At the time of the Ming Dynasty and the Rise of the Qing Dynasty, Wu Sangui was pushed to the cusp of the storm three times.
Faced with these three major historical junctures, Wu Sangui was confused. But history doesn't give him time to think deeply. He was either forced or voluntarily made three choices.
These three choices either made him controversial, or made him hated, or made him laugh.
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Puzzle One: Fight for the Nation, or Fight for the Imperial Court?
In the last years of the Ming Dynasty, domestic and foreign affairs were difficult. First, in North China, the Huanghuai locust plague and drought spread, and displaced people were everywhere. Followed by gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong, and others to expose the rebellion, the disasters of war in North China, Central China, and Guanzhong continued.
External pain is in the northeast. Since the Battle of Salhu in 1619, the Ming Dynasty's Wanli, Tianqi, Chongzhen, and Later Jin (later changed to Qing) Nurhaci and Huang Taiji fought for more than twenty years, consuming a lot of manpower and material resources of the Ming Dynasty.
As the commander-in-chief of liaodong in the Ming Dynasty, Wu Sangui certainly knew it.
But in February 1644, Wu Sangui may have been more anxious about his father and Aiji. His father Wu Xiang was taken by Li Zicheng and forced Wu Sangui to surrender as a hostage; his beloved Concubine Chen Yuanyuan was plundered by Liu Zongmin, the general of the Chuang Dynasty.
His father was detained, and his beloved woman was occupied by others, and Wu Sangui's mood could be imagined.
What bothered him even more was that he didn't know how to deal with it.
On the one hand, the pain of hatred between the country and the family, the Chongzhen Emperor hanged himself, the Ming Dynasty fell, the traitors detained their fathers, robbed their concubines, and no matter who they were, they would be angry and rush to the crown and establish shame;
On the one hand, the threat of foreign invasion, Dorgon led the Manchu Qing Iron Horse to look at the tiger outside the pass, murderous, as a border guard, he had the duty to defend himself.
Where to go, Wu Sangui in the eyes of the storm is the focus of many parties.
He made a difficult decision: to borrow troops from the Qing Dynasty, to help restore the Ming Dynasty, and to make up his own mind to list the "split land for remuneration" guarantee.
The shrewd Dorgon seized the opportunity and quickly made a strategic change from "entering the customs and plundering" to "entering the Central Plains".
In his reply to Wu Sangui's letter, Dorgon said: "If you lead the people to return, you will seal your homeland and enter the throne of the domain", changing Wu Sangui's "borrowing troops to restore the Ming Dynasty" to the Qing Dynasty's "surrender and establish a country".
Wu Sangui's wishful thinking was directly reversed by Dorgon.
The situation is deteriorating further. In March 1644, Li Zicheng led an elite 60,000 troops to the east, and the main force of the army was attacked, and another dispatch would be sent from the northeast of Funing County beyond the border to form a siege of Shanhaiguan.
Helpless, helpless, and helpless, Wu Sangui begged to surrender to the Qing and begged for soldiers to beg thieves.
Half pushed and half done, Wu Sangui was changed from a general to a Qing courtier, and was knighted as the "King of Pingxi" in the Manchu Qing.
There is also Hong Chengyu in front of him, and he may be able to comfort himself.
Confusion 2: Loyalty to the New King, or the Old Lord?
Although he was already a Qing general, Wu Sangui's spearhead was still aimed at Li Zicheng.
The hatred of the country and the family is calculated together.
From Shanhaiguan to Lulong, to Beijing, to Baoding, to Zhengding, to Jingxingguan. From Hebei to Shanxi, to Shaanxi, until Li Zicheng was hanged in Hubei.
Li Zicheng in Wu Sangui's eyes was dead, but the Ming Yongli Emperor in manchu eyes was still there.
When it was discovered that the Yongli Emperor had fled in Guizhou and Yunnan, the Qing Dynasty ordered Wu Sangui to march from Hanzhong and Sichuan, and together with two other troops, pressed towards Guizhou and Yunnan.
In 1659, the Yongli Emperor fell from Yunnan to Burma.
In 1660, Wu Sangui went to the Qing Emperor and asked the Ming Yongli Emperor to suppress the border troubles, and in 1661 he led his troops into Burma.
The Yongli Emperor wrote to Wu Sangui in Burma, saying:
With the power of a great power, the fox and the false tiger, the false name of revenge, and the fate of the new dynasty...
The general forgot the great virtue of the king's father, the great merit of the figure of creation, the overseer entered the Dian, and covered my lair...
The general does not avoid hardships and dangers, asks for his life to come from afar, raises hundreds of thousands of people, and pursues the body of the rebel brigade, how can he show that the world is not widespread? Is there no room for a servant in the midst of the destruction of the world? After the king was knighted, he wanted to kill the servants to ask for credit? ......
The general thinks that he is wise, suitable for his foolishness, thinks that he is thick, suitable for his thinness, a thousand years down, history is passed down, books are loaded, when the general is like a man? ......
The servants of the present are weak and weak, and the orders of the people are standing alone, and the orders of the districts are hanging in the hands of the generals, and if they want the leaders of the servants, that is, they are crushed to pieces, and the blood is splashed with grass, they dare not resign...
Listing so many original texts, I really felt that the Yongli Emperor was weeping with tears and blood, both in sharp condemnation and in mourning.
But none of these words impressed Wu Sangui. Burma was afraid of extinction, and the Yongli Emperor dedicated it to Wu Sangui.
Wu Sangui was very arrogant when he saw the Yongli Emperor. The Yongli Emperor asked sharply, "Who is Er?" Wu Sangui han did not dare to speak up. Asked several times before saying the name.
The Yongli Emperor said, "If you want to return to Beijing and die after seeing the Thirteen Tombs, can you let it go?" Wu Sangui said to Himself, "Renzhi." Seeing that the old lord was born to death, Wu Sangui was unconsciously moved and cried on the ground.
Shi Zai: Left and right (Wu Sangui) came out, and their faces were gray and sweaty.
Such a mess, the heart must have been confused: how to deal with the Ming Yongli Emperor?
Wu Sangui chose to be "loyal to the new jun" and executed it thoroughly.
In dealing with the Yongli Emperor, he not only strictly defended the troops, but also thinned his diet and regarded him as a prisoner of sin.
When he learned that someone wanted to rob the Yongli Emperor and start a rebellion, Wu Sangui immediately asked the Qing court to kill the Yongli Emperor and his crown prince on the spot in Yunnan, and killed the 2,000 soldiers who wanted to cause trouble.
Nanming never died.
Confusion Three: Self-preservation of the Southwest, or the creation of a new dynasty?
There are no eternal friends, no eternal enemies, only eternal interests.
This sentence is applied to Wu Sangui's head and can be changed to "There is no eternal monarch, only eternal interests."
At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, due to the rebellion in the southwest and Zheng Jing's occupation of Taiwan, the Qing court ordered Wu Sangui Wang Yungui, Shangkexi Wang Guangdong, and Geng Jimao Wang Fujian to guard the territory. Because of the high road and long distance of the Yunnan Mountains in Yunnan-Guichuan, Wu Sangui was granted the right to enrich soldiers and horses, set up officials and employ people, and the three departments of officials, households, and soldiers were not questioned.
San Francisco had a military force of at least over 600,000 men. San Francisco soldiers need to pay more than 20 million taels of silver and more than 2 million stones of grain every year. Most of the country's wealth is spent in San Francisco.
On the one hand, it is thick and strong, and wants to emulate the Ming Dynasty Mu Yingshi to guard Yunnan. On the one hand, the country was initially stabilized, strengthened control, and consolidated centralized rule.
The contradictions between the two sides have been intensifying and escalating.
Moreover, the ruler of the Qing court was already a young and courageous Kangxi Emperor.
In the spring of 1673, the Qing court issued an edict to withdraw the domain. The Kangxi Emperor was very resolute: "Withdrawing is also reversing, not withdrawing is also reversing, it is not as if it is preemptive." ”
The idea of protecting the southwest fell short, and Wu Sangui decided to rebel.
Although he did not make sufficient preparations, Wu Sangui weighed himself on the qing court's generals and was not enough to be his own. What he was thinking about was, in what name would he rebel?
He also thought of the Ming Yongli Emperor, who nominally opposed the Qing Dynasty and restored the Ming Dynasty, avenged the old king, and declared to the outside world that he was entrusted with his life alone, and that when he was a traitor, he endured humiliation and burden.
What is even more unexpected is that Wu Sangui led his soldiers to pay homage and weep in front of the Yongli Emperor's mausoleum before the expedition, so as to boost morale.
Well, it was he who killed the Old Lord and asked for merit, and it was he who rebelled in the name of the Old Lord.
In Wu Sangui's eyes, the Ming Yongli Emperor was a tool, and he could use it as he wanted.
But the eyes of the people of the world are shining.
Having torn the skin of the face, it should be fought to the end. Wu Sangui did not rush across the river and march north with all his might, nor did he go down the east side of the river and cut off the canal grain road, he lost his fighter plane, and instead prepared time for the other side.
Neither the hegemon of the heroic talents nor the strength of the strategists, after five years of mixed wars, Wu Sangui's wealth was gradually exhausted and his prestige became lighter.
In order to restrain people's hearts and boost morale, in March 1678, Wu Sangui declared himself emperor in Hengyang, placed hundreds of officials and generals, abolished the slogan of restoring the Ming Dynasty, and founded the New Zhou Imperial Court. Although this was supported by his subordinates, he lost more of the hearts of the Southern Ming people.
The downward spiral is irreversible. In August 1678, Wu Sangui died violently. In October 1681, the Qing army invaded Kunming, folded the skeleton of Wu Sangui, and issued a message to Hai Nei, Yun Gui Xi Ping.
Wu Sangui - "Wu Sanbao"?
History is not hypothetical, time cannot be turned back, and today's people cannot know the whole situation at that time.
When we review the three difficult choices that Wu Sangui faced, there will still be a lot of emotion.
First confusion and choice.
The hatred of the country and the family is added, the foreign invasion is in front, and the situation is difficult to decide. This time, we can't be too harsh on Wu Sangui, and the resources in his hands are very different from the contradictions that need to be solved.
Second confusion and choice.
When Wu Sangui pursued the Yongli Emperor, Hong Chengzu tasted it and said, "Although Gong and I are now in Manchuria, they are only tolerant for a while. The Duke of Yongming (Yongli Emperor) should be lenient. I have to wait for a long time to wait for the world to change. Hong Chengzu is a man who understands and speaks very thoroughly, but it is a pity that Wu Sangui is a "tendon" and has no far-sightedness, which shows the shortness of Wu Sangui's insight.
Third confusion and choice.
First of all, there is no strategic decision: do you want to be a local king, or do you want to rebel and become an emperor? If the strategy is not clear, the deployment and operational priorities of the future war will be confused. Secondly, there was a contradiction in the name of sending troops, the first "anti-Qing and restoration" name and the killing of the Yongli Emperor, and the later establishment of the New Zhou Imperial Court and the revenge of the Restoration of the Ming Dynasty, the contradiction overlapped and confused people's minds.
In these three times, Wu Sangui was a tragic role for the first time, and played a clown role twice.
He did not achieve shi kefa's loyal ming court, nor did he achieve Hong Chengzu's assistance to the Qing court.
Wu Sangui, hesitating and repeating in three confusions, wandered between the two dynasties.
Wu Sangui, you are still called "Wu Sanbao".