QiFeng/Wen
In college, I took a course called "Historical Anthropology." The teacher said that when he was doing fieldwork in his early years, he once found a stone stele in the countryside in the early Qing Dynasty, and the stele used not the Qing Dynasty era number, but "Zhou x year". The teacher pretended to be mysterious and asked us why the Qing Dynasty people actually used the national name of "Zhou".
It's not a difficult question, but it's confusing. We know that there are many regimes with the name "Zhou", from the Western Zhou and Eastern Zhou that lasted for eight hundred years, to the Northern Zhou that was subverted by Yang Jian, the Wu Zhou that inserted the Tang Dynasty, and the Later Zhou that ended the five dynasties.
There are also Zhang Shicheng at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and Wu Sangui in the early Qing Dynasty who both established the "Great Zhou". People who have seen "Ping Trace Hero Video" should know that Zhang Danfeng's father is called Zhang Zongzhou, who is determined to "reverse the Ming Dynasty" and restore Zhang Shicheng's world. People who have watched "Deer Ding" remember the "Rebellion of San Francisco", but not many people know that Wu Sangui has been called emperor and built Zhou. The stone stele that my teacher found when he first discovered it came from Wu Sangui's rule.
Pictured: Wu Zhou and the Qing court confronted (net map)
Do not underestimate this Wu "Zhou Tianzi", his regime is decent, completely different from the Caotai team of Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong. For example, in order to show orthodoxy, the Wuzhou regime minted a large amount of coins in the territory, so that the use of Tongbao, Zhaowu Tongbao, and Honghua Tongbao is not uncommon to this day.
Among them, the use of Tongbao, which used to be generally considered to be Wu Sangui's post-military drum casting in 1673, has been revised by existing scholars in combination with various historical materials. Researcher Liu Shunqiang of the Palace Museum pointed out that Shunzhi Tongbao was only minted in Yunnan for one year, and then Wu Sangui grew in strength and resisted the minting of Kangxi Tongbao; at the same time, Wu Sangui minted copper and coinaged himself to meet the needs of local circulation, in order to "use Tongbao".
Picture: Use of light back Tongbao (Qi Feng Zang)
Qian Wen's "use" comes from the Book of Shang, and the Tang Dynasty scholar Kong Yingda explained, "The user is said to be frugal in his work, not to spend money, to use it for profit, to make the property rich, and to benefit the people.", Wu Sangui chose the word "use", which is to declare that the prosperity of the people is his goal of governance.
When Wu Sangui was the king of Pingxi, he began to cast and use Tongbao, and after rebelling against the Qing Dynasty and calling himself "King of Zhou", he did not issue a new year number, so he continued to cast and use Tongbao. The coin has a small flat money with a bare back, a "Jidi money" with words such as back cloud and gui indicating the place of minting, and "Ji value money" with words such as two cents, five cents, and one cent on the back indicating the face value of the folded silver. Ideally, 1 pair of silver is equal to 100 cents or 1000 cents, that is, 100 pieces of back one cent can be exchanged for 1 pair of silver with Tongbao. Wu Zhou constructed a monetary system independent of the Qing Dynasty.
It has always been said that Wu Sangui's ambition was originally only to divide Yunnan, and if kangxi had not forcibly cut the domain, he would not have been able to rebel. However, judging from the fact that he minted coins without authorization, it is more likely that it is only a matter of time before he is self-reliant, and the cutting of the domain provides nothing more than an opportunity.
Like those successful or failed emperors in history, there are also many rumors around Wu Sangui. By this time Europe had completed the Renaissance, the scientific revolution was in full swing, and 30 years after Galileo's death.
In 1678, Wu Zhou fell into a disadvantage in the war with the Qing court, and Wu Sangui decided to seize the last chance to live the emperor's addiction. He ascended the throne in Hengzhou, the state name Zhou, Jianyuan Zhaowu. After that, Wu Zhou stopped casting and used Tongbao to recast the year name qian "Zhaowu Tongbao", whose money text has two kinds: calligraphy and seal writing.
Photo: Zhaowu Tongbao of the Kaishu (Qifeng collection)
Liu Kun refused to be subordinate to Wu Sangui and was exiled to Tengchong. After seeing Wu Sangui's edict and era name of the emperor, he said, "Zhao is the oblique sun and the knife edge, and the sun is oblique soon, and the knife edge is unknown." Wu Zhiwen, Zhi Geye, the thief died without a day. Liu Kun split the words and said that the left side of "Zhao" was the oblique sun and was about to set, and the right side was "knife edge", which was very unlucky; he also said that the separation of the word "Wu" was to stop the war, which meant that the war was coming to an end.
The capital of Wuzhou, Hengzhou, sang a folk song: "Horizontal is also two years, vertical is also two years." Sun Xu explained in the Pingwu Lu, "With the word 'Zhao' both horizontal and vertical strokes." I thought about it for a long time, and I didn't know how to deduce from the word "Zhao" that "horizontal is also two years, and vertical is also two years", but it is not difficult to understand that the meaning of the folk song is that Wu Sangui "horizontal and vertical can only work for two years", and it is not far from defeat.
These two stories don't look like they were made up later, because they were inaccurately predicted. Wu Sangui was emperor for five months, and his life was screamed, and then the emperor's grandson Wu Shipan took the throne, honoring Wu Sangui as Emperor Taizugao, and led the WuZhou regime to fight for more than three years.
Wu Shipan changed the Yuan Honghua and did not forget to cast the Honghua Tongbao in the turbulent displacement. In addition to the bare back, there are also those who carry "workers" and "households", which are respectively supervised by the Ministry of Works and the Ministry of Households of the Wuzhou Regime. The use of the words "two centimeters" and "one point" behind the Tongbao and Zhaowu Tongbao are no longer seen in Honghua Tongbao - let a large coin be equal to a few centimeters, or even a cent of silver, the people obviously do not accept it.
Picture: Honghua Tongbao with bare back (Qi Feng Zang)
In San Francisco, not only Wu Sangui wanted to be emperor, but also Geng Jingzhong in Fujian. Geng Jingzhong, the grandson of Geng Zhongming and the son of Geng Jimao, became the third king of Jingnan at the age of 27. He saw the proverb that "the Son of Heaven is divided into fire ears", deeply believed that "the one who has the fire ear, Geng Ye", believed that "there is a reason in the world, according to the eight Min to try to forge ahead, you can win the ambition", so after Wu Sangui rebelled against the Qing, he called himself "the president of the world soldiers and horses general", and raised troops in response.
Geng Jingzhong rebelled for only two years, and then surrendered to the Qing court. During these two years, he cast the Yumin Tongbao. The so-called "Yumin" is considered by some to be Geng Jingzhong's era name, but he has neither been called emperor nor established a country, and it is unlikely that he will have an era name. Therefore, "Yumin" is the same as "utilization", which is equivalent to a political declaration; Geng Jingzhong's casting of Yumin Tongbao means declaring Fujian independence and cutting off the Qing court.
Pictured: Yumin Tongbao (Qi Fengzang) carrying "one point"
The remaining Pingnan Domain created a Schrödinger-style rebellion. According to tradition, King Shang Kexi of Pingnan was loyal to the Qing court and refused to rebel, so his son Shang Zhixin imprisoned Lao Wang and raised an army to attach himself to Wu Sangui. However, the "Shang Clan Genealogy" says that Shang Zhixin is a false intention to rebel, and the Japanese record of "Huayi Perversion" also says that Shang Kexi actually wanted to rebel, but only in old age and decline did he let Shang Zhixin preside over his affairs.
Whether it was true or false, Shang Zhixin declared himself a vassal to Wu Sangui, and after being enfeoffed as a great general and prince of Fude, the proverb also came to the door. Wang Yu's "Shuixi Chronicle" said, "When Guangzhou first changed, the princes and doctors all wore big hats and Manchurian robes, and the folk rumors said: 'The head of the Ming Dynasty, the end of the Qing Dynasty, after the third anniversary, still belonged to Kangxi.' The pawn was as he said. This means that after Shang Zhixin raised an army, the old masters in Guangzhou were not different, wearing Ming Dynasty hats and Qing Dynasty clothes, and the common people said that Guangdong had rebelled for three years and had to return to the Qing Dynasty.
Pictured: According to official regulations, the big money with "one cent" on the left side is equivalent to 10 small coins on the right
This folk song is also very inaccurate, Shang Zhixin from rebellion to surrender, full count is only a year. This person is capricious, seizing power, raising troops and surrendering, and all he thinks about is to preserve the territory of Guangdong, as long as he can achieve this goal, he can use Tongbao and Yumin Tongbao, and he does not reject Shunzhi Tongbao and Kangxi Tongbao.
Speaking of which, the "San Fan Rebellion" in the Qing court's mouth is a bit unworthy of the name, because from the beginning to the end, only Wu Sangui's grandsons were there, and as for the father and son of Geng Jingzhong and the monks, they participated in Pingwu for longer than the anti-Qing. At that time, people could not imagine that the Geng and Shang families would be pacified so quickly, and Wu Zhou could hold out for eight years, so that all the proverbs were in vain.
Resources
Anon. "The Biography of the Four Kings of Wu Geng Shangkong", in "The First Edition of the History of Ming Dynasty Barnyard", Liuyun Jushi Series, Shanghai Bookstore Publishing House, 1988;
Anon. "The Chronicle of Gui Fan", in The History of the Wild Qing Dynasty, Vol. VI, Bashu Book Club, 1988;
Liu Fengyun: Studies on san francisco in the Qing Dynasty, Palace Press, 2012;
Li Wanlu, "The Issue of The Year Number Problem During Wu Sangui's Anti-Qing Period", Western Academy, No. 1, 1994;
Liu Shunqiang: "A Preliminary Study on the Minting of Money by the Wu Sangui Regime", Forbidden City Journal, 2009, Vol. 5;
Liu Shunqiang: "The Examination of "Using Tongbao"", Forbidden City Journal, 2015, Vol. 14;
Yoshio Hosoya, "After the Promulgation of the > of the < Peace Edict of the Rebellion of san Francisco: Geng Jingzhong and Shang Zhixin", Qing History Research, No. 1, 2017;
Zhao Zisong, "Research on the Position of Shang Zhixin in the Rebellion of San Francisco", Minzu University of China, 2009.