to the martial arts and was given the command of the governor of the capital, and began his military career.
After repeated battle achievements, he gradually moved to Ningyuan Regiment to train the general soldiers. In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, he was attacked by Li Zicheng's Tang Tong and Qing Court Dolgun, chose to surrender to the Qing court, and participated in the Battle of Shanhaiguan, defeating Li Zicheng and Tang Tong, and became a pawn of the Qing army.
Beginning in the sixteenth year of Shunzhi, Wu Sangui guarded Yunnan, and together with Geng Jingzhong, the king of Jingnan, and Shang Kexi, the king of Pingnan, he was called "San Fan". After invading Burma, capturing the Yongli Emperor of the Southern Ming Dynasty and executing him, the Prince of Jin, his son Wu Yingxiong (吴應熊) was enfeoffed with the empress dowager, and the marriage of Empress Dowager Zhaosheng was married by Empress Dowager Zhaosheng, and Wu Yingxiong married Princess Heshuo Kechunchang to further consolidate his position. At this point, Wu Sangui can be said to have unprecedented honor, unprecedented prestige, and extremely popular subjects, so why rebel?
Strength dictates
After Wu Sangui conquered Yunnan, he accumulated strength through a series of measures. From 30,000 people in the domain to at least 53 leaders, some people say that it is close to 300,000 people, and when the rebellion reached 370,000 people, what kind of scale is this? There were not so many People in the Qing Army.
San Francisco is a clan
How did he achieve this? The answer is to raise soldiers with thieves.
Wu Sangui was well aware of the principle of unloading and killing donkeys, and every year he cried to the imperial court that he was poor, crying that he was not peaceful, and his life was not good, on the one hand, he received money and food support; on the other hand, he was granted privileges.
In terms of privilege alone, in March of the sixteenth year of Shunzhi, Wu Sangui wrote to the imperial court: "Yunnan is far away from the land, and has been subjected to chaos for a long time...", "Yongli, Li Dingguo continues to rebel...". Through a series of actions, Yunnan's military use power, personnel power, and even civil affairs and financial power were obtained. At the same time, it was still gratifying that Geng Jimao only had the right to use military troops, and civil affairs could not be managed. It can be seen that wu Sangui has obtained unprecedented privileges. Moreover, in December of the first year of the Kangxi Dynasty, the imperial court again ordered him to take charge of Guizhou. From then on, Governor Yun Gui was restrained, and he controlled the power of personnel, all with his own people. In this way, on the one hand, Wu Sangui's desire for power was connived, and on the other hand, this right was rampant, laying a solid foundation for him to further seek benefits. How can he be fed with such indulgence?
How much money do you ask the imperial court for? In the seventeenth year of Guangshunzhi, he asked for nine million taels of silver, and the four years of Shunzhi's green camp salary and silver were stipulated every month: two or two for horsemen and one or two for infantry. So much money is enough to raise more than 300,000 soldiers.
And he is not satisfied, on the one hand, he reaches out, on the other hand, he also makes his own money. What are the means to make his own money? Including two aspects, one is the southwest multi-well salt, monopoly of the salt market, the salt tax income of the seventeenth year of Guangshunzhi reached 146,1923 cents, which is three times more than the thirty-eight thousand two thousand in the sixth year of the Wanli Calendar! The second is that Yunnan has more copper, monopolizes the copper market, "occupies the smelting field, patents into itself", and engages in more than 200 tons of copper a year. It is reasonable to say that in the past, iron was used a lot, what is the use of making so much copper? Wu Sangui's abacus was very refined, and in order to completely control the Yungui economy, he began to mint copper coins, the number "West Money".
Grain is grain and money, and if there is a lot of money, grain is naturally not idle. As soon as he arrived in Yunnan, Wu Sangui occupied the place of Mu Tianbo, the Duke of Mingmu, and divided his field to his soldiers, each for six days. The imperial court did not agree, and changed it to five days per person. In the early years of the Kangxi Dynasty, the Eight Banners were busy running horses to encircle the land, and Wu Sangui was not idle, and circled seven hundred acres of grain fields in one circle, and the inspector also gave an endorsement, saying: These people have no land and cannot migrate, and can stay and continue to cultivate the fields. In the seventh year of the Kangxi Dynasty, it was incorporated into the 700 acres of Mu's Zhuangtian. After concurrently managing Guizhou, he also occupied the fields on a large scale. There is no statistics on how much grain these acres can provide, but with one hand asking for it from the imperial court and the other hand doing it yourself, this set of roads is very slippery.
By the early years of the Kangxi Dynasty, Wu Sangui had fifty-three leaders, countless money and grain, and was the first large landlord of Yungui. This strength provided him with the capital to rebel.
Wu Sangui used to extend his hand to the Qing court, asking for all kinds of requests, and the imperial court responded to every request, which caused his appetite to grow larger and larger, and he was unable to extricate himself. The burden of the imperial court was getting heavier and heavier, and naturally it could not afford to raise it. Wu Sangui and his generals were again frugal and thrifty, and if they wanted to take away his existing rice bowl, they naturally forced this group of generals to take risks, so from the beginning of the rebel crowd, as shown above, there were more than 20 people in the total number of soldiers alone, and the total number of soldiers below them had not yet been counted. This situation is strong, even if Wu Sangui himself does not want to oppose, the general will carry him up, it is already a road of no return!