As we all know, in the ancient feudal period in China, the change of dynasties was caused by many factors, in addition to man-made disasters, it was often accompanied by natural disasters. This was the case with the Ming Dynasty, which was once "far away from the Han and Tang Dynasties", which was plagued internally and externally, with internal and external difficulties, internal and external disputes, and natural disasters, which made the already weak country worse, and the peasant uprisings continued one after another. The Eight Banners of the Manchu Qing Dynasty are also eyeing the tiger, ready to chase the deer in the Central Plains. Finally, in 1644, Li Zicheng took the lead in invading Beijing, and the Chongzhen Emperor martyred himself, and the Ming Dynasty collapsed. As the edifice of the Ming Dynasty will fall, a general with a heavy army also adds a rich and colorful stroke to that period of history.
At the junction of the history of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the warlord Wu Sangui is undoubtedly an unavoidable figure, he was famous for "angry hair rushing to the crown" to welcome the Manchu Qing into the customs, and thirty years later he raised an army to rebel, and once drank the Yangtze River. Some people say that when he was in danger of the country, he did not bear the worries of the king, which was really a traitorous minister; some people said that he made great contributions to the Qing court, fighting from the northeast to the southwest, which was a rare tyrant; and more people thought that he was an arrogant person, who went to the Qing Dynasty after the year of Hua Jia and went to the Qing Dynasty, and ended up in a tragic end. However, when Wu Sangui knew that he would die, he issued a secret order to keep his descendants alive for more than 200 years!
The warlord Wu Sangui was born in the Family of General Men of Western Liaoning (ancestral home of Gaoyou, Jiangsu), and was especially good at riding and shooting since childhood, and under the teachings and influence of his father Wu Xiang, he began his military career at the age of less than twenty years old. According to historical records: "The three gui giant ears are high, there is no need, looking forward to it, and the dignity is like a god." The Yanling general Mei Fengzi was good at riding and shooting, and his torso was not very strong and brave. Shen Is resourceful and quite self-congratulatory. Later, Wu Sangui took his father's yin as a guerrilla, and six years later, at the age of twenty-six, he was promoted to deputy general (deputy commander-in-chief) of the right battalion of the forward. Because Wu Sangui commanded the climax of the battlefield and dared to fight with the Qing army in bloody battles, Wu Sangui was soon promoted by the imperial court to the commander-in-chief of the Ningyuan Regiment with heavy troops.
In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen (1644), the Dashun army of Li Zicheng, the king of the invasion, pointed directly at the Beijing Division, and the Chongzhen Emperor, who was facing the fate of death, urgently ordered the world's soldiers and horses to enter the Beijing Arch to defend the Beijing Division. At this time, Wu Sangui, who had a heavy army, sealed Ping Xibo and ordered him to quickly lead the troops to rescue him. However, Wu Sangui led his army to the middle of the road, and suddenly received the news that the Jingshi had fallen and the Chongzhen Emperor had hanged himself. The demise of the Ming Dynasty caused Wu Sangui to suffer from the enemy on his back, and he did not know where to go? In the face of the repeated surrenders of the Dashun army, Wu Sangui once had the idea of surrendering to Li Zicheng, after all, he was also a Han Chinese. However, when Wu Sangui was swinging, he learned that his concubine Chen Yuanyuan had been abducted by Li Zicheng's subordinates, so he gave up in anger and defected to the Manchu Qing in the northeast.
Previously, Wu Sangui had also been persuaded by the Qing Dynasty many times but did not agree, but when Wu Sangui learned that the military discipline of Li Zicheng's army was scattered, it was like a group of rabble-rousers, coupled with the hatred of the country and the family, Wu Sangui did not believe that he could achieve great things. The "Biography of Wu Sangui, King of Pingxi," records: "Just as thieves were building a rebellion, they summoned Wei Shenjing, and they could not do both, but they were beggars of the Ben Dynasty (Qing Dynasty), and they took revenge on Xue jun's father." Compared with Li Zicheng, Dolgun's side can be said to have done enough work, and he is also a high-ranking official and a thick lu, and under the banner of suppressing the rebels and avenging Daming, this undoubtedly gives Wu Sangui a step down. For Wu Sangui, turning to the Qing Dynasty not only gained benefits, but also did not lose his reputation for the time being, which was undoubtedly a good choice.
It can be said that Wu Sangui's move has made a huge change in the situation in an instant, and originally several forces were still glued, and the situation immediately became one-sided. Subsequently, Wu Sangui joined forces with the Qing army, and in the Battle of Yishi, Li Zicheng had no knowledge of the Qing army's entry into the customs, and fought for several days, and finally could not resist the offensive of the Qing and Wu forces, and the Dashun army suffered serious losses. After the Dashun army was defeated, Li Zicheng, the king of the invasion, knew that the gateway to Beijing was wide open, so he was forced to flee west with Yu Zhong. However, Wu Sangui's dedication to the Qing Dynasty provided great convenience for the Manchu Qing to chase the Deer Central Plains, so the regent Dolgun gave Wu Sangui the title of King of Pingxi.
Interestingly, at that time, the Southern Ming Hongguang Imperial Court also thought that Wu Sangui had "borrowed from Pingkou", and guangfu Jingshi had done a great job, and gave Wu Sangui the title of "Jiguo Gong" and rewarded him with 50,000 taels of silver. At this time, on the other hand, Wu Sangui no longer mentioned any "revenge of the father of the restored king", but turned the wind and turned the rudder to call the Chongzhen Emperor "the old lord". In order to show his loyalty to the Qing Dynasty, Wu Sangui later led his troops south to defeat Li Zicheng, sweep away the war in the south, kill the orphans of the Ming Dynasty, and was named the King of the Domain to guard Yunnan. After Wu Sangui defended Yunnan, in order to consolidate his position, he "chose to be self-sufficient" and "the provinces were short of members, and when they were also undertook to divide the awards, it was called the Western Election", which was equivalent to a tu emperor.
However, after twenty years, the Kangxi Emperor was overwhelmed by the weight of san francisco, and the power of the king of the domain was too large, and he planned to withdraw it. Kangxi's move was in line with the requirements of social recuperation at that time, but because Wu Sangui had been running Yunnan for more than ten years, these measures of the Qing Dynasty violated the interests of Wu Sangui himself, and finally in the case of intolerable situation, Wu Sangui had to rebel! At first, when Wu Sangui's momentum was the greatest, he once held the land of the ten provinces of Yunguichuan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Gansu, Gansu, Fujian, and Zhejiang, and almost let the Qing Dynasty and him rule by drawing the river. However, a series of strategic mistakes, and Wu Sangui's own limits are approaching, making the situation turn sharply.
In the end, Wu Sangui faced the large army sent by the Kangxi Emperor, and he knew that he did not have enough strength to defeat the Qing court. In the case that Wu Sangui knew that he would die, in order to save his descendants from being slaughtered, he issued a secret order for his son Wu Yinglin to sneak away with his concubine Chen Yuanyuan and flee to the mountains of Guizhou and live in seclusion in secret. At the same time, Wu Sangui passed the throne to his grandson Wu Shipan, and he himself died of illness not long after. Later, the development of the situation on both sides was as he expected, and the Qing army successfully quelled Wu Sangui's rebellion, and the Wu clan was cursed by the Nine Tribes. The Qing court also hated Wu Sangui's rebellion, and was not kind to his corpse, digging out his body and "cutting off his bones and spreading it to the provinces".
The descendants of the Wu family who escaped, following Wu Sangui's orders, all lived in seclusion in a small place called Majiazhai in Guizhou. In the life after that, no one in the locals knew that they were the descendants of Wu Sangui, until the fall of the Qing Dynasty, and it was gradually known in modern society. It can be said that Wu Sangui's secret order allowed his Wu descendants to escape the Qing Dynasty and let the descendants survive for more than 200 years! Now Wu Sangui's family has been passed down to the tenth generation, and each generation has a secret heir, and the current patriarch is called Wu Yongpeng. Later, the matter was also investigated by experts on Qing history and confirmed that Wu Yongpeng was a descendant of Wu Sangui. Finally, we have to say that Wu Sangui's original self-knowledge, ensuring that his concubines and letting his descendants continue, is also a rare and wise move.