Choices

I hadn't thought about it, but my last post on Whites converting to Islam has a somewhat similar theme to a very famous episode in Chinese history. It's been a while since I write another Chinese history tale, and this is one of my favorites. So let's talk about Wu Sangui 吳三桂.

The year is 1644. The Ming Dynasty is in ruins. It is actually in ruins; a peasant rebellion led by a man called Li Zicheng 李自成 has been ravishing the country for a decade, conquering and utterly destroying much of the central and western areas of the country. The rebel leader had already conquered the largest city in the west, Xi'an 西安, and had proclaimed himself as the king of the Shun 順 Dynasty. The Shun army raced from Xi'An up through the province of Shanxi 山西, where most of the cities openly surrendered to him without bloodshed. In no time he crossed the western passes close to Beijing, and on May 26, the capital fell. The emperor of the Ming Dynasty stabbed his wives and daughters with his own hand, and then hanged himself on a nearby hill.

A resistance had formed in the south, where several imperial princes were proclaimed as emperors in different provinces. The north though was completely in control of the rebels of the Shun Dynasty. They felt safe, and spent 10 days sacking Beijing, raping the wives and daughters of the mandarins and merchants, and torturing them to extort untold quantities of gold and silver. Then one advisor to the rebel army came with news: we haven't completely conquered the north. There is still Wu Sangui.

Most maps you can see of the Ming Dynasty are complete bullshit, because they throw in every place where the Ming ever had a garrison during its 270 years of life. And this guys had lots of garrisons around at first, but they soon abandoned most of them. For all purposes, the effective northern borders of the Ming Dynasty were the Great Wall, which they built. Here's an accurate map of the north.

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By this time, May 1644, mostly everything south of the wall and north of Yang-tze river has fallen to the Shun rebels, and most Ming generals in the area had surrendered and joined the fun. All except the most important. You'll see in this map that there's a weird discontinuous piece of wall up in the Northeast. That's Liaodong 遼東. That used to be firm Ming territory, settled with Han farmers, but since the 1600s a nearby tribal people, the Manchus (Jurchens back then) had built a very strong state, and conquered most of the Ming settlements in the area. The Manchus were extremely good fighters, they had managed to beat the Mongols and put them in their army, and had been raiding inside China for decades, doing massive damage. By 1644 there was only one fortress left in Liaodong, the castle of Ningyuan 寧遠. And Wu Sangui was its commander.

Weeks before Beijing fell to the rebels, the Ming emperor had sent an edict to Wu Sangui, ordering him to abandon the fortress and come with his troops to defend the capital. He was actually on his way, not far from Beijing, when the city fell and the emperor killed himself. Unsure what to do, Wu Sangui got his army and moved back to the Northeast, and set camp at Shanhaiguan 山海關, the last fortress of the continuous Great Wall, where the wall meets the sea. The fortress was very strong, and he decided to hold up there.

Soon the rebels having fun at Beijing decided that all Ming generals had surrendered, surely this one would surrender too. What is he going to do, fight us? The conquerors of the capital? Good luck with that. The rebels soon found that Wu Sangui's family was all in Beijing, 38 persons in all, led by his father, who had been chief of the capital's garrison at the time. They... persuaded the man to write a letter to his son, saying how virtuous and sagely the rebels were, that the game was over, and his duty as a filial son was to obey and surrender to the rebels. He'll be given a title of nobility and treated with all the honor he deserves.

The letter gets to the fortress, alongside shitloads of gold and silver for his soldiers. Wu Sangui sees that this is a pretty good deal, gets his army and marches towards Beijing in order to formally surrender to his new lord. On his second journey to Beijing in a few days, he suddenly bumps into two servants of his household. "What are you doing here?”

﹣Oh you have no idea, young lord.

- What happened? How is my father?

- They got him, my lord.

- Who got him? What happened to him?

- One rebel general came to father, and asked him for your concubine, Chen Yuan. Your father refused, said she wasn't there, that she was with you, but they refused to believe, and they tortured him. They tortured all of us, it was awful, only we two were able to escape. Father Lord was tortured so badly that he's likely to be dead by now. You should prepare yourself, young master.

Not good. Not good at all. These rebel bastards were scamming him. They didn't want him to surrender and join their army as a general. No, they wanted to lure him to the capital to kill him and get rid of a problem. That they didn't wait to steal my women and torture my father is proof that nothing good expected him at Beijing. Oh, this won't do. Wu Sangui again got his army and led them back to the Great Wall fortress.

What could he do, though. His army was perhaps the best in the empire. Tough, hardly men from the Northeast frontier, seasoned by constant war with the fierce Manchus. He had a sizable army, but could he beat the rebels? All of them? Soon he heard that Li Zicheng, the rebel emperor himself was personally leading a 100k strong army to kill him. And behind his back, on the other side of the Great Wall, Dorgon, the effective king of the Manchus had departed from their capital with two thirds of the fierce Manchu army. He obviously knew that his Chinese enemies had collapsed and he wanted part of the fun.

So there he is, our famed general, holding the strongest fortress on the Chinese empire, facing a 100,000 rebel army on his front, and another 100,000 army of Manchu riders on his back. What can he do now? The Manchus are on his back. His uncle are with them; he was captured years ago, and had surrendered to the Manchus. He was now a very high status nobleman in the Manchu state, and he sent letters to his nephew to surrender. These are good people too, manly, virtuous, just men, not like the corrupt and decadent mandarins who used to rule over us. You cannot trust them, nephew. They maybe Chinese like you and us, share our culture and language. But they are evil, false men, and you know that. Join the Manchu army, they know of you, admire your martial skills, they'll make you into a prince and give you untold riches and honor.

The rebel leader though has brought Wu Sangui's father with him. He tells him it has all been a misunderstanding. One of the top rebel generals got a bit carried away. But the Shun emperor guarantees his safety, and he seems to mean it. He calls him to fulfill his duty towards his father and his country. The Mandate of Heaven has changed, the Shun now has it. His duty as a general is to follow him, and start a new glorious dynasty. Once the old corrupt mandarins of the Ming Dynasty are dealt with, the new, vigorous armies of the Chinese nation will come back north, where he can take part on the glorious retaking of the Northeast from the evil barbarians. Do the right thing, general. Your family and your nation need you.

Guess what he did? 2 days later his father alongside the 38 members of his family were killed. 2 days later he was made a prince. The Manchus ruled China until 1911.

[…] By spandrell […]

Come on, White people can do better than that. It would make as much sense to convert your whole family to Judaism and move to Israel as converting to Islam. If you're really concerned about the Islamic invasion you can always go to a Slavic country and practice your Christianity or atheism there. Better than converting to a foreign faith.

Jewish dietary laws are even more retarded than Islam's. You don't get to control your women, and you have to move to Israel, which is starting to suck so much there's Israeli immigrants all over the world. Islam in place is a better deal. Let's see how long Slavic countries manage to hold up.

Bad counter argument! Every Islamic country sucks right now. And every country that gets taken over is going to be horrible. Definitely worse than Israel is right now.

It's a much better option than most western whites will admit. Becoming a Muslim requires repeating the shahada in front of a practicing Muslim, and that's about it. Living in NYC for 25 years, I've gotten to know Muslims from many different countries. Muslims from the Balkans are largely secularized and barely practice the faith, if at all. Converting to Islam does not mean learning to speak Arabic and disappearing into the masses of Arabs and Pakistanis. There are many millions of blond haired, blue eyed Muslims in the Balkans, Caucasus and Anatolia. If anything, large scale conversion would allow western whites to maintain ethnic cohesion in a way that Christianity no longer affords. The points you make are valid and worth consideration. It's not nearly as painful or constricting as most westerners imagine, and progressives will not, cannot attack it successfully.

As Jim noted, Islam tends to turn its practitioners brown over time. At least Christianity allows you to object to the Arab occupation of Europe on ethnic grounds; what excuse would a "White Muslim" country have to exclude Muhammad's cousins from immigrating into it? The Caliphate is multi-racial and dysgenic. Israel is a multi-racial dysgenic disaster as well, so the Slavic option makes the most sense.

[…] Source: Bloody Shovel […]

But it doesn't. The Christian churches all over the West are welcoming brown and black people, not all of them Muslims. Christianity as practiced today is universalist just as Islam is. Arabs have black admixture because of screwing African slaves, not because of Islam. Portugal had the same problem. A White Muslim country has the same excuses a White Christian country has; but being Muslim allows you to be more brutal about it. Syrians go to Europe because Arab countries don't want them and feel no problem justifying their refusal.

I rebut on two points. First, while it's true that currently progs see Muslims as clients -- no threat to their power; indeed enhancing it -- that's because (a) Muslims are a minority, (b) low-functioning, and (c) Muslims are not white. If whites converted in sufficient mass to Islam, Muslims ceased being dependent, and/or Islam become popular enough to form its own parties not controlled by progs, I'd not expect tolerance to continue. Then you'd get the same treatment as progs currently dish out to polygamist Mormons, which is to say, you'd be treated as even worse dogcrap than most whites. Second, even granting the premise that progs would just let Islam take power from them, the problem is democracy. Islam as a majority in democracy has the same incentives to evolve and progress as Christianity did. You might buy a couple generations of relative sanity, but then the insanity would return. Meanwhile, the Muslims dynamite all our cultural heritage.

They can treat old Mormons like crap because there's a few dozen of them. I'd like to see the progressive state deal with 70% Muslims. And where do you get the idea that Europe would remain democratic after a Muslim takeover? The laws come from Allah, you see, not from the people. David Friedman has written about Islamic law, and the traditional Muslim resistance to state power is actually fairly appealing to libertarian sensibilities in some ways.

Kapitulieren? NEIN!

You are comparing Muslim Europe to a fantasy where White nationalism overthrows progressivism. A more realistic comparison is Muslim Europe, i.e. something like Bosnia or Turkey, vs. a mixture of Brazil, Morocco and South Africa. I'll take Turkey any day.

The Constantine option. I've actually thought about shitlords adopting Islam as a new ethnoreligion and way to royally mindfuck the left. I still think it has promise. I can't tell if you're just being tongue-in-cheek, though.

With all due respect, Spandrell, (and I mean that - you have a lot of good insights) this just seems like an elaborately disguised way to surrender, and I don't believe that the Progressive establishment isn't as powerful as you think. But even if it is, I couldn't do it. I was born a man of the West, a white, and a Christian, and I'll die as one. And, after all, all men must die. Personally, I think that I'll live to see those causes victorious, but if not, at least we'll go down honorably.

It's not even elaborate. It's naked capitulation. You're (I guess) already old, you have a family, you've done your thing. But put yourself in the skin of a 18 year old kid, or an unemployed working class single man in his 20s or 30s. Thought experiment: got a gun on your head, you can either surrender to Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, or to Ta-Nehisi Coates and Caitlyn Jenner. What do you do?

[…] By spandrell […]

Spandrell said, "Muslims historically also used to drink and be merry." Well, that answers my main objection to Islam... I see four religions dominating the human species in the Twenty-First Century. 1\. Progressivism: •It will dominate but will start to decline because of the other three religions. 2\. Islam: •Parts of Europe and North America become Islamic. I can see Spandrell's scenario of whites converting to Islam... and then proceeding to behead the Progressives. An ironic end for Progressivism in those places. 3\. Christianity: •Remains strong in the Third World. But in the Western World, the places where it remains strong or regains its power, Christianity will have a distinctively Eastern flavor... Or should I say Slavic... •American Evangelical Christianity is so cucked that Progressivism is practically wearing its skin. 4\. Now onto the Fourth Religion: •Spandrell said, "And, like it or not, the progressive state has the capability of crushing any attempt at subversion, and is going to have it for the foreseeable future." I disagree, this leads me to the Fourth Major Religion of the Twenty-First Century... And it's already deeply subverting Progressivism. •Check this out: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2015/12/15/elon-musk-is-a-terrible-human-being/ •Here is Progressive Reverend PZMyers preaching a sermon against Prophet Elon Musk. FreeThoughtBlogs strictly controls the comment sections. Every single commentator is a hardcore SJW. And yet, many of these SJW commentators are excoriating Reverend PZ Myers, not Prophet Elon Musk! •PZ Myers is just a village priest for The Cathedral. Elon Musk is freaking Davos Man! •Progressives are really vulnerable to this new religion because black transsexual midgets in wheelchairs just aren't as inspiring as Big Fucking Rocket is. And besides, the SJWs can't call themselves Neo-Puritans or The Church of Social Justice-ology, the white masses will fall asleep. Gotta stay with _Progress_ivism. And to the masses, Progress is Big Fucking Rocket.

More Rev. PZ Myers vs Prophet Elin Musk: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AgJMXAcrLNY

Israel has a TFR over 3 even among Jews which is quite good and I'm pretty sure it doesn't suck that much. Jews just spread out to avoid all the enemies they've made over the centuries killing them all at one time., Secular Jews are at replacement also pretty good. In the US non Orthodox Jews are much bred with Whites though. Here they've lost some identity. Probably natural in the worlds only other philosemitic nation. Also the West doesn't have to give in to despair or take the easy way out.We can what we do best and shape the world the way we like it. Yes its mostly internecine and its probably bloody but so? That's our whole history. What happened is that the peasant mentality has taken over, people want good rulers rather than to rule. The US is worst of all, our revolutionaries are Libertarian and terrified of actually ruling . Its the stupidest philosophy ever. The only group that actually has a useful philosophy in the Northwest Front . They have a solid useful idea of governance that if applied at they had the force to keep it could make a workable state I don't want to live there since National Socialism Lite isn't my bag but its not stupid on its face. They don't however have the power to get what they want because well, Neo Nazis enough said. If you are going to revolt its so you can impose the system you and yours want over an area of land and for you and yours to be in charge. If you can do it with elections, great. If not? In any case it won't be comfortable but I suspect in the long run we'll find it more comfortable than become Muslims or "The Happening"

you've got to be more real. they don't target whites because they're white. they target whites because of success. muslims kill each other all the time, and they'll kill white muslims just as readily as otherwise. the best strategy is to get cozy with the chinese and ask them for backdoor help, or to establish a white nationalist government in exile somewhere within the confines of china, building up capital, support, etc.