Chen Yuanyuan
Chen Yuanyuan was born in Wujin, Changzhou (now part of Changzhou, Jiangsu Province). Her surname was Xing, her given name was Yuan, and her courtesy name was Wanfen. She is a famous prostitute in Suzhou and is good at singing and dancing. She was a singing prostitute in Tianwan at first, and later Wu Sangui took her as a concubine. When Wu Sangui left Shanhaiguan, Li Zicheng's peasant uprising army captured Beijing, and Chen Yuanyuan was captured. Wu Sangui surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, and the Qing army captured Beijing, but he still returned to Sangui and went to Yunnan. In her later years, she became a female Taoist priest and changed her name to Ji Jing and her courtesy name Yu'an. Folk legend claims that Wu Sangui surrendered to the Qing Dynasty for her.
Chen Yuanyuan’s mother died young, and she adopted the surname Chen from her adoptive mother. Yuanyuan was good at singing and dancing. She was the best in beauty and art, and was called one of the "Eight Beauties of the South of the Yangtze River". During the Chongzhen period, Zhou Kui, a relative of the emperor, wanted to find beauties for the emperor to relieve his worries, so he sent Tian Wan, the brother of the deceased concubine Tian, ??to the south of the Yangtze River for a beauty pageant. Later, Tian Wan presented famous prostitutes Chen Yuanyuan, Yang Wan, Gu Qin, etc. to Emperor Chongzhen. At that time, there were frequent wars, and Chongzhen had no intention of enjoying himself. Chen Yuanyuan returned to Tian Mansion, and Tian Wan took it as a private property. One day, Wu Sangui met Chen Yuanyuan in Tianfu and fell in love at first sight. Wu Sangui later took Yuanyuan as his concubine. Li Zicheng conquered Beijing, and his subordinate Liu Zongmin kidnapped Chen Yuanyuan. Wu Sangui "went to the top and became a beauty in anger", so he led the Qing army into the pass and defeated Li Zicheng in a stone. Chen Yuanyuan returned to Wu Sangui. Later, Wu Sangui became the king of Dian, and Yuan Yuan followed him there. He died in Yunnan as a female Taoist priest.
In the article "On Yuanyuanqu" (the first issue of Literary Heritage Quarterly in 1980), the novelist Yao Xueyin concluded that Chen Yuanyuan was no longer in Beijing at that time and had already arrived in Ningyuan (Xingcheng, in the south of Jinzhou) and soon died of illness.
In the last years of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng's peasant uprising army shocked the court, and Emperor Chongzhen was restless day and night. Zhou Kui, the uncle of Jiading, wanted to find a stunning beauty for the emperor to relieve the emperor's worries, so he sent Concubine Tian's brother Tian Wan to the south of the Yangtze River to look for her. After Tian Wan found Chen Yuanyuan, he was so fascinated by her beauty that he secretly took it as his own.
Soon Li Zicheng's team approached the capital, and Emperor Chongzhen urgently summoned Wu Sangui to Shanhaiguan. Tian Wan was worried about the peasant uprising all day long, so he held a grand banquet for Wu Sangui, and Yuanyuan led the singing group to perform in the hall. After Wu Sangui saw Yuanyuan, he was so fascinated that he was so happy that he hugged Yuanyuan and drank with her. After drinking for three rounds, the alarm sounded. Tian Wan stepped forward in fear and asked Wu, "What will happen if the bandits arrive?" Wu Sangui said, "If you can see Yuanyuan as a gift, I will protect your family first." Before Tian Wan could answer, Wu Sangui That is, with a round greeting.
Wu Sangui was persuaded by his father, who was in charge of the imperial camp, to leave Yuanyuan in the capital to prevent his colleagues from causing trouble and letting the emperor know about it.
After Li Zicheng invaded Beijing, Wu Sangui's father surrendered to the rebel army, and Chen Yuanyuan was plundered by Li's men. When Wu Sangui agreed to surrender to Li Zicheng, he heard that Yuanyuan had been captured by Li's generals. He was furious and shouted, "What can a man do if he can't protect himself?" Then he surrendered to the Qing army and started a war with the peasant army. This is what Wu Meicun said in "Yuanyuanqu": "The six armies who mourn are all in plain clothes, and the crown and anger become beauty."
After Li Zicheng was defeated, he killed Wu Sangui's father and all 38 members of his family, and then abandoned Beijing and fled. Wu Sangui pursued the peasant army to Shanxi day and night with the revenge of killing his father and seizing his wife. At this time, Wu's subordinates searched for Chen Yuanyuan in the capital, teleported on flying cavalry, and led Wu Sangui to take Chen Yuanyuan from Qin to Shu, and then monopolized Yunnan.
During the Shunzhi period, the Wu family became the king of Yunnan and wanted to make Yuanyuan his concubine. However, Yuanyuan dismissed her with excuses and Wu Sangui did not marry her. Not wanting the concubine she married to be jealous, she framed and unjustly killed Wu's concubine, so Yuanyuan lived alone in a separate courtyard. After Yuanyuan fell out of favor, she gradually became alienated from Wu. Wu once plotted to murder her. After Yuanyuan learned about it, she became a nun and became a nun. From then on, she embroidered Buddha images in Changzhai at Huaguo Temple in Mount Wuhua.
Later Wu Sangui declared independence in Yunnan, Emperor Kangxi sent troops to Yunnan, and the city of Kunming was destroyed in the winter of 1681. After Wu Sangui died, Chen Yuanyuan also sank in the lotus pond outside the temple and was buried beside the pond after his death. Until the end of the Qing Dynasty, there were two small frames of Chen Yuanyuan hidden in the temple, and there were poems carved on stone by the pool.
On March 18, 1644, Chuang King Li Zicheng led a million-strong rebel army known as the "Da Shun Army" to capture Beijing. Chen Yuanyuan, who remained in Beijing, was immediately defeated by Liu Zongmin, a senior general of the "Da Shun Army". Taken away like fruits. When Wu Sangui, who was still leading troops to resist the Qing troops in Shanhaiguan, heard the bad news, he immediately became "furious" and quickly gave up the idea of ??surrendering to Li Zicheng. He then led the Qing troops to rush into the pass and entered Beijing with the Qing troops to break through. Li Zicheng also rescued Chen Yuanyuan. As for Chen Yuanyuan's subsequent trip to Yunnan with Wu Sangui and other matters, I have never been very interested in it, so I did not pay too much attention to it.
According to historical records, after Li Zicheng, the King of Chuang, led his troops to capture Beijing, he immediately sent his general Liu Zongmin to carry out stolen goods recovery activities throughout the capital, focusing on recovering the treasury silver and Ming Dynasty inheritance from the Ming Dynasty palace and various levels of government. The gold and silver treasures in the hands of ministers. In order to achieve effective results in the pursuit of stolen goods, Liu Zongmin adopted a series of the most severe measures, including arrests and torture, and tortured those Ming Dynasty officials who did not run away, and the city of Beijing fell into white terror.
For the citizens, life is not a good one. The "Da Shun Army", which sought maximum pleasure in money and cruelty, developed into a crazy army that seemed to have completely lost control. After they recovered all the money from the Ming Dynasty's leftover officials and dignitaries, they began to arbitrarily capture wealthy households, businessmen and ordinary people. Many shops and residential households were often robbed by the "Da Shun Army" in broad daylight. The scene was almost like that in Beijing. The city encountered a large group of bandits coming down from the mountain to rob.
According to the records of "Roaming Bandits", with Liu Zongmin's instigation and connivance, the open plundering of the "Da Shun Army" escalated every day. They almost arrested people and looted property whenever they saw it, and they did not distinguish between If there is any dispute or resistance between the rich and the common people, they will kill at will. At the same time, incidents of raping and raping civilian women also occurred frequently. For the "Da Shun Army" who have been fighting abroad for a long time, plundering beautiful women after entering the capital is also one of the ways to express their desires.
According to records, King Chuang Li Zicheng did play a leading role in this regard. As soon as he entered Beijing, he quickly moved into the palace and ordered the maids to be gathered together. The good-looking ones stayed, and the rest were rewarded to his generals and ministers.
Under the influence of Li Zicheng, the king of Chuang, many generals of the "Da Shun Army" also began to commit evil acts such as raping and plundering civilian women on a large scale. In this regard, the most powerful one was Liu Zongmin. He took over the luxurious mansion of the emperor Tian Hongyu and robbed dozens of beautiful women in the mansion, indulging in pleasure and wine all day long.
When Liu Zongmin learned that Wu Sangui's concubine Chen Yuanyuan was still in the capital, he did a bold thing: he went to Wu Xiang's Mansion to arrest Wu Sangui, regardless of Li Zicheng's will to persuade Wu Sangui to surrender. The beloved concubine Chen Yuanyuan came and was eager to take possession of her. And there is another theory that Li Zicheng was covetous of Chen Yuanyuan's beauty and personally ordered Liu Zongmin to lead people to plunder her. He actually wanted to make Chen Yuanyuan his concubine...
Whether it was Liu Zongmin or Li Zicheng, They really shouldn't do things like robbing Chen Yuanyuan. However, history is ruthless, and they did indeed plunder Chen Yuanyuan, thus ruthlessly rewriting the short history of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.
Wu Sangui, who was "a beauty in anger", perhaps just to protect his concubine, resolutely led the Qing troops into Beijing, which not only accelerated the demise of the Ming Dynasty, but also defeated Li Zicheng The "Dashun" regime caused an irreversible reversal in the fate of Chuang King Li Zicheng. With the rapid entry of Qing troops into the customs, it also greatly promoted the establishment and rise of the Qing Dynasty's capital in Beijing and the Qing Dynasty.