Chapter 73 254 Emperor Kangxi pacifies San Francisco

In the year when the last regime in Nanming collapsed, Emperor Shunzhi had already died of illness, and his son Xuan Ye (sound ye) came to the throne. This is the Holy Patriarch of the Qing Dynasty, also called Emperor Kangxi. When Emperor Kangxi came to the throne, he was only eight years old.According to the edict of Emperor Shunzhi, four Manchu ministers helped him deal with state affairs, called auxiliary ministers.Among the four auxiliary ministers, there was one named Aobai (Aoyin ao), who relied on his own control of military power, and also bullied Emperor Kangxi when he was young, and was arbitrary.Other ministers disagreed with him and were excluded and attacked.

After the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, it used forced means to enclose large tracts of land from farmers and distribute it to the nobles of the Eight Banners.After Oboi came to power, he took advantage of his power to expand the land occupation, and even exchanged poor land for good land in other banners, which was opposed by local officials.Aobai framed these officials as treasonous, and executed three local officials who opposed him. When Emperor Kangxi was fourteen years old, he came to power in person.At this time, Sukesaha, another auxiliary minister, had a dispute with Oboi.With a grudge in his heart, Aobai colluded with the party to falsely accuse Suksaha of committing a serious crime, and asked Emperor Kangxi to execute Suksaha.Emperor Kangxi refused to approve.Aobai fought with Emperor Kangxi in the court hall, and later he rolled up his sleeves (sound xuan), drew out his fists, and yelled loudly.Emperor Kangxi was very angry, but thinking that Oboi had a lot of power, he had to endure it for the time being and let him kill Sukesaha.

After that, Emperor Kangxi was determined to get rid of Obai.He sent a group of teenage aristocratic children to serve as bodyguards, all of these young men were strong and strong.Emperor Kangxi kept them by his side and practiced wrestling every day. When Aobai went to the palace, he often saw these teenagers wrestling and clamoring in the imperial garden, he just thought it was children playing around and didn't care at all. One day, Obai received an order from Emperor Kangxi to enter the palace alone to discuss state affairs.Aobai entered the palace in a grand manner as usual.As soon as he stepped into the threshold of the inner palace, suddenly a group of teenagers rushed up and surrounded Oboi, some twisted their arms, some dragged their thighs.

Although Oboi was born as a general, he is also very strong.But there were many young men and they all had practiced wrestling, Oboi was no match for them, he was knocked to the ground in an instant.No matter how loud he yelled, no one rescued him. Ao Bai was caught in prison, and Emperor Kangxi immediately asked his ministers to investigate Ao Bai's crimes.The ministers believed that Oboi was domineering, killed innocent people without permission, and committed numerous crimes, so he should be executed. Emperor Kangxi leniently dismissed Oboi's title. Emperor Kangxi used tricks to get rid of Obai, and the court was very happy.Some ministers who used to be arrogant knew how powerful this young emperor was, so they didn't dare to act presumptuously in front of him.

After Emperor Kangxi took power in person, he vigorously rectified the government, rewarded production, punished corruption, and gradually made the newly established Qing Dynasty stronger.At that time, although the Nanming regime had perished.But there were three vassals in the south that worried Emperor Kangxi very much. These three vassal kings were originally Ming army generals who surrendered to the Qing Dynasty. One was Wu Sangui who led the Qing soldiers into the customs, the other was Shang Kexi, and the other was Geng Zhongming.Because they helped the Qing Dynasty eliminate Nanming and suppress the peasant army, the Qing Dynasty considered them meritorious, and named Wu Sangui the King of Pingxi, stationed in Yunnan and Guizhou: Shang Kexi was the King of Pingnan, stationed in Guangdong; Geng Zhongming was the King of Jingnan, stationed in Fujian, collectively called "San Francisco".

Among the San Francisco, Wu Sangui is the strongest.After Wu Sangui became a vassal king, he was very arrogant. He not only controlled the local military power, but also controlled the finances, appointed officials himself, and ignored the Qing court. Emperor Kangxi knew that the San Francisco was a big obstacle in order to unify the government orders, and he must find opportunities to weaken their power.It happened that Shang Kexi was old and wanted to go back to his hometown in Liaodong, so he wrote a memorial requesting that his son Shang Zhixin inherit the throne and stay in Guangdong.Emperor Kangxi approved Shang Kexi's retirement, but did not allow his son to take over the title of King Pingnan.As a result, Wu Sangui and Geng Jingzhong (Geng Zhongming's grandson) were touched. They wanted to test Emperor Kangxi's attitude, and hypocritically offered to remove the title of vassal king and return to the north.

These memorials were sent to the imperial court, and Emperor Kangxi convened the imperial court to discuss.Many Daju think that Wu Sangui and his group's request to withdraw the vassal is false, and if their request is approved, Wu Sangui will definitely rebel. Emperor Kangxi said decisively: "Wu Sangui had long been ambitious. If he withdraws, he will rebel; if he does not withdraw, he will rebel sooner or later. It is better to be a preemptive strike." Then he issued an edict to reply Wu Sangui, agreeing to his withdrawal.As soon as the order was issued, Wu Sangui was really furious.He thought he was a veteran minister of the founding of the Qing Dynasty, but now that the young emperor actually withdraws his power, he must rebel.

In 1673 AD, Wu Sangui raised troops in Yunnan.In order to win the hearts of the people, he took off the clothes of the princes of the Qing Dynasty, put on the armor of the generals of the Ming Dynasty, and wept bitterly in front of the tomb of Emperor Yongli, saying that he wanted to avenge the Ming Dynasty.However, people all remember very clearly that it was Wu Sangui who invited the Qing soldiers into the Central Plains; it was Wu Sangui who killed Emperor Yongli in the end.Now that he is playing the banner of restoring the Ming Dynasty, who else can he deceive? Wu Sangui had great influence in the southwest area. At the beginning, the rebels fought smoothly, and they fought all the way to Hunan.He also sent people to contact Shang Zhixin in Guangdong and Geng Jingzhong in Fujian and asked them to rebel together.These two vassal kings were backed by Wu Sangui, but they also turned against each other.In history, this incident was called the "San Francisco Rebellion".

San Francisco was in turmoil, and the entire south was occupied by rebels.Emperor Kangxi was not intimidated by them. On the one hand, he dispatched troops to concentrate his forces to attack Wu Ergui; on the other hand, he stopped revoking the titles of Shang Zhixin and Geng Jingzhong to stabilize them.Shang Zhixin and Geng Jingzhong saw that the situation was not good for Wu Sangui, so they surrendered again. Wu Sangui started to fight some victories, and later the Qing soldiers became more and more powerful, Wu Sangui's strength gradually weakened, and he was in a very isolated situation.After eight years of war, he himself knew that he couldn't hold on, and even with remorse and hatred, he got a serious illness and passed away.In 1681 AD, the Qing army invaded Kunming, Yunnan in three ways, and Wu Shifan, the grandson of Wu Sangui, committed suicide.The Qing army finally quelled the rebel forces and unified the south.

However, when the imperial court was celebrating the victory of suppressing the rebellion, there was news of Tsarist Russia's invasion of the border on the northeastern border of our country, which forced Emperor Kangxi to focus on the northern border.