Person1612 – 1678
Wu Sangui
Ming general who opened the Shanhai Pass to the Qing in 1644, became a feudatory prince in Yunnan and launched the Revolt of the Three Feudatories in 1673
Where they went
2 related events
- 1
In 1644 Li Zicheng’s peasant army took Beijing and the Chongzhen Emperor killed himself, ending the Ming. Soon Wu Sangui opened the Shanhai Pass, and the Qing army came in, drove Li out and made Beijing its capital.
- 2
The Kangxi Emperor put down the Revolt of the Three Feudatories, begun by Wu Sangui and others in 1673, within eight years, and in 1683 took Taiwan from the Zheng regime, securing Qing rule over China.
People who appear alongside
- Li Zicheng1606 – 1645
Leader of the late Ming peasant rebellions, a former courier from Shaanxi who rallied followers with the promise of equal land and no grain tax, founded the Shun in 1644 and took Beijing, ending the Ming
- Chongzhen Emperor (Sizong of Ming)1611 – 1644
Last Ming emperor (r. 1627–1644), who took his own life on Prospect Hill behind the Forbidden City when Li Zicheng’s army entered Beijing in 1644
- Dorgon1612 – 1650
Son of Nurhaci and Qing prince regent who led the Qing army through the Shanhai Pass into Beijing in 1644 and installed the boy Shunzhi Emperor there
- Kangxi Emperor (Shengzu of Qing)1654 – 1722
Fourth Qing emperor (r. 1661–1722), who crushed the Three Feudatories, took Taiwan, signed the Treaty of Nerchinsk with Russia and brought Mongolia under Qing rule
- Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga)1624 – 1662
Leader of the Ming loyalist sea power that fought the Qing; born at Hirado in Japan, he drove the Dutch out of Taiwan in 1662 and made it his base
Themes this person appears in
- Ming, Qing and Edo Japan1500 – 1800
The age when the Ming, shaken by northern raiders, southern pirates and the silver economy, fell to Li Zicheng’s rebels, and the Manchu Qing reached its greatest extent and prosperity under Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong — as Japan was unified out of the Warring States into the Edo shogunate’s bakuhan order and closed country, and Joseon, after two great wars, met its neighbours through embassies to Edo and the Northern Learning