The General Who Changed Sides Twice (Untold Chinese History - Qing Dynasty) Kindle Edition

December 28, 1673. Wu Sangui stood before a bronze mirror in his Yunnan palace and cut off his queue—the braided hairstyle the Qing had forced all Chinese men to wear as a sign of submission. He was sixty-one years old. Thirty years earlier, he had opened the Great Wall to these same Manchu invaders, enabling them to conquer China. Now he raised the red banners of the Ming Dynasty he had helped destroy and declared war on the empire he had created.Wu Sangui's first betrayal had made him the most hated man in China. When rebel leader Li Zicheng executed his father in 1644, Wu invited Qing cavalry through Shanhai Pass for revenge. Together they crushed Li's peasant army—but the Manchus never left. Wu spent three decades serving his new masters, suppressing Ming loyalists across southern China, earning the title "Prince Who Pacifies the West" and control of Yunnan Province.The young Kangxi Emperor ended the arrangement. When he ordered Wu to dissolve his army and retire to Manchuria, Wu chose rebellion over irrelevance. His forces swept north, capturing four provinces in months. Two other feudatory princes joined his revolt. For eight years, the Qing Dynasty faced extinction. Wu proclaimed himself Emperor of the Zhou Dynasty in 1678. Five months later, he died of dysentery, his dream collapsing with him. His grandson surrendered in 1681. The Kangxi Emperor executed Wu's entire clan.Wu Sangui's name remains synonymous with betrayal in Chinese culture—a man who sold his country twice and lost everything both times.Discover the truth in The General Who Changed Sides Twice. Read more