Why did Wu Sangui suddenly rebel against Dashun and lure Qing troops into the customs?
On April 29, 1644, Wu Sangui formally decided to surrender to Li Zicheng, but on May 3, just five days later, Wu Sangui suddenly changed his mind, rebelled against Dashun, and surrendered to The Qing. The story of "Rushing crown and being angry and red" also happened during this period.
In fact, the earliest record of Wu Sangui's decision to rebel against Li Zicheng after hearing that his own xiaobai Chen Yuanyuan was abducted by Li Zicheng's subordinate Liu Zongmin was the Records of the Court and the Xiao Li Ji Nian Supplementary Examination.
The two books record that Wu Sangui, on his way to surrender to Li Zicheng, encountered two groups of people: one was his family and the other was a close associate of his father Wu Xiang. Two groups of people successively told Wu Sangui about the Wu family's encounter in Beijing. When Wu Sangui heard that his father had been arrested and imprisoned, Wan'er smiled and said, "This is just a tactic by Which Li Zicheng wants to coerce me into surrendering!" After I surrender, my father will be released! When he heard that his father had been tortured in prison, he became very angry. When he heard that Chen Yuanyuan had been abducted by Li Zicheng's subordinates, he immediately became angry and said, "If the eldest husband can't even protect his own woman, what kind of face can he see!" As a result, Wu Sangui decided not to surrender to Li Zicheng again, and took the opportunity to send troops to capture Shanhaiguan, which was controlled by the Dashun regime.
The "Garden Record" and the "Xiao Li Ji Nian Supplementary Examination" were compiled during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, nearly a hundred years after Wu Sangui rebelled against Dashun, and most of the things recorded in the book are hearsay and difficult to prove. The closest record of Wu Sangui's rebellion against Dashun is Ji Liuqi's "Ming Ji Beiluo". Ji Liuqi, a historian of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, was born in 1622 AD and was a contemporary of Wu Sangui. He was 22 years old when Wu Sangui rebelled against Dashun, and the credibility of his book records was relatively high.
The Ming Dynasty Northern Sketch records that: "Since entering Beijing, Liu Zongmin was Wu Xiang, and Suo Yuan (Chen Yuanyuan) could not be tortured. The three gui heard about it, and recruited seven thousand troops. On March 27, the self-made border guards were slashed and killed, and the remaining thirty-two were killed, and the thieves fled with their wounds. Sangui was then based on Shanhaiguan. This means that after Li Zicheng conquered Beijing, the general Liu Zhongxue severely tortured Wu Xiang because he could not catch Chen Yuanyuan. When Wu Sangui heard this, he was very angry, so he recruited 7,000 soldiers and captured Shanhaiguan.
The Records of the Court and the XiaoYi Chronicle believe that Wu Sangui rebelled against Dashun because Chen Yuanyuan was taken captive, while the Ming Dynasty Northern Sketch believes that Wu Sangui rebelled against Dashun because Wu Xiang was beaten, but would the real Wu Sangui rebel against Dashun because Chen Yuanyuan was taken captive or his father was beaten?
After the fall of Shanhaiguan, Li Zicheng suddenly felt the seriousness of the situation. Therefore, he immediately sent someone to release Wu Xiang and entertain him. At the same time, Wu Xiang wrote a letter to Wu Sangui under the coercion and inducement of Li Zicheng, saying that he was deeply treated favorably by king Chuang in Beijing, and that the beating was purely a misunderstanding, and that king Chuang would later send Wu Sangui a generous gift: 10,000 taels of silver, 1,000 taels of gold, and 1,000 pieces of gold.
In fact, long after Wu Sangui decided to surrender to Li Zicheng, before Wu Xiang was beaten and Chen Yuanyuan was shot, Wu Sangui's march was particularly slow, in fact, he was to observe whether Li Zicheng's peasant army was worthy of surrender. But what happened along the way made him keenly aware that Li Zicheng was not a generation of ming lords, on the contrary, he must be a mountain king who unloaded and killed donkeys, crossed rivers and demolished bridges. When they have heavy troops in their hands, they dare to beat their fathers, rob their wives, and after they surrender, once they no longer have use value, what will happen to them? This is clear to Wu Sangui, who has been in the official field for many years!
As a generation of wise and courageous generals, Wu Sangui was afraid that he would not rebel against Dashun and lead Qing soldiers into the customs because Chen Yuanyuan was shot or his father was beaten, these were just a fuse for his rebellion against Dashun. What really made him rebel was that he had already clearly seen that the peasant rebel army led by Li Zicheng, the king of the Chuang Dynasty, could not accomplish a great cause at all.
What was Chen Yuanyuan's final ending?
After Wu Sangui surrendered to the Qing army, his father Wu Xiang and more than thirty people were killed, and Chen Yuanyuan escaped by chance and later returned to Wu Sangui's side.
The final outcome of Chen Yuanyuan is currently unverifiable, but there are three main theories that are widely circulated:
First, suicide. According to the Records of the Court, "When xin you's city was broken, Yuanyuan died first." This means that during Wu Sangui's rebellion against the Qing Dynasty, when Xin Youcheng was breached, Chen Yuanyuan committed suicide. As for how he died, some people said that he hanged himself, some people said that he was on hunger strike, and some people said that he committed suicide by throwing himself into a lotus pond.
Second, take refuge in Buddhism. In his later years, Chen Yuanyuan was no longer favored by Wu Sangui, and after being discouraged, he converted to Buddhism. According to the "Essays of Tianxiangge", "(Chen Yuanyuan) cloth and vegetables, lied to the Buddha to spend this life." ”
Third, seclusion in Guizhou said. After Wu Sangui's death, Chen Yuanyuan fled to Guizhou with the descendants of the Wu family and lived in seclusion in order to avoid the Qing army. Thank you for paying attention to the small editor "Sun Moon Morning Cloud", your attention to like comments is the greatest support for me, thank you.