There are traitors, and then there’s Wu Sangui.
In 1644, a Manchu army gathered outside the Great Wall of China at the Shanhai Pass, the choke point on the only traversable route from Manchuria to Beijing. The Ming Dynasty, which had ruled China for almost 300 years, was in turmoil. An army of peasant rebels had captured Beijing. The emperor had hanged himself. Chaos was spreading. The Manchus, who’d long dreamed of seizing control of the empire, tapped the “Why not us? Why not now?” sign in their locker room and rode out. But to reach the capital, they had to make it through the pass, which was blocked by the Great Wall and protected by a Ming army of 60,000 soldiers led by the general Wu Sangui.
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