Chapter 62 chapter Five

Perhaps, when Wu Sangui faced Dorgon's gradual pressure in Shanhaiguan, he felt remorse.It is clearly said to take revenge by borrowing troops, but the Qing army took advantage of the danger to force him to submit on the grounds of shaving his hair to distinguish him, which is really inhumane.However, politics is ruthless, it only recognizes the strong.Wu Sangui had to shave his hair and submit, which constituted a de facto surrender.Later, Dorgon turned against the guest again, and regarded him as a surrendered general, as the vanguard to wipe out the opponent.Wu Sangui was controlled by others, and could only play the role of an executioner with all his heart.

However, in the depths of his heart, he has always been unwilling to admit his act of surrendering the Qing Dynasty, and what he retains on the subconscious level is still the four characters of "borrowing troops for revenge".As a martial artist, he doesn't seem to think too much about such important things as the nation, the country, and great achievements.For a period of time, his fatal personality weakness could only accommodate personal interests and personal enmity, and the word "revenge" was firmly entrenched in his mind, almost occupying his entire heart.After he snatched back Chen Yuanyuan and wiped out the peasant regime in Dashun, he really relaxed for a while.Yes, the beauty has returned, the enemy has been destroyed, the hatred has disappeared, and his goal of "becoming a beauty with anger at the crown" has been achieved.Only then did he begin to face up to his situation and consider his future survival and development.He looked around, except for some weak rebel forces and the lingering Nanming court, the whole world was no longer belonged to the Qing court, and the overall historical situation caused by his "weight" was already doomed.In fact, his military power is also completely controlled by the Qing court, and he is not allowed to have any unreasonable thoughts.He wanted to resist, but he couldn't resist.His weight, apart from continuing to tilt, relying on a kind of inertia and spare power to help the Qing court level the world, has no other better way out.

Once the clever and cunning Wu Sangui understood the general trend of the world's development, he moved forward along the rolling historical trend of Pei Ran Mo Neng Zhi Yu.In order to gain the trust and reuse of the Qing court, he left his own son Wu Yingxiong in the capital as a hostage; To achieve new goals, he even took arrows and dangers again and again, disregarding personal safety and life and death. Once, when Wu Sangui was attacking Sichuan, he was besieged in Baoning by the Daxi Peasant Corps.Liu Wenxiu, the general of the uprising, was determined to put Wu Sangui to death at all costs. He surrounded the battalion for 15 miles, took precautions, and set up an elephant array to complement him.As far as the fortified fence was concerned at that time, Wu Sangui seemed to be unable to escape.However, the peasant army was determined to win, so it could not help being proud and underestimating the enemy; as the siege lasted for a long time, the defense inevitably became lax. Finally, the stubborn Wu Sangui found a weak link, seized the favorable opportunity, desperately broke through, and blazed a trail of blood.

Another time, when Wu Sangui was chasing Emperor Yongli of the Nanming Dynasty, he fell into Li Dingguo's ambush plan, and the forward had already entered the second ambush circle.At this moment, a miracle happened, a demoted official named Lu Guisheng suddenly appeared in front of Wu Sangui, and told the danger in front of him.Wu Sangui was taken aback and hurriedly ordered his troops to withdraw, not only avoiding a possible downfall, but also achieving a decisive victory. Fate seems to always look down on him and let him undertake and complete the final mission of historical weight.

Since he devoted himself to serving the Qing court, the master seemed to be moved by his loyalty.After the world was settled, Wu Sangui was named King of Yunnan. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, there were four people who were named kings by the Han people. The other three were Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming, and Shang Kexi.Although Wu Sangui came to the Qing Dynasty late, he made great achievements and was the first crowned prince.Even the Manchu "Tian Huang Nobles" can't compare with that hot authority. After Wu Sangui achieved his goal of winning the favor of the Qing people and gaining prominent power, his new desires began to expand again.During the years of continuous wars, Wu Sangui walked on thin ice, cautious and trembling; once he was sealed off in Yunnan, the inherent personality weaknesses in his life began to be exposed undisguised again—he overhauled the palace, went around "beauty contests", and collected money. Money is arbitrary and self-defeating; it not only controls the province, but also interferes with the imperial court and usurps part of the power of the Ministry of Officials to select officials.

Although his role as a weight to determine the fate of history has long since disappeared, Wu Sangui still regards himself as a weight. From time to time, he has the idea of ​​controlling the world, and accordingly makes some actions that are beyond his control.Until he was in Yunnan, he still did not admit in his heart that he was a general and an important minister of the Qing Dynasty.He even stubbornly believed that the world of the Qing court was captured through Wu Sangui by taking advantage of others' danger.According to this reasoning, the world originally belonged to Wu Sangui.Then, one day he will take back the world from the Qing people, it should be a logical move, just like giving up Shanhaiguan and then taking it back from the peasant army.

Driven by this kind of mentality, Wu Sangui kept accumulating strength in secret, and his power gradually expanded and strengthened, which made the world look at him.Kunming seems to have become an accompanying capital, and the Wu Mansion and the Qing court are like two regimes in the north and the south. The succeeding Emperor Kangxi was young and had nothing to do with him, so he had to endure it. Both sides are brewing, accumulating, waiting. As Emperor Kangxi grew up, he could no longer tolerate the power of the feudal towns with heavy troops. He decided to start with King Pingnan, who guarded Guangdong, and began to cut down the feudal clans. "Political strategy.

One side is the infinite expansion of desire for power, and the other side is consciously cutting off the wings of the important city. The two collide, and the conflict is inevitable. Once the Pingnan King of Guangdong was abolished, sooner or later it would be Wu Sangui's turn to be the king of Pingxi in Yunnan.At this moment, Geng Jingzhong, King of Jingnan, saw that the situation was not good, and took the initiative to ask the Qing court to withdraw the domain.After much deliberation, Wu Sangui decided to follow up, and submitted a "vote" to the court that he was willing to withdraw the feudal clan.But anyone with a discerning eye can clearly see that Wu Sangui did not really withdraw from the feudal clan, he just used it as a plan to find out the trend of the court and the reality.

Naturally, Wu Sangui's scheming could not be concealed from the ministers of civil and military affairs of the Qing Dynasty. They had to have scruples about Wu Sangui's strength and military might.However, Emperor Kangxi, who was 20 years old at the time, said in one sentence: "San Francisco and others have planned for a long time. If they are not eliminated early, they will become a disease. Withdrawing today is also countering. .” Thus, the Qing court decisively issued an order to withdraw the feudal vassal. Wu Sangui had no choice but to rebel against the withdrawal order.In fact, it seemed that this day was what he had been waiting for all his life.He just borrowed troops and never surrendered to the Qing Dynasty; he wanted to find an excuse, find the right time, and rise up against the Qing Dynasty; he was not willing to be just a weight, he wanted to become the balance itself, overthrow the Qing Dynasty, and sit on the throne.

If it is said that Wu Sangui's surrender to the Qing Dynasty was "a confidante who became angry at the crown", then his anti-Qing was "abandoned the feudal clan when he became angry at the crown". At this time, Wu Sangui was no longer a Ming minister, and he did not want to continue to be a Qing minister. He did not want to be ruled by anyone. He wanted to become an independent and powerful force that ruled the fate of history, so he proclaimed himself a "world" They all recruit the title of Generalissimo of Soldiers and Horses". Wu Sangui rebelled against the Qing Dynasty. He personally led the army to the north and occupied large areas of land such as Guizhou, Hunan, Hubei, and Sichuan.

As far as the strength of both sides is concerned, the Qing army has entered the customs for more than 30 years. Most of the founding generals who were able to recruit and fight well have passed away, and the new generation of Eight Banners children have begun to corrupt.In contrast, Wu Sangui's military strength has become the best in the world due to his long-term savings and preparations due to the inclusion of the Dashun and Daxi Peasant Army. However, just after he drank his horse on the Yangtze River, he stayed still and did not cross the river north to attack the capital, which bought ample time for Emperor Kangxi to organize counter-insurgency forces.After all, Wu Sangui is just a soldier, not only lacks the overall political strategy, he is not even a good military strategist.Weights are only one component of the balance and will never be the balance itself. Wu Sangui had been stationed in Jiangnan for several months, and he didn't know what he was waiting for.Wei Yuan once analyzed: "Sangui is old and has more things to do. He wants to get everything done, and he refuses to abandon the roots of Yunnan and Guizhou. When he first got Hunan, he ordered the generals not to cross the river. He thought that even if things fail, they can paint the river and conquer the country." At this time, Wu Sangui was sixty-three, and the vigor and courage of his youth seemed to have been washed away by the vicissitudes of the years. The initial consequence of his rebellion was that his eldest son Wu Yingxiong and eldest grandson Wu Shilin who stayed in the capital were sentenced to death by the Qing court. Immediately afterwards, Kangxi began to counterattack.The two armies encountered each other, and after a period of confrontation, Wu Sangui made repeated mistakes in military command and had to retreat again and again, losing the previously occupied territories one by one. When Wu Sangui is used as a weight in the balance, no matter which way he leans, he will win a big victory.So, over time, his weight function uncontrollably swelled up, thinking that his martial arts, military power and command ability were the best in the world.Therefore, at the beginning of the Anti-Qing Dynasty, we really hoped for immediate success. Even if we could not unify the world, we could rule across the river and become the king of a country, creating another new period of Southern and Northern Dynasties in Chinese history.However, after fighting for five years, his territory became smaller and smaller, and the encirclement of the Qing army became tighter and tighter.He has begun to slide down from the glorious peak, not only has he failed to become a balance, even the status of that weight will be turned into a wisp of disappearing smoke.What awaits him will be an abyss beyond redemption.At the end of the road, he couldn't help thinking of Li Zicheng, and the "trick" played by many people in history - once the emperor had a good time, satisfying the inflated desire deep in his heart, even if he died immediately, he had once reached supremacy At the pinnacle of his power, he will live without complaint or regret. Since ancient times, the feudal soil under our feet has been either hidden or obvious, or deep or shallow, and permeated with a lingering imperial consciousness. On March 3rd in the seventeenth year of Kangxi (AD 1678), Wu Sangui prayed to heaven and earth in Hengshan, announced his accession to the throne, and changed his name to Zhaowu.Just as he was rewarding civil and military officials, there was a sudden gust of wind and heavy rain in the clear sky, and Wu Sangui's enthronement game had to end hastily in a cloud of bad luck. Wu Sangui finally became a historical "balance" in his fantasy and imagination. It was the sudden wind and rain during the enthronement game that made Wu Sangui's already frail old body infected with dysentery.Coupled with the increasingly frustrating times and depressed mood, I couldn't afford to get sick.After more than five months, he left the unmanageable situation of the rebellion to future generations and completed his life journey. Once Wu Sangui died, the rebel army lost its commander, its morale was shaken, and its vitality was greatly weakened, making it even more difficult to resist the fierce offensive of the Qing army. The rebellion was put down, and the Wu family was all killed.In order to satisfy his own desires, Wu Sangui's blood also paid a heavy price one after another following his ups and downs. Writing here, we can't help but think of the assertion of the fortune teller: Wu Sangui's life is extremely precious, but the scar on the bridge of the nose broke the "feng shui" and is the "broken beam" ear. Could Wu Sangui really be unable to escape this mysterious assertion and the fate of history? Perhaps, this is just far-fetched, intentional arrangement and chatter after dinner? If Wu Sangui did not rebel against the Qing Dynasty later, and ended up with a good death, or if he successfully seized the world, what would happen to future generations' evaluation and conclusion of him? He served the Ming Dynasty and rebelled against the Ming Dynasty, but hanged Emperor Yongli of the Southern Ming Dynasty, and when he rebelled against the Qing Dynasty, he raised the banner of Fuming to buy people's hearts; The Qing government tried its best to rule the world, and later rebelled against the Qing Dynasty, and staged a game of ascension to the throne; he desperately rescued his father from thousands of enemies, but since then he has repeatedly pushed aside rare opportunities to save the poor The old man pushed to the "guillotine"; he was "furious" for Chen Yuanyuan, but then he began to favor him and then abandoned him... This is such a capricious, unfaithful and unjust person who can use any means for his own desires and interests , How could it be possible to become the lord of the world? The seemingly accidental historical events actually contain an irreversible historical necessity, they coexist with each other and are dialectically unified.No matter how the current situation changes and how history develops, Wu Sangui's inherent personality flaws determine his fate. Wu Sangui's talent, courage, and personality also doomed him to be only a weight. Moreover, once the weight chooses the direction of inclination, history is a foregone conclusion, even if it is reversed, there is no power to recover.Therefore, although Wu Sangui was not reconciled later and tried to transcend himself and transcend history, he always made some ridiculous and pitiful struggling gestures in vain, and it was difficult to escape the "fate" of history. After all, the individual is small, he cannot compete with history.As far as its essence is concerned, history is the result of the joint action of a group of huge mortal beings, and it is a concrete and vivid embodiment of a joint force.However, at a certain critical moment, history chooses some representative figures as weights to determine the course and development of history. Once a lucky individual is pushed to the center of history by fate, how will he choose?Is it following the trend of historical development, or moving against the trend of history?Later, after the bloody suppression of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Zeng Guofan neither supported his own self-respect, nor raised troops against the Qing under the instigation of many "superior people". He may have learned negative lessons and received some kind of enlightenment from Wu Sangui. "It's all in the past, count the romantic figures, and look at the present." Not only Wu Sangui, but also the Qing Dynasty, which used his weight to rule the world, has long since passed.The new history naturally depends on us to create, but after all, it was born out of the past.Wu Sangui's decision to surrender to the Qing Dynasty in a short moment when he stood on Shanhaiguan for the second time had a profound and far-reaching impact on future generations.On the stage of history since then, we can always vaguely see his vague figure that refuses to disappear. The closed-door self-defense and arrogance of the Qing people, the long braids of the Han people that have lasted for hundreds of years, the ethnic conflicts between the Manchu and the Han, the poverty, weakness and backwardness of modern times, and the Empress Dowager Cixi's "rather to be with outsiders than with domestic slaves"... everything Everything seems to be inseparable from the entry of the Manchus into the Central Plains. It was not until the outbreak of the Xinhai Revolution in the early 20th century that the Qing court and the feudal imperial power of more than two thousand years withdrew from the stage of history together, and Wu Sangui's figure gradually faded away. However, its influence still seems to be lingering today. This is history, the endless river of history. It flows from the past to the future without interruption.As long as we look back and look forward, we will always find a clear thread shining in front of us that shows future generations.