Wu Sangui: from Liaodong Warrior to the Leader of the Three Feudatories

"Wu Sangui: From Liaodong Hero to the Leader of the Three Feuds" uses a detailed chronology as a framework to panoramically present the life of Wu Sangui, a controversial figure in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. Wu Sangui, who was born as a general in Liaodong, joined the guerrilla army at the age of eighteen and became the core general of the Guanning cavalry by virtue of his "Yiding cavalry". After breaking through at the Battle of Songjin, he carried the banner of the Liaodong Ming army. In 1644, his decision in front of Shanhaiguan - to surrender to the Qing Dynasty and jointly attack Li Zicheng, directly rewrote the direction of Chinese history. After being granted the title of Pingxi Queen, he fought in the north and south, strangled Emperor Yongli, pacified the southwest, and became a vassal king that the Qing court relied on. However, the expansion of power gave rise to separatist ambitions: he monopolized the Yunnan copper trade, privately minted currency, controlled the "Western Selection" official power, and built an independent kingdom in the southwest. Finally, under the pressure of Kangxi to withdraw from the vassal, he launched an army to rebel against the Qing Dynasty in the name of "Xing Ming to fight against the captives". However, he missed the opportunity to fight and rebelled against his relatives. He hurriedly proclaimed the emperor in Hengyang and died of illness. The book not only combs through Wu Sangui's identity transformation from a warrior to a rebel king, but also provides an in-depth analysis of the factional struggles in the Liaodong military circles at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Qing government's check and balance strategy on the vassal towns, the logic of the destruction of the Southern Ming regime, and the power calculation behind "a crown prince and a wrath turn into a beauty", as well as the profound impact of the San Francisco Rebellion on the economy and culture of the Southwest. At the same time, it combines archaeological and local historical data such as the secret family history of Majiazhai, Cengong, Guizhou, and the true fate of Chen Yuanyuan to correct traditional cognitive biases and provide readers with a multi-dimensional perspective to understand this figure who "stands at the crossroads of history." It is not only a personal biography, but also a microcosm of the power game in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties.