The wind at Shanhai Pass is nothing like the wind in Beijing.Beijing's wind carries dust. Shanhai's carries iron-rust and the briny reek of the sea.
When Wu Sangui stood atop the walls, the banners of the Guanning cavalry snapped behind him, and the wastelands of Liaoxi lay open before him. He had been a man set to hold the frontier—to guard a gate, and to guard an order.Outside the gate: wolves and tigers.Inside the gate: home and country.
But now, it was the inside that had fallen first.
When the courier arrived—ragged from riding, half-mad with speed—and brought the news that Beijing had been breached, Wu Sangui's fingers rested on the plates of his armor and did not move for a long time. The commanders gathered in the tent, and no one dared speak first.
Because they all understood:This was no longer a question of whether to fight.It was a question of whom to fight.
One man urged, "Turn back and answer the throne—punish the rebels, retake the capital."Another gave a cold laugh. "The capital is already gone. Answer which throne? Punish which rebels? The Shun are there, the Qing are there—turn your blade one way and you'll be swallowed by the other."
A third lowered his voice. "If we bring the Qing through the Pass—borrow their strength to break the 'Dashing King'—perhaps… we can preserve Guanning."
The word preserve fell like a stone into every chest.
They understood perfectly the danger of letting wolves into the house.But when half the house is already burning, a man is quick to believe the rain outside might put it out—even if that rain comes edged with knives.
Wu Sangui listened to the argument and said nothing. Instead he ordered a map brought in and spread across the table. On it, the Pass was a throat; the Central Plains, a vast pair of lungs. Whoever seized the throat could make the world choke.
Near midnight, an envoy of the Qing was admitted into the tent. He neither groveled nor swaggered. He offered only one sentence:
"The Prince Regent is willing to join with the General to crush the roving bandits."
Lightly spoken—yet heavy enough to crush a man.
Wu Sangui stared into the lamplight and asked, as if to the others, as if to himself,"If I do not open the gate… will the Qing truly stay out?"
No one answered.
Because the answer was brutal.The Qing would come, sooner or later.If the gate was not opened by your hand, it would be opened by another's.If you kept it shut, you would have to face both the Shun and the Qing at once.If you opened it, you invited the Qing inside—and once invited, sending them back out would be far harder than letting them in.
At dawn, when the massive wooden beam was lifted from the gate, everyone heard the muffled groan it made—like the lid of a deep well being pried open.
The armored horsemen rode out. Dust and sand rose in sheets. Beyond the Pass, the Eight Banners stood in silent, perfect order, and yet the thunder of hooves rolled like a storm arriving ahead of its season. In the moment Ming and Qing rode side by side, no one dared meet another man's eyes.
—A historian's brief judgment: when a gate is opened, it opens a road; when it closes, it is often the road back that is barred.
(End of this chapter)