Foreword: Zeng Guofan, as one of the four famous ministers of the late Qing Dynasty, made great achievements in suppressing the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and was regarded as the savior of the late Qing Dynasty, but alongside this title was the nickname of "Zeng Shaved Head"; he held heavy troops, but still obeyed the imperial court, and some people said that this was a model of loyalty. The most well-known is his family letters and diaries, which are highly regarded by countless people. However, in the author's opinion, Zeng Guofan is completely unworthy of these titles, and he is a completely corrupt official, traitor, executioner, and representative of the landlord class! Next, I will elaborate on the reasons for my point of view.
Zeng Guofan
In the process of creating the Xiangjun, the army's idea was not to be loyal to the imperial court, but to be loyal to itself:
With the defeat of the Opium War, the Qing government paid millions of taels of silver to the British, so it intensified the exploitation of the peasant class, and the peasants at the bottom suffered unspeakably. However, where there is oppression, there is a counter-pit, and everything is only one person to come out and shake his arm, so in 1851, under the leadership of Hong Xiuquan, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement broke out. The Eight Banners of the Qing Army have gradually coveted pleasure since entering the customs, and more than two hundred years have passed, and they have long since lost the ability to ride on the battlefield. In the face of the Taiping Army's attack, defeat after defeat, the emperor had no choice but to delegate his power and let the local landlords organize regiments to suppress the Taiping Army.
On the Internet, it is often said that Zeng Guofan is poor and a peasant class, but this is not the case, Zeng Guofan was not born very well, but by the time he suppressed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, he was already a landlord class. When the Qing government ordered the local organization of regiments to train against the Taiping Army, Zeng Guofan's mother had just died, and at this time he was guarding filial piety, and at first he did not agree to go out to organize regimental training without the expiration of the filial piety period, because it was not in accordance with etiquette. But when he heard that the Taiping Army was about to attack his hometown of Hunan, he immediately took off his filial piety and went to organize regimental training.
Since the Opium War, the end of the Qing Dynasty has become a consensus of the people of the whole country, and there are large and small anti-Qing organizations in the people, such as the Heaven and Earth Society. Because there were too many rebel organizations, many landlords and gentry did not dare to come forward to organize group training, for fear that once they came forward, the people would be gone. In this regard, Zeng Guofan's view is very simple, completely exposing the nature of his landlord class, that is, even the worst landlord is also a landlord and his own person, and no matter how strong the mud legs are, they are also mud legs. When the mud-legged man wants to create the landlord's rebellion, he must all behead him. Therefore, he delegated the power of the government to landlords at all levels, encouraged them to train regiments, and once they suspected that anyone was suspected of rebellion, they could directly behead them without evidence or formalities. At the same time, he also began to create an army of his own, the imperial court paid for it, and the army belonged to himself, which was the Xiang Army. Here we talk about the management system of the Xiang Army, that is, Zeng Guofan, as the commander-in-chief, personally selects the commander, and the commander chooses the generals himself, and the department selects the battalion officers himself, so that the officers at each level select their own subordinates, thus creating a phenomenon that when senior officers order low-level soldiers, soldiers do not obey orders, and soldiers only know their direct superiors. This is also why some people now say that if Zeng Guofan rebelled, then the Qing Dynasty would not have to wait for the Xinhai Revolution, and Zeng Guofan chose to abolish the Xiang Army, making future generations boast of their loyalty. Then, I would like to ask, Zeng Guofan could not even command his own brother Zeng Guoquan and the Huai army created by his own student Li Hongzhang, what did he do to rebel? Moreover, he was once toyed with by Cixi and Xianfeng!
In the process of suppressing the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, he even lost battles and slaughtered the city, and lost faith to his colleagues:
Zeng Guofan was repeatedly defeated in the course of fighting against the Taiping Army, and had no military ability to speak of, in 1854, Shi Xiangzhen of the Taiping Army broke the Xiang Army's marine division in Jinggang, and Zeng Guofan committed suicide by throwing himself into the water on the spot, and was finally rescued by his staff. Another example is in 1855, Shi Da launched an attack on the Xiang army at the mouth of the lake, a hundred warships of the Xiang army were burned out, Zeng Guofan's ship was even captured, important intelligence case files were lost, Zeng Guofan prancing horses died, was stopped by everyone, this year Zeng Guofan was 44 years old, and Shi Dakai was 24 years old. In the ten years of Xianfeng, Zeng Guofan was besieged by the Taiping Army at Qimen, and after being helpless, he once again planned to commit suicide, and finally relied on the Sichuan army to come and relieve the siege. In the battle with the younger Chen Yucheng, he was even more hanged! Moreover, he often lost faith in his colleagues, and made an appointment with Luo Bingzhang to send troops to fight against the Taiping Army, but halfway he heard that Luo Bingzhang's troops were surrounded by the Taiping Army, and Zeng Guofan actually planned to abandon Luo and escape, and finally under the persuasion of his staff, he reluctantly ran under yuezhou city, saying that he had come to the rescue, and the result was that Yuezhou was attacked by the Taiping army, and Luo Bingzhang's men suffered heavy casualties! His dishonesty was not only for his colleagues, but also for those who surrendered, and he had promised Li Xiucheng more than once that as long as Li Xiucheng spoke out everything related to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, he would let Li Xiucheng go, but the result was that Li Xiucheng was brutally killed by Zeng Guofan after revealing what he knew and what he had told. After attacking the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom capital Tianjing, he allowed his younger brother Zeng Guofan to rob and let the soldiers rape women for more than ten days, because he was too brutal, even his own staff Zhao Liewen could not look down, Zhao Liewen asked Zeng Guofan to restrain the army, but Zeng Guofan did not say anything at all.
Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement
Tianjin Lesson Plan in His Later Years:
In 1870, French missionaries called missionaries were actually abducting and selling children in Tianjin. When Tianjin Zhixian went to investigate the case, the French consulate also opened fire on the people who went to investigate the case, shooting Zhixian to death. In anger, the citizens of Tianjin rose up and beat the French consul Feng Daye and more than a dozen French people to death. France put pressure on the Qing government, and the Qing government at this time was weak and incompetent, afraid of a military confrontation with France, so it sent Zeng Guofan to investigate. In the face of French anger, Zeng Guofan chose the simplest method, in order to satisfy the French, to execute more than twenty civilians for murder, without mentioning the abduction and trafficking of Chinese children by missionaries, and dismissed all twenty officials serving in Tianjin to investigate, for the dead French, one compensated one hundred thousand taels of silver, a total amount of two million taels. Even the Qing government could not bear this practice, and finally sent Li Hongzhang to deal with the matter.
Tianjin Teaching Case Site
The diary criticizes others for being greedy for money, but it does not mean that you are not greedy:
Zeng Guofan is best known not for his suppression of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the creation of the Xiang Army, but for his family letters. Zeng Guofan said more than once in his family letter that being an official should not only think about seeking wealth, but should stick to his own discipline, regard being an official as a tool to get money, and leave money to future generations is shameful. However, in his lifetime, Lord Zeng made compromises with Shi Dakai, made compromises with Li Hongzhang, made compromises with Cixi, Xianfeng, and foreign forces, but never made compromises on making money and never changed his original intention. Zeng Guofan was a decent man, and he paid attention to pomp and circumstance in everything he did, but when he became Hanlin, he was 27 years old, and the sum of all the money in a year was only one or two hundred silver, but the house he rented was a large mansion, and the rent for a year was almost a hundred and two silver, and he was unwilling to walk to work, and he wanted to rent a carriage, so where did the rest of the money come from? He must find a way to make money, so he tried to ask a foreign official to send a windfall from the candidate's hand, and then a small fortune from the officials along the way. According to Zeng Guofan's own records, finally in Daoguang 22 years, he was able to go to Sichuan to proctor the examination, and when he went, he borrowed a few hundred taels of silver from a friend, in addition to buying some luggage, he also bought a special thing similar to a scale called silver. Later, when passing through Hebei and Shaanxi, he also fished a sum from the local officials as a Beijing official, traveled on a business trip, and earned six or seven thousand taels of silver. After returning to Beijing, he not only paid off his previous debts, but also sent some silver to his family, and said in his family letter: "Since I traveled to Sichuan on a business trip, after returning, people have gained a lot of weight and a lot of spirit, and I must take a taxi when I go out." ”
I wrote a diary and a family letter, but I basically didn't do it:
Zeng Guofan's habit of writing a diary stemmed from finding a backer for himself, and the patron let him learn to write a diary in order to wake himself up. Zeng Guofan once looked for a patron of the Manchu Mu Zhang'adang, and on the grounds that he was the chief examiner of Mu Zhang'adang when he was taking the exam, he claimed to be Mu Zhang'adang's apprentice and sent Mu Zhang'a's horse ass vigorously. Later, he also found the Uighurs (Mongolian confucians at that time) as teachers, nominally learning from these people, but in fact looking at the identity of these people as ministers of the Eight Banners of Mongolia. The Uighurs' teaching to Zeng Guofan was that he insisted on keeping a diary every day. (Mentioned here, this Mu Zhang'a, this person also loves greed, but not greedy, not small greed, has his own set on the road of corruption, the greatest achievement of his life is to depose Lin Zexu during the Sino-Japanese War, blindly currying favor with foreigners.) ）
We once loved to write in the diary of a saint, and the diary insisted on writing every day, and also insisted on reflecting on ourselves, but most of them did not persist. For example, he insisted on meditating every day, but as soon as he sat still, he wanted to fall asleep, and when he slept, he was very remorseful, so he wrote down his confession in his diary, but the next day he sat still asleep, and he wrote down the confession again. So insisted on two or three months, or did not stick to it, but made themselves into a magic, insomnia, vomiting blood, weak body, tinnitus more than once, for this reason, he also complained to others, saying that he was tired of a little study, it seems that God does not let himself do learning, looking forward to one day to be able to catch a fat errand, earn some money, pay off the previous debts!
I still remember a story I read about a saint reading
It is said that he studied hard when he was a child, but the results were very little, one night he read by candlelight, a thief took advantage of his lack of preparation to turn in, hid on the beam, ready to wait for him to fall asleep to commit a crime, left and right, Zeng Wenzheng's article was never remembered, the thief really couldn't stand it, turned over the beam, snatched the book over, and said, "You are so stupid!" I memorized it all", and then really memorized it again, and went away......... Of course, the truth of this story needs to be examined, but the side also shows that Zeng Guofan's academic talent is not very high, and in fact, the so-called Zeng Guofan family letters, after scholars' examination, some of them are really not written by him, but later people in order to enhance the performance of the bookstore, the title of the book is written by Zeng Guofan.
Next, the author will summarize why so many people blow the stick Zeng Guofan:
First, in the years when Zeng Guofan died, not many people in the whole country praised him, and even his compatriots in Hunan scolded him, because he had also killed the people in his hometown when he founded the Xiang Army. It was not until Chiang Kai-shek of the Republic of China came to power that the image of Zeng Guofan instantly became tall. Every time Chiang Kai-shek gave a speech, he applied the words from Zeng Guofan's diary, and each time he said a quotation from Zeng Wenzheng. As for why Chiang Kai-shek touted him? The reason is also very simple, the Xiang Army established by Zeng Guofan is actually the army of the warlords, as I said earlier, the management mode of the Xiang Army. And Chiang Kai-shek is nominally Sun Yat-sen's successor, and the Three People's Principles are also the program of the Kuomintang, but we all know that Chiang Kai-shek is actually a dictatorial warlord, a person who represents the landlord class, and he has always emphasized that the military generals of the whole country are loyal to him, so he and Zeng Guofan are essentially the same kind of people, so it is not surprising that he elevated Zeng Guofan.
Second, some people say that the instructors have also been obedient to Zeng Guofan's thoughts, saying that "foolishness to the neighbors, serving Zeng Wenzheng alone", but we turn back the time to see, the teacher said this sentence when it was 1917, when he was only 24 years old, still studying at the Hunan First Normal School, and most college students, just graduated from college, many roads have just begun, saying this kind of words is normal. However, many books that praise Zeng Guofan print this sentence of the teacher on the front page of the book, so as to prove that Zeng Guofan is indeed the first person in the ancient world, and by the way, increase his own sales. In fact, what more people don't know is that later the teachers said a sentence: "Zeng Guofan is the most powerful figure in the landlord class, Zeng Guofan is a figure who has left his own influence in many ways, and the so-called moral article crowns the generation, and is the last political idol of China's feudal dictatorship class."
Third, many people now also tout Zeng Guofan as a perfect person in order to win eyeballs, and many public knowledge also praise him, just for the sake of traffic. They touted Zeng Guofan just as they had blown up Chiang Kai-shek and the Republic of China a few years ago.
Objectively speaking, Zeng Guofan, as one of the four powerful ministers in the late Qing Dynasty, is also the most qualified one, Li Hongzhang is his student, Zuo Zongtang has worked with him, and there are other people he promoted, and some of these people have appeared who have done things for the country. In the process of suppressing the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, he did have merit in the Qing court, and some of his diaries are indeed worthy of reference by others. However, he was indeed an executioner, corrupt and traitorous, and he did not do it, nor did he do it, nor did he have military ability. If such a person is the first perfect person in the ages, then such a perfect person is too cheap, I think, if you are reading the article, if you were born in that era, you can also do better than him!
Reference historical materials:
The Biography of Zeng Guofan
Draft History of the Qing Dynasty
"Zeng Wenzheng Gongjia Book"
"The Traitor Executioner Zeng Guofan"
"Zeng Wenzheng's Handwritten Diary"
The Complete Works of Zeng Guofan