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The Manchu-Ming force gave no rest for the defeated Li. Wu Sangui relentlessly charged at the retreating foe. Wu Sangui caught up and routed his opponent at Yongping, and a cease-fire agreed upon between Wu and Li did not stop the former from continuing his chase toward the capital. Li quickly evacuate the capital, not before he killed Wu Xiang his other family members. However, in Dingzhou outside of Beijing, Wu attacked Li again and butchered half of his remaining 18 battalions. Wu Sangui did not cease his attack on Li until Li exited the Gu Pass.

The Manchus quickly occupied Beijing, and on that same year Fulin the Qing emperor Shunzhi moved his capital from Shenyang to Beijing. Within a year the Manchus, again with the aid of Wu Sangui, the Manchus attack into Li Zicheng's base in Xi'an and chased him all the way into Henan. Later on, the Manchus eliminated Zhang Xianzhong (whose subjects greeted the Manchus with open arms due to the cruel rule of Zhang) and the Ming loyalists in South China, often greeted with thick opposition and required the aid of old and new Chinese allies to prevail. With the exception of the previous Mongol conquest, the Manchus had accomplished an impossible goal: two million technologically and numerically inferior Manchus conquered one hundred million Chinese.

Having bitten a tasty Beijing duck, the Manchus would soon find it difficult to swallow their big bites. Die-hard loyalists, intellectuals, soldiers, bandits, and villains would call on the memory of the dead Ming Dynasty to oppose the Manchus, but it was very clear that the Ming Dynasty cannot be restored when the last descendant of the Ming emperor, Yongli, was executed in Yunnan province in 1661. Not surprisingly, the man who brought Yongli from his hideout in Yunnan was no other than Wu Sangui.

As to the fate of Li Zicheng, it is still as debatable as the events surrounding his famous defeat in Shanhaiguan. After Dorgon's brothers Dodo and Ajige overran the last Shun domains in Shaanxi and Henan, Li Zicheng fled with a dwindling band of followers, afterwards he was never heard from. Some said that villagers killed Li when he raided them, while others claimed that landlord-hired mercenaries killed him. Li's fate become more cloudy when Ajige's soldiers discovered what was said to be Li's body, but the body decayed so much that no one can verify that it was Li. Partly due to these circumstances, some even claimed that Li Zicheng was not killed by his enemies, instead he turned his back on politics and took up monk-hood for the rest of his days. To those who are partisans and admirers of this rustic peasant/bandit, it is very tempting and comforting to believe that Li Zicheng was able to live peacefully in his last years, reminiscing on the zenith of his career without worry. To those who loath him, it is even more comforting to read from the books that Li Zicheng died at the hands of the common people, folks that he once vowed to support.

Wu Sangui continued to serve the Manchus after Li Zicheng's defeat. Subsequently, he played an important role in conquering Sichuan and later the Yunnan-Guizhou stronghold of the last claimant to the Ming throne, Yongli. After the death of Yongli, Wu Sangui ruled Yunnan and Guizhou provinces as a vassal, albeit a very powerful and independent one, of the Qing Empire. During the reign of Kangxi, Wu Sangui revolted against the Manchus and almost toppled the Qing government in the famous Revolt of the Three Feudatories (San Fan Zhi Luan). Lack of energy and old age destroyed any chance of success, and Wu Sangui died while the Qing armies begin the process of eliminating his allies and generals.