Wu Sangui was a controversial figure, who first "rushed the crown into a red face", lured the Qing soldiers into the customs, and became a sinner for thousands of years; then hunted down and killed the Yongli Emperor of the Southern Ming Dynasty in the southwest, and was named the "King of Pingxi" by the Qing Dynasty; and finally launched the "Rebellion of the Three Domains", which was finally pacified by Kangxi. Therefore, Wu Sangui was a figure that could not be recognized by both generations of the Ming Dynasty. After the "San Francisco Rebellion" was put down, the Qing army comprehensively eliminated Wu Sangui's descendants.
Wu Sangui had two sons, Wu Yingxiong and Wu Yingqi. Regarding Wu Yingxiong, the historical records are very clear. On the eve of the anti-Qing Dynasty, Wu Sangui sent secret envoys to Beijing to prepare to take back his son. Unexpectedly, Wu Yingxiong refused to return to Kunming, so both Wu Yingxiong and his second son Wu Shilin were killed by Kangxi. Wu Yingxiong's eldest son, Wu Shipan, succeeded to the throne after Wu Sangui's death, and was later defeated and killed. Therefore, Wu Yingxiong's branch was completely destroyed. Wu Sangui's other son, Wu Yingqi, is also a well-known figure. During Wu Sangui's lifetime, Wu Yingqi led the army to Guizhou, Guangxi, Hunan, and Sichuan. After Wu Sangui's death, Wu Yingqi retired to Kunming, and then there was no record of Wu Yingqi in historical books such as the "DonghuaLu" and the "Draft History of the Qing Dynasty".
The Qing court's holy decree that the Wu family should be exterminated was ordered throughout the country, but Wu Yingqi's whereabouts became a mystery.
According to visits in recent decades, Wu Sangui's descendants actually lived in seclusion in Majiazhai, a small village in Cengong County, Qiandongnan Prefecture, Guizhou Province. Majiazhai is bounded by the east-west ridge of the Yanxia River, with more than 230 households and a population of about 2,000 people, all surnamed Wu, and all the people in the village speak Jiangsu Gaoyou dialect (Wu Sangui's ancestral hometown). How was this secret discovered? In the 1970s, the Guizhou historian Huang Tuosong was sent to Cengong County, and during a small talk, he overheard that "the people of Majiazhai are related to Wu Sangui." Huang Tuosong, who has studied history in depth, profoundly made this sentence. At the same time, Huang Tuosong also noticed that most of the buildings in Majiazhai were Jiangnan-style courtyards. In 1983, the Provincial Department of Culture issued a document requiring all localities to compile a "Catalogue of Famous Places in Chinese Dynasties", which included Wu Sangui. Huang Tuosong decided to go to Majiazhai to investigate after learning about it, but he ran back and forth three times, and finally he had a harvest.
On August 14, 1983, Huang Tuosong found Wu Yongsong, a secret descendant of the Wu clan. Wu Yongsong first took Huang Tuosong to the back of Majiazhai to visit a very inconspicuous tomb. He also told Huang Tuosong that this was Chen Yuanyuan's tomb, and the tombstone read as follows:
Therefore, the tomb seat of the Nie clan of Wu Men, the first concubine. Filial Piety: Wu Qihua. Daughter-in-law: Tu Shi. Filial piety: Sloan, Shi Jie. Yang. Great-grandchildren: Dajing, Dachun... Emperor Qing Yongzheng was six years old and the second peng shen midwinter moon auspicious Hitachi.
"Therefore, the ancestor concubine" does not use a clear character, indicating that she is the ancestor of the Wu clan in the late Ming Dynasty; "妣" represents a woman; the word "Wumen" alludes to the fact that the old woman is a Suzhou person, and "Wumen", which is now another name in Suzhou, can also be interpreted as the Wu family; "Nie" uses a simplified character that did not exist during the Yongzheng period, which is a symbol created by the Wu family for the sake of concealment. Chen Yuanyuan's original surname was Xing, followed by his adoptive father's surname Chen. Xing has a right ear, Chen has a left ear, "binaural" represents Xing and Chen, a word double meaning; the traditional character of the "double" word is "double", the upper two "jia" characters, jia jia is good, spend a good moon, allusions to "round circle". The "seat" shows the exaltation of her status, and is a female shrine, alluding to the tomb of the "imperial concubine". The eleven words are exactly "the tomb of The Imperial Concubine Chen Yuanyuan of the Suzhou Clan of Zhou". The tombstone was erected by the "Sixth Year of Qing Yongzheng", so the tomb of Chen Yuanyuan was determined.
On the morning of July 11, 2010, five authoritative Qing history experts rushed to Cen Gong and went deep into Majiazhai to investigate. Later, more than 30 Qing history experts, including these 5 authoritative Qing historians, came to Majiazhai again to uncover a historical mystery. The experts rushed to Majiazhai in the rain and immediately conducted an in-depth and comprehensive investigation. The experts came to the majiazhai male tomb group, found the tomb of Wu Sangui's son Wu Qihua (Wu Yingqi), grandson Wu Shi (Shi) Long, and the tomb of the great general Ma Bao, and carefully examined the contents of the inscription. During the inspection of the shrines in the villagers' homes, the experts found that all the shrines of the villagers' homes had the words "Yanling Hall" and so on.
Professor Li Zhiting, a scholar of Ming and Qing history, thought of Wu Sangui's alias, and he said in surprise: "Wu Sangui's nickname is 'General Yanling', which is too consistent!" ”
So why did Wu Sangui's descendants choose to live in seclusion in Cengong County, Guizhou? During the Ming and Qing dynasties, Cen Gong was Sizhou and was the economic and cultural center of Qiandong. At that time, Wu Sangui's close friend Zheng Fengyuan was a native of Pingxiwei (平溪衛, in present-day Dayou Town, Cenggong County). After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, Wu Sangui repeatedly advised Zheng Fengyuan to join the Qing Dynasty, but was resolutely rejected. In addition, Wu Sangui's confidant Li Shizhi was the prefect of Sizhou at that time. It is very likely that with the secret help of the two, Wu Sangui's descendants lived safely in Sizhou.
During the inspection, a question has always puzzled experts and scholars, that is, Majiazhai is named "Majiazhai", but why is there no one in the village surnamed Ma? When the experts held a conversation with Wu's secret descendants and other villagers, they learned that Old Mrs. Chen (Majiazhai people's honorific title for Chen Yuanyuan) and Wu Qihua were escorted to Majiazhai by Ma Bao, and in order to commemorate Ma Bao's kindness and let generations of descendants know, the name of the village was taken as "Majiazhai". When the experts inspected Ma Bao's crown tomb, they found that the tombstone had the "gratitude" saying that "the ancestors of the people who rebuilt the earth are their ancestors, and the restoration of the stone platform Ruoweng is like WuWeng".
Wu Yongpeng claimed that he had a secret heirloom history "Royal Character Book" in his home, which is also a family tree. At the beginning, there was also a secret "imperial umbrella" in the village, but it was destroyed because of the poor family and was used as a quilt cover, and few people saw it. The local gold cup and silver chopsticks were also lost to the collection of relatives and friends in Bison Hill, but they were also smuggled, and the last two large knives, one 96 kg and one 80 kg (actually 12 kg), had hydrangeas on the handle, and were also sold as scrap iron because of poverty. After the expert investigation, the villagers of Majiazhai are indeed descendants of Wu Sangui.
In any case, Wu Sangui's sins had nothing to do with his descendants. We can spit on Wu Sangui, but there is no need to verbally criticize his descendants, after all, the descendants are innocent. Now Majiazhai has become a rural tourist destination.