Author | Cold Research Author Team - Qu Mo Feng
Word count: 2492, Reading time: about 15 minutes
Editor's note: The previous article of the Cold Weapons Research Institute, "Even if Wu Sangui does not switch, the Qing army can attack from Yanshan Kong Daoqi?" Emperor Taiji did not dare to think so when he was alive", and had already made an analysis from a geographical point of view, believing that if Wu Sangui did not open the Shanhai Customs clearance, it would be basically impossible for Houjin to gain the world, and the various ethnic groups in Guannei, including the Han people, would not have to drag on for more than 200 years. The reason why Wu Sangui abandoned his father and surrendered to the Inner Tribes has always been discussed. Why did Wu Sangui descend to Qing?
▲ Wu Sangui, king of Pingxi
In fact, Wu Sangui had already accepted Li Zicheng's surrender and accepted the four months of military food and 40,000 taels of silver sent by Li Zicheng. Ironically, these materials restored the fighting strength of Wu Sangui's troops, who were poor after the fall of the Ming Dynasty, and became the basis for Wu's bitter battle in the Battle of Yishi. With the explicit receipt of a letter from his father Wu Xiang, why did Wu Sangui still surrender? You must know that if he surrenders, his father Wu Xiang and other members of the Yigan clan will undoubtedly die. Wu Sangui's letter to his father Wu Xiang obviously shows that he does not care about Wu Xiang's life or death- "Hearing the Holy Lord's driving, the subjects are humiliated, and they are overwhelmed!" Remembering that my father was always loyal and righteous, although the general trend was gone, Judas should fight a blow and swear not to be born. If not, he will slash his neck and take revenge by martyrdom, so that ersu will mourn and take revenge on the armor... My father was a general, a courteous king, and a disgraceful woman. The Father cannot be a loyal servant, but the Son can be filial piety? Son and Father, please from today. Obviously, the rumor that Wu Xiang was chased for stolen money led to Wu Sangui's surrender and was untenable at all. Not to mention whether Wu Xiang's stolen salary had happened, it was doubtful that Li Zicheng had ordered Wu Xiang to write a letter to summon Wu Sangui, he must have corrected the mistake of torturing Wu Xiang, returned Wu's family property, appeased Wu Xiang, and come to reassure Wu Sangui's heart. Otherwise, Wu Sangui would not have agreed to surrender at the beginning.
▲ Chen Yuanyuan, one of the eight Yans of Qin Huai
As for Chen Yuanyuan's matter, it looks more like a passage circulating in the anecdote. Chen Yuanyuan was not taken with him at all when Li Zicheng's army withdrew from Beijing, nor was he executed with Wu Xiang and the thirty-seven members of the Wu family, but ignored it and was rediscovered by Wu Sangui in the chaos. It can be seen that Liu Zongmin, who is considered to have forcibly occupied Chen Yuanyuan, in fact, did not take Chen Yuanyuan seriously at all. Even if the so-called Liu Zongmin forcibly occupied Chen Yuanyuan's existence, then Li Zicheng must also ask Liu Zongmin to return Chen Yuanyuan to the Wu family in order to recruit Wu Sangui. The so-called Liaoxi Shomen Clique under Wu Sangui's command is also unreasonable for fear of being chased by Li Zicheng for stolen money. According to the research of Mr. Gu Cheng and others, the Shunjun treated them differently when they chased after stolen salaries, and did not pursue the stolen salaries of their families for the Ming officials who needed to recruit into the Shunjun clique, such as Tang Tong, Bai Guang'en, and some civilian subjects. Therefore, Bai Guang'en's loyalty to Li Zicheng was maintained until a year after the Battle of Yishi, and the Qing army captured Shaanxi before surrendering to the Qing Dynasty.
▲ Western Liang overlord - Han Sui
In fact, Wu Sangui's attitude is very understandable compared with another capricious person, Ma Chao, a thousand years ago. When Ma Chao rebelled against Cao, he said to Han Sui, the leader of the anti-Cao alliance, "Now Chao abandons his father, taking the general as his father, and the general should also abandon his son, and take Chao as his son." ”
▲"Jinma Chao", who is often ridiculed as "Great Filial Piety",
At that time, Cao Cao wanted to attack Zhang Lu through Guanxi, and the Kansai generals all believed that it was a strategy to annex the territory of the Kansai generals, so they disregarded the hostages and raised an army to cause chaos, Ma Chao's father Ma Teng, brothers Ma Xiu, Ma Tie and other relatives of the three tribes were all hostages in the court, and Ma Chao did not mind. This is actually the feudal era of clan development more important than the consciousness of individual life. For Ma Chao, the danger of losing his territory allows him not to care about the lives of his father and brothers, because as long as there is a territory, the clan can get better development. And Wu Sangui? For him, the price tag offered by Li Zicheng is already good. If you defect to Dashun, you will be the founding father of the country and seal your wife And Shadow. Although Li Zicheng had only tens of thousands of soldiers in the old battalion at that time, as long as he could stop the Qing army from outside the pass and train more field armies with the resources of the entire north, in a year or two, the strength could surpass the Houjin outside the isolated hanging pass, which had strong troops but insufficient territory. Therefore, Wu Sangui defected to the Manchu Qing, and the only explanation was that the Price Code offered by the Qing Dynasty was higher.
Although Wu Sangui borrowed the Qing court and felt the grace of Chongzhen and wanted to beg the master to avenge the revenge of the king's father, his reason must have known that this was just to lure the wolf into the house, and he only used this name as an excuse to cover up his pursuit of more interests. In the year of the Qing Dynasty capital Beijing (that is, in 1644 AD), Wu Sangui laughed at the Prince of Pingxi granted by the Qing court, which shows that he was richly rewarded for his political speculation. Previously, the Manchu Qing had already crowned Kong Youde, Shang Kexi, and Geng Zhongming as the Kings of Sanshun, and their promise to make Wu Sangui king could be believed.
▲Kong Youde, the head of the Three Shun Kings
In the process of pursuing the Southern Ming forces, Wu Sangui made great achievements in battle, successfully turned Wang Jue into a real seal, and obtained the status of Yongzhen Yunnan and divided one side. This is undoubtedly What Wu Sangui dreamed of. And Li Zicheng has been influenced by the unified culture of China since he was a child, adhering to the concept that the king is not light and cannot make the courtiers divide one side, of course, it is impossible to give such a rich price. Of course, if it were not for Wu Sangui's switch to lure the wolf into the room, the Manchu Qing awarded Kong Youde, Shang Kexi, and Geng Zhongming the three princes would only have empty names and no real land, not worth a few dollars. The Manchu Qing was able to gain the world before it could honor the empty king.
▲The situation in the two Liao at the end of the Ming Dynasty
Wu Sangui was born in the Western Liaoning Dynasty, and during the Ming Dynasty, there was a confrontation between the Liao people and Guannei from the middle and late periods, and the Guannei discriminated against the Liao people. This is quite similar to the discrimination against Liangzhou people in the Eastern Han Dynasty. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, Dong Zhuo, the leader of the Western Liang Army, used the Qiang people as thugs to enter Beijing to introduce the world into a chaotic world, while the northeastern region of the late Ming Dynasty was strong for the Hu people and the Han people were weak, so the Liaoxi generals led by Wu Sangui were reduced to Manchu Qing minions. The two Liao clans, which have long been discriminated against and suppressed, also have a strong desire to split the land and seal the king. However, this is exactly where Wu Sangui's vision is short-sighted. Since Han Gaozu's ancestor Liu Bang killed the kings of Han Pengying, the Han Jing Emperor quelled the rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms, and Emperor Wu of Han slashed the princes with a Tui En order, and also cut down The Fujian and South Vietnamese, the great unification has become an absolute trend, and those who split the land and seal the king cannot end well, and even destroy the family.
▲ Zhang Hongfan was the son of Zhang Rou, one of the ten thousand households of the Four Great Han Armies of the Mongolian Yuan. The Zhang family was stripped of its fiefdoms during kublai Khan's time and exterminated after Zhang Hongfan's grandson Zhang Jingwu was involved in the Yuan Dynasty civil war and took sides in the wrong line
Even though Meng Yuan entered the world and initially reused the Han clan and gave him the title of commander of the army, but in the end it was influenced by the Chinese centralized tradition, and Kublai Khan's era still cut off the Han dynasty marquis's military power.
▲The Rebellion of San Francisco
Wu Sangui abandoned the life of his father, including the whole clan, thinking that with the strength of one person, he could split the land and seal the king and divide the southwest, so that the family could develop better, but did he not understand that after the Manchu Qing state was stabilized, how could he let him divide it for a long time? In the end, in his later years, Wu Sangui still suffered from rabbit death and dog cooking, and was forced to rebel by Kangxi's policy of cutting the domain, resulting in the destruction of a clan and the death of the whole family.
This article is the original manuscript of the Cold Weapons Research Institute. The original outline of the editor-in-chief and the author Qu Mofeng shall not be reproduced by any media or public account without written authorization, and the offender will be investigated for legal responsibility. Some of the image sources are online, if you have copyright questions, please contact us.