Some people believe that Wu Sangui was a representative of the most reactionary, decadent, and stubborn stratum in the ruling circles of the Ming Dynasty, and that he did not surrender to the Qing Dynasty purely out of consideration for his personal interests, saying that he had a huge family property and was in a superior position. He did not publicly surrender to the Qing Dynasty, but only a superficial phenomenon, thus confusing many people in the Ming Dynasty's ruling group, including Emperor Chongzhen.

In the long-term war between the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were a large number of Ming Dynasty generals who surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, and there were basically three situations, one was defeated and captured, such as Hong Chengchou; the other was desperate and forced to accept the appeasement, such as Zu Dashou was besieged twice and surrendered twice; third, he was persecuted by the Ming Dynasty and could not survive on his own, so he turned to the Qing Dynasty and sought a way to survive, such as Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming, Shang Kexi, etc., who resolutely surrendered when they were in danger of being murdered by the Ming Dynasty.

In addition, it is very rare to surrender automatically, especially among the high-ranking generals of the Ming Dynasty. They lived in the home of feudal etiquette, received thousands of years of Confucian education in China, especially in the Ming Dynasty, the ideological rule was stricter than that of previous dynasties, and the ideological training was even stricter, and they attached importance to honor and dignity and put it in the first place in life. As an official in the court, he regarded loyalty to the monarch as more important than his own life, so the emperor of the Ming Dynasty was loyal to the emperor regardless of whether he was mediocre or not. In the war with the Qing Dynasty, it was not uncommon for people to die, and they would never surrender until they had to, and Zu Dashou was a typical example.

For the first time, he was besieged in the Daling River, for several months, and when the city ran out of food, he killed horses to eat, and when the horses were almost finished, they killed people to eat, and there was no wood to burn, and they were replaced by human bones. has reached such a tragic desperate situation, but he still persevered, and it was not until Qing Taizong repeatedly appeased him that he was forced to stop resisting.

He outwitted Jinzhou as a way to escape, returned to the Ming Dynasty, and fought with the Qing soldiers for a full ten years, and finally he defended Jinzhou, was besieged for the second time, held out for a whole year, and then surrendered. The tenacious spirit of the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty, Qing Taizong admired it very much, and he believed that this was the result of reading and reasoning, so he was loyal to the king with his life.

Wu Sangui, like them, has a deep-rooted idea. Although he was defeated at Songshan, he still had Ningyuan and an army, so how could he easily surrender under such circumstances? China has always had the traditional Han nationalist ideology of despising Yidi, and as a courtier of the Celestial Empire, he submitted to the Yiren, and was also despised by scholars. It is generally difficult to get them to put down their shelves and condescend to the subordination.

Wu Sangui's basic ideas will not go beyond this category, and his thoughts of loyalty to the monarch seem to be more firm than those Han officials who have been demoted, which has been repeatedly demonstrated in subsequent events. If he was still a little afraid when he was not dead, then he was not shaken when he was ordered to withdraw from Ning Yuan and enter King Jingqin, and even when Ming died, he did not ask Qing to surrender.

He was the last person from the Ming Dynasty to surrender to the Qing Dynasty in Liaodong before the Qing army entered the customs, and from this alone, can it not be said that Wu Sangui was loyal to the monarch? He was firmly on the side of the Ming Dynasty in his relations with the Ming and Qing dynasties until the death of the Ming Dynasty. His letter to Zu Dashou showed hesitation, which was probably perfunctory, and it was not good to hurt Zu Dashou's painstaking efforts, and it did not explain the substantive problem.

Chongzhen knew that Zu Dashou had been cleared when he was in Dalinghe City in Houjinwei, and deliberately pretended not to know, but still gave him trust; Zu Dashou accompanied Yuan Chonghuan into the Beijing Division, because Yuan Chonghuan was arrested, Zu Dashou led the people to mutiny, fled Beijing and returned to Ningyuan, Chongzhen did not add guilt, and Wu Sangui escaped in Songshan, only demoted. Qing Taizong, Zu Dashou, Zhang Cunren and others repeatedly warned him in letters that Chongzhen would not spare him for the crime of escaping.

Generally speaking, there is no mistake in this estimate, but they did not expect that Chongzhen would adopt a special policy against him for the benefit of the overall situation. The result of this policy not only stabilized Wu Sangui, but also made him firmly stand on the side of the Ming Dynasty. Wu Sangui knew the weight of escaping the crime, but he did not betray Ming, which also shows that his loyalty remains unchanged.

In the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, Taizong of the Qing Dynasty died, and after Shunzhi ascended the throne, he quickly seized the three cities of Zhonghou, Qiantun, and Zhongqian, only Ning Yuan survived alone, and the situation was even more difficult than before, and he still did not change his position of loyalty. For Wu Sangui personally, these are the factors he considers in his thoughts, but the main thing is not this, it is really the idea of loyalty and filial piety that plays a leading role and governs his actions.

On the stage of the fight between the two major forces of the Ming and Qing dynasties, there was such a woman, who was neither a warrior on the battlefield, but involved in the north and south with the army; nor was she an expert in the political competition, but she could enter and leave the palace and the palace, and had intricate connections with the emperor, the prince, and the leader of the peasant army. She did not participate in the great incident, but she was a wave that was swept up in the huge waves of this incident.

She is not the protagonist of the tragic historical drama of the Ming and Qing dynasties, but she is an indispensable character, from the prologue to the end of the play, all of them have some kind of involvement with her. All kinds of adventures in history pushed her, a small person, onto the political stage, and smeared a layer of rose on the great tragedy of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Her name is Chen Yuanyuan.

Wu Sangui and Chen Yuanyuan, naturally, are part of his personal life and seem to be insignificant. In fact, it is not, because this woman, at the critical moment of the incident, played a role in fueling Wu Sangui's ideology and emotions, and because this woman planted a small bane for Li Zicheng's peasant army. Since the Ming and Qing dynasties, many historians, and even literary scholars, have spared no effort to comment and sing for them, and their stories have been passed down for a long time.

The joys and sorrows of Wu Sangui and Chen Yuanyuan are indispensable, and they should not be underestimated. Speaking of the combination of Wu Sangui and Chen Yuanyuan, there is a tortuous and legendary experience.

In the midsummer of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, one day, Wu Sangui was a guest at the mansion of Tian Hongyu, a noble Qi of the dynasty, and the host prepared delicious food and hospitality.

Wu Sangui has always adhered to Ningyuan, why did he go to Beijing, and why did he have such leisure to be a guest at the Tian family? It turned out that in the autumn of the previous year, the Qing Taizong outside the Guanwai sent his seventh brother Abatai to lead a large army to conquer Ming, and went all the way to Yanzhou and other places in Shandong, and rode all over Hebei and Shandong.

In the spring of the following year, Wu Sangui was ordered to quickly lead his troops to aid the Beijing Division. Together with him, there were also soldiers and horses from several towns, including the general soldier Ma Ke of Shanhaiguan and Liu Zeqing, the general soldier of Shandong. Zhou Yanru, a university scholar, supervised the division, gathered officers and soldiers, and fought fiercely with the Qing soldiers near Luoshan. Most of the generals fled without a fight, but only the troops belonging to Wu Sangui and Ma Ke dared to fight and won many victories.

Chongzhen invited Wu Sangui, Liu Zeqing, Ma Ke and others into the palace and set up a banquet in the Wuying Hall to comfort them. Chongzhen attaches great importance to Wu Sangui, regards him as a guarantee outside the customs, and gives him a unique reward, and gives Shang Fang a sword to place his trust.

At this time, the Qing soldiers were retreating north from Lengkou, the alarm was lifted, and Wu Sangui could not stay in the Beijing division for a long time, and after a short rest, he was ready to return to Ningyuan. Suddenly, Tian Hongyu, a wealthy man in the capital and a royal relative, invited him to the house to watch the family music.

Tian Hongyu, originally a native of Shanxi, served as a thousand chief officials in Yangzhou, married Yangzhou woman Wu as his wife, so he was also regarded as a Guangling person, his adopted daughter married Chongzhen as a concubine, called the imperial concubine, she can read, the most alert, very favored by Chongzhen. Tian Hongyu has been worth ten times since then, and he has been officially named the right governor, because he is the emperor, and people are used to calling him Tian Qiwan.

He relied on his daughter to be favored and stole authority, and no one in the capital dared to offend him, dared to be angry and did not dare to speak, and hated him in his heart. As Chongzhen's favored vassal, of course, he also knew best how dangerous the country's situation was, and the peasant army was increasingly approaching Gyeonggi, which could not but cause him to worry about his own safety and family wealth. Tian Guifei had died of illness in the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, and Tian Hongyu lost internal aid and felt even more isolated. He saw that Wu Sangui was young and promising, and he was valued by the emperor, so he had the heart to befriend him and wanted to regard him as his protector. So he took the opportunity of Wu Sangui to see His Majesty in Beijing, and invited him to the house to win favor.

Wu Sangui received the invitation and went happily, because Tian Hongyu was so powerful, he could get the favor of this imperial prince, and he was happy in his heart. Besides, he has been living outside the beacon fire for a long time, and when he is in Beijing at this time, he can watch songs and dances, listen to a few songs, and enjoy a little blessing of peace, why not go.

Tian Hongyu personally descended and bowed, accessed the luxurious living room, displayed all kinds of delicacies, pleasing to the eye, his etiquette was more thoughtful, he seemed very reverent, and frequently let wine. When the wine was strong, Tian Hongyu summoned a group of courtesans in the house, all dressed up gorgeously, such as hibiscus out of the water, with the melodious sound of silk and bamboo, Wu Sangui's soul has been ingested into the fairyland.

Wu Sangui saw the beautiful woman in the group of courtesans who looked exactly like the Yuko he loved, could it be that she was the woman who Yuko was reincarnated in this life?

The beautiful woman was naturally beautiful, dressed plainly, and sang and danced at the same time, her dancing posture was light and fluttering, and her singing voice was clear and beautiful, just like the cry of a nightingale. Wu Sangui looked moved, and he asked Tian Hongyu, "Who is that beauty?"

Tian Hongyu said: "She is Chen Yuanyuan." ”

Wu Sangui said: "Is this the peerless beauty Chen Yuanyuan that people say? ”

Tian Hongyu was happy when he heard Wu Sangui praising his courtesan, and ordered Chen Yuanyuan to pour him wine. Outside the gates, he was busy with military affairs or fighting wars all day long, and all day long he heard the sound of golden drums and all kinds of trumpets peculiar to the army; what he saw was that the wolf smoke on the mountain was full of thousands of troops and horses, and what could he get except the excitement of being ready to fight?

But here, far from the battlefield, in the prosperous place of Jingshi, a powerful and luxurious mansion, seeing with his own eyes the most beautiful woman in the world, and hearing the beautiful voice of Jiangnan, which was completely different from the military horn, for him, a young general, he feasted his eyes and felt a satisfaction that he had never felt before. The most beautiful young woman headed by this is Chen Yuanyuan.

Chen Yuanyuan, who became a naturalized pear orchard when she was eighteen years old, has a poor family, and her father runs a small business, walks the streets and alleys, goes out of the village and sells some needles and threads, etc., and earns very little, barely making ends meet. In this trade, the tambourine is shaken by hand and must be sung by mouth, so I have developed a hobby of liking music and good songs.

He also recruited people who could sing to live with him, and there were often more than a dozen people in the house, who sang songs day and night. Originally, he didn't earn much money, and his family often supported so many people, so the family situation was even more embarrassing, so that the family property was ruined. Maybe because Chen Yuanyuan lived in such an environment and was influenced by her father's good songs, she was also very good at singing later.

As fate would have misfortune, she was forced by life to go to Suzhou and sell herself as a prostitute. When he was eighteen years old, he was in the prime of cardamom and belonged to the pear orchard. People who watched her acting at the time said: "Every time she appears on the stage, the flowers are bright and beautiful, and when she is alone, the viewer's soul is broken." ”

Chen Yuanyuan is unique in color and art, good at winning in the pear garden, she is good at singing Yiyang dialect, acting in the West Chamber, playing the role of a matchmaker, with a light posture, and she is clever to put it bluntly, and she is full of Xiao Temple's emotions back then. Chen Yuanyuan's voice is the voice of the world, the color of the world, her color art is famous far and wide, and she is known as a famous prostitute in Suzhou. At that time, people all said that she was beautiful, overwhelming, and captivating, and her singing voice was also outstanding, incomparable.