[tattoo]

If Revolt of the Three Feudatorie succeeded in sending the Manchus back to Manchuria and Wu Sangui becomes the new Chinese emperor, where will he stand in Chinese history? Let's forgot about events happened during the Revolt of the Three Feudatoire and assumed everything went well for him. He established a long, Han Chinese dynasty until 1911. Would Wu Sangui remain a bad guy in Chinese history?

I think he will become a good guy because the emperors always re-wrote history tha favored them. He would not be the first founder of a dynasty who betrayed his own emperor. His love story with Chen Yuan Yuan would be the greatest love epic in Chinese history.

[Yun]

That would depend - what was his son like (the one who surrendered to the Manchus after Wu died)? Wu was old at that time, and would not have lived for long even if he had become emperor. Whether the dynasty could survive would then have much to do with the quality of his son as a ruler.

[General_Zhaoyun]

Should Wu Sangui become a new emperor...I think history would be re-written. I thought he would not be considered a 'bad man', as any founder of new dynasties had always been rebels.

[Shadowfax]

Wu Sangui would be the founder of a dynasty, and I think if China becomes strong again in his dynasty, he would be seen as a good emperior in history.

[Yun]

Sorry, correction to my previous post. Wu Shifan, Wu Sangui's successor, was his grandson and not his son. Shifan also did not surrender to the Manchus, but rather committed suicide in 1681 when his capital Kunming was besieged by the Manchus.

Wu Sangui rebelled in 1673, when he was 61 years old - not really very old by the standards of the time. His Zhou regime reached its peak in 1676, when he besides controlling Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou and Hunan, had also gained the allegiance of the governors of Shaanxi and Gansu (Wang Fuchen), Guangxi (Sun Yanling), Guangdong and Guangxi (Shang Zhixin), and Fujian (Geng Jingzhong). [Shang Zhixin and Geng Jingzhong are the two other "Feudatory" warlords besides Wu Sangui.]

However, the Zhou declined as quickly as it had risen. That same year of 1676, Wang Fuchen and Geng Jingzhong surrendered to the Qing, and in 1677 Shang Zhixin did the same after having taken Wu Sangui's side for only a year. Sun Yanling wanted to surrender as well, and Wu Sangui had to send his own troops to capture and kill him. The tide turned so quickly that Wu Sangui's health must have taken a severe beating. He proclaimed himself Emperor of the Zhou dynasty in 1678 (he had previously only called himself a King), but died of illness shortly after that (aged 66). Although his grandson succeeded him, the morale of the Zhou armies collapsed and within three years, the Qing armies had fought their way to Kunming.

The hypothetical question that was asked at the beginning of this thread is: what if Wang Fuchen, Geng Jingzhong and Shang Zhixin had not surrendered, and Wu Sangui had not fallen ill? But why should we assume that Wang, Geng, Shang and Sun Yanling would remain loyal to Wu Sangui even if they managed to defeat the Manchus? Their alliance had been a fragile marriage of convenience, rather than one based on a common cause. Wang Fuchen adopted a defensive policy and not an offensive one, because his aim was merely to get the Qing to recognise him as an autonomous warlord. Shang Zhixin and Geng Jingzhong had similarly limited aims, and Wu Sangui would have had just as hard a time controlling them as the Qing did. With friends like these, who needs enemies? That is why I don't believe Wu Sangui could have sustained a unified dynasty even if his rebellion had succeeded. He would have had to fight Shang Zhixin, Geng Jingzhong and even Wang Fuchen for the Mandate of Heaven, and time was not on his side because of his age. That is why I said that alot would then depend on the abilities of his successor, which have not been proven in reality and therefore can only be speculated about.

[Sephodwyrm]

Well, when Li Zicheng overthrew the Ming dynasty he proclaimed himself as Emperor of Da Shun. When Zhang Xianzhong occupied Sichuan he claimed himself to be Emperor of Da Xi. Did these empires last? I think Wu Sangui's rebellion, even if successful, will just end up like these. Wu Sangui, unlike the peasant emperors that established long dynasties, is not as farsighted as any of them. He's also a bad hypocrite (where as Liu Bang is the master hypocrite). And by the time of his rebellion, the Manchu dynasty is consolidated enough and is not like the corrupt regime of the Ming.

[tattoo]

When I started the thread, I was more interested in how historical view will be changed if Wu Sangui is a winner. I knew that his chance of successes at the Revolt of the Three Feudatorie was very slim. Even if the Manchus lost, a civil war probably started between the feudatories. Probably other Chinese armies or interested parties would form along the way.

[Cao Cao]

dont forget that at the time of the Revolt of the Three Feudatories the Junggar Mongols under Galdan were beginning to expand their empire as well. In fact, only several years after the end of the rebellion was Galdan posed to make an expedition to Beijing.

So if Wu Sangui had won and unified China, his successors (he'd probably have died by 1690, that was when Galdan and the Manchus fought the Battle of Ulan Batung north of Beijing) would have to face a new Mongol threat. While the new Chinese emperors might be more capable in confronting the new Mongol threat, if Wu had found a new Chinese dynasty we might witness something like the Ming/Mongol stalemate during much of the 15th and 16th centuries.

[astralis]

given the external pressures by the mongols, and the chaos produced by a wu sangui victory only a few years after the qing tasted victory, a wu sangui dynasty would have most likely been a one-man sort of deal, like the qin.

the qing most likely would have given conquest of china a second shot after sangui defeated the mongols (who were so badly drained of power by the 1690s that even a weak wu sangui would have defeated them), and taken it for good the second time running.