尚善 Shàngshàn

Son of Feiyangwu: Shangshan

Shangshan at first inherited as Duke Who Assists the State. In the first year of Shunzhi, he was promoted to beizi. In the second year, he followed Duoduo on the southern campaign and attacked Li Zicheng; the enemy charged our army with three hundred cavalry, and Shangshan defeated them. He pacified Henan and took Jiangnan, with merit in both, and was granted a round-medallion gauze robe, a hundred taels of gold, five thousand taels of silver, and a saddle and a horse. In the fifth year, he garrisoned Datong. In the sixth year, he was promoted to beile, took charge of the Court of Colonial Affairs, and became a Deliberative Minister. In the fifteenth year, he followed Duoni on the campaign against Yunnan. The Ming Prince of Gui, Youlang, fled to Yongchang; Shangshan advanced to Zhennan Department, broke his general Bai Wenxuan at Yulong Pass, crossed the Lancang River, and took Yongchang. Youlang fled first, and exploiting victory he took Tengyue, advanced to Nandian, and returned on reaching Mengcun. In the sixteenth year, he was granted a python robe, an exquisite knife, and a saddle and a horse. In the seventeenth year, he was retroactively charged with having withdrawn the garrison at Yongchang, so that soldiers entered the city and injured people, and was demoted to beizi. In the eleventh year of Kangxi, his title was restored and he was appointed Right Clan Director. He was relieved because of illness. Edit

Wu Sangui rebelled. Shangshan was appointed Grand General Who Brings Peace to Distant Lands and Quiets Bandits and led the army to Yuezhou. When Shangshan arrived at the army, he sent a letter to Sangui saying: "You, Prince, a survivor of a fallen state, begged an army of our dynasty to destroy the bandits, wipe out the shame of your state and avenge your father; you received favour and courtesy, were ranked with a title and given a fief, and have enjoyed wealth, honour and glory for over thirty years until now; yet in your late years and at the end of your road you bring about your own overthrow, and I privately do not understand it. You now use as a pretext the restoration of the Ming house, but when the great army formerly entered the Pass, I never heard that you asked to set up a descendant of the Ming; when the realm was at peace, you still planned for us to remove future troubles and wiped out the Ming imperial clan; where in this is there loyalty to a former lord? If you intend to found a great enterprise for your descendants, then when the princess and the efu entered Yunnan, why did you not at once harbour thoughts of revolt? When you sent your son to serve at court and then raised troops, causing your son to be put to death, can this be called kindness? If you say it is to bring glory to those before you, then when you submitted, your grandfather and father were all given titles and rewards, but now their tombs are destroyed and abandoned and their bones lie on the roads; can this be called filial piety? As a subject and servant, you served two dynasties in person and never were loyal to a single lord; can this be called righteousness? You yourself tread on four crimes, yet still give rein to your will and contend by force, absurdly wishing to gather in the hearts of men; this is to lay firewood over a fire and call it safe, or to build a nest on a tent and call it secure. The sacred dynasty is magnanimous: if you offer sincere submission and repent of your crimes, you should be allowed to begin anew. Do not tread the old ruts of Gongsun Shu and Peng Chong, whose whole clans were destroyed and whose bodies were sunk, to be a great disgrace for all ages." When Sangui received the letter, he did not reply. Edit

Shangshan memorialised asking that the Green Standard troops of Jingzhou and fifty Jingkou sand-patrol boats be sent out to attack Yuezhou. In the fourteenth year, he sent the naval force to cut the enemy's supply route. In the fifteenth year, he defeated the rebels on Dongting Lake, took Junshan, and sent forces separately to help in the attack on Changsha. In the fourth month of the sixteenth year, Sangui fled to Hengzhou, came out again at Xiangtan, and sent forces separately to invade the two Guang provinces. In the seventeenth year, an edict rebuked Shangshan for his army's lack of merit, ordered him to lead his own forces to garrison Changsha, and had Yuele command the great army to take Yuezhou. Shangshan asked to lead the naval force to take Yuezhou and thus render his own service, and the emperor agreed. Sangui's general Du Hui and others attacked Liulinzui, the army met them and struck, the naval force came to join it, and in the combined battle Hui was defeated and fled. In the eighth month, he died with the army. In the nineteenth year, he was retroactively charged with the offence of holding back, and his rank of beile was stripped. Shengzu, remembering Shangshan's former toils, appointed his son Mendu as Duke Who Assists the State, to be inherited in perpetuity. Edit