He was regarded by Japanese Prime Minister Itō Hirobumi as "the only person in the Qing Empire who had the ability to compete with the world's powers", empress dowager Cixi regarded him as "the person who recreated Xuanhuang", and together with Zeng Guofan, Zhang Zhidong and Zuo Zongtang, he was called the "four famous ministers of ZTE", and together with Bismarck and Grant, he was called "the three great men of the world in the nineteenth century", and with these honorary titles is the protagonist of our article - Li Hongzhang.
When it comes to Li Hongzhang, I have to say that he formed the Huai Army. When the situation in Shanghai became more and more dangerous, Zeng Guopan, after being rejected by Zeng Guoquan and Chen Shijie, thought of his proud disciple Li Hongzhang, and in the face of this endgame, Li Hongzhang not only did not refuse, but also gladly accepted, which was also an important matter for him to enter the political stage of history.
So, after Li Hongzhang came to Shanghai, where he was not familiar with life, how did he gain a firm foothold in front of the earth head snake? Not only because Zeng Guopan taught him by example, but also because of his own wisdom and strategy.
After the Taiping Army broke through the Jiangnan camp, it meant that the Qing government lost its last main force in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and many people were forced to flee to such as Shanghai, which was already an isolated island in this chaotic world. In order to avoid the disaster, the gentry in Shanghai all united together, while preparing for the "Sino-foreign National Defense Bureau", eager to protect Shanghai through Western mercenaries, and at the same time sent representatives to Anqing to seek zeng Guopan's help, hoping that Zeng Guopan could send troops to support Shanghai.
Faced with the bitter pleas of the Shanghai deputies and the fact that the Shanghai delegates said that Shanghai could raise 600,000 taels of money per month, Zeng Guopan decided to send troops to support Shanghai. Then, who to send to clean up the mess in Shanghai is also a question. Zeng Guopan's original crush was Zeng Guoquan, but Zeng Guofan rejected Zeng Guopan because he wanted to capture Tianjing and then make the first contribution; therefore, Zeng Guopan thought of Chen Shijie, a general in the Xiang Army, but Zeng Guopan was again rejected, and Chen Shijie claimed that he wanted to take care of his elderly mother.
After Zeng Guopan thought about it for a while, he thought of his proud protégé, Li Hongzhang, and to Zeng Guopan's surprise, Li Hongzhang gladly agreed, so with the joint efforts of Zeng Guopan and Li Hongzhang, the Huai Army was formed. Before Li Hongzhang led the Huai army to Shanghai, Zeng Guopan once told him in a serious and long voice: Be faithful in your words, be respectful in your deeds, be defensive and not suppress, and first alienate yourself before you kiss. This played an important role in Li Hongzhang's ability to gain a firm foothold in chaotic Shanghai.
Zeng Guopan
When Li Hongzhang led the Huai army to Shanghai, the Shanghai gentry who had been waiting for it day and night were disappointed, because the temporarily formed Huai army was inevitably a little weak and shabby. However, in the face of many people's doubts, Zeng Guopan did not deny himself, but put down his bold words - "The military can fight, and we will break the enemy and deter them." And he knew better than anyone that the imminent battle was the most important battle he could shock Shanghai.
At that time, shanghai's real power was in the hands of the land snakes headed by Xue Huan, the governor of Jiangsu, and Wu Xu, the governor of Shanghai, which meant that it was extremely difficult for Li Hongzhang to allocate some silver from them to enrich the army. But Li Hongzhang always remembered Zeng Guopan's teaching to him - first ask for military affairs, and then discuss localities. Everything is difficult at the beginning, and the difficulty is in order first.
After Li Hongzhang arrived in Shanghai, he was idle for a moment, and he soon discovered the importance of foreign guns and cannons to the Huai Army. Therefore, during the period of intense training and preparation of the Huai Army, he put part of his energy on supervising military exercises, and all the remaining energy was spent on purchasing foreign guns and cannons for the Huai Army as much as possible. However, reality did not give him more time to prepare for this war, and as Li Xiucheng's army pressed forward step by step, Li Hongzhang's pressure to train first and then fight became more and more intense.
At this time, Zeng Guopan's phrase "will prevent and will not suppress" came in handy, which was like a reassuring pill for Li Hongzhang. Li Hongzhang knew that at this time, the Huai army did not have the ability to fight, so he could only let the victorious army in Shanghai resist the Taiping Army, and let the Huai army have more time to prepare. In short, until it is necessary to go to war, it is absolutely impossible to take out the Huai Army to the battlefield!
On June 17, 1862, this day was the moment when a war must be fought, and when fighting a war, Li Hongzhang naturally would not be ambiguous, because all the previous retreats were for the sake of this moment's accumulation and fame, and then gained a foothold in Shanghai. Therefore, when the Battle of Hongqiao between the Huai Army and the Taiping Army broke out, Li Hongzhang personally went to supervise the battle.
He had a Western-style chair moved, and he sat at the head of the Hongqiao Bridge himself, making a death order: only allowed to attack, not to retreat. The Emperor Did Not Pay Off, the long-sharpened sword of the Huai Army came out of its sheath, Li Xiucheng could not attack, defeated and retreated, and Li Hongzhang became famous in a battle.
Now that the military has been completed, it is time to talk about the place. Zeng Guopan and Li Hongzhang agreed that although Xue Huan was the inspector of Jiangsu, he was hanging in Shanghai, so he was not a real Shanghai land snake. Although Wu Xu's official position was not as high as Xue Huan's, he held all the key points of Shanghai's real power, so he was the real land snake.
The titular land snake Xue Huan was quite easy to deal with, and after easily taking his position as inspector, he did not kill him, but placed him in an unimportant position, so that he would not pose a threat to the Huai army, and he could also usher in the merit of being able to accommodate his predecessors for Li Hongzhang.
For the real ground snake Wu Xu, we have to think about it in the long run. The first step for Li Hongzhang is to paralyze the other party and gain the trust of the other party. Therefore, after his master Zeng Guopan cut down Wu Xu's official position, Li Hongzhang came to act as this good man, restored Wu Xu's official position, and reused him. Sure enough, Wu Xu was still the arrogant, blind, and never considered the consequences of doing things, he thought that Li Hongzhang would not help him, but this time he really underestimated Li Hongzhang.
After Li Hongzhang was given the title of Inspector, he issued an instruction -- in the future, the customs will be divided into two revenues, and Wu Xu will no longer be responsible for the revenue of the customs, but only responsible for the customs revenue. And Wu Xu, who has been embezzling public funds, is not used to this kind of tight life for a while, so he can only use his hands and feet on the accounts, and as everyone knows, this is a pit dug by Li Hongzhang, and he is deliberately waiting for him to jump into it.
One night, Li Hongzhang deliberately drank with Wu Xu as a brother and a brother, and pretended to be drunk, asking him: Whether there is a deficit in the accounts, you tell me truthfully, after I know, I can think of countermeasures and cover up for you. Wu Xu also really believed in the person in front of him, so he showed him the accounts, until Li Hongzhang brought the accounts back, claiming that he would be drunk and looking for time to study it carefully, wu Xu realized that he was really defeated, and defeated completely, unable to turn over.
I think that at the last moment, Wu Xu realized that Li Hongzhang was actually a fierce character. Because the fierce knife directly stabbed over, people will avoid or even resist, but the small knife gently cuts the flesh, and people can only endure under excessive panic. For Li Hongzhang's series of handling methods in Shanghai, I can only sigh - blue is better than blue!
Text/Yu Xin