Zeng Guofan left two impressions on future generations:
One is the pillar of the late Qing Dynasty;
The second is the murderous "shaved head."
According to the records of the literature, after Zeng Guofan's Xiang army entered Tianjing, Zeng Guofan issued an order to slaughter the city, killing every person, and leaving no chickens and dogs. "The Battle of Jinling, the ambush of millions of corpses, Qin Huai's exhaustion; the sound of crying, shaking the four wildernesses."
Although the "million corpses" here are imaginary, there is no doubt that Zeng Guofan slaughtered at least half a million "long hairs" and the people of Nanjing. During the period when the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was at its strongest, the total population of the city of Nanjing exceeded one million. However, during the "census" of the year Guangxu ascended the throne, the population of Nanjing was only 400,000 people.
In "Zeng Guofan Recital", there are more:
"Two hundred and twenty-one old thieves." Every time a thief is caught, the intestines are cut, the trees are peeled and hung, and the stones are stoned, and all those who see them are frozen. ” "Each of them captured one hundred and thirty-four rebel bandits, and only gave the head of the tyrant enough to hate, and ordered him to be slaughtered." "Kill them to sacrifice the fallen soldiers in the trenches, and the brave men will cut their teeth in pain and fight for their flesh." "Ke Chengyi should kill more people, and should not fake mercy and mistake big things." "If you plot to destroy it, there is no reason to regret killing more!" ......
It is said that after Zeng Guofan burned the Tianjing City, not even a complete tree could be found in the whole of Nanjing, and after Li Hongzhang took over the Two Rivers, he gave the prediction that Nanjing would need a hundred years to recuperate before it could recover as before it was restored.
As a result, the name Zeng Guofan once became the nightmare of the people of Nanjing. It is said that after the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, whenever the children in Nanjing City cried at night, their parents would always scare the children with words such as "Zeng shaved his head and came", and as soon as the children heard zeng Guofan's notoriety, they would immediately stop crying and try a hundred spirits.
However, what is surprising is that in the eyes of the Western "barbarians", Zeng Guofan is not only not a frightening demon, but a kind and amiable "gentle East Asian". In the historical event of the "Tianjin Teaching Case", Zeng Guofan's "nest horizontal" face displayed by Zeng Guofan is really intriguing.
In 1870, because the French Catholic Church was suspected of abducting and mutilating babies, many Tianjin people attacked the church and asked foreigners for an explanation. At that time, more than fifty people, including priests, showgirls, expatriates, and believers, were killed, and the French consulate was burned to the ground by an angry crowd.
After this incident, Britain, the United States, and France jointly protested internationally and again used the navy to coerce the Qing court. The minister appointed by the Qing court to deal with this incident was None other than Zeng Guofan. The people of Tianjin City had thought that Lord Zeng would show an iron fist and Chinese as he had done when he pacified the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
Unexpectedly, Zeng Guofan had just arrived in Tianjin, and in the first negotiation, he decided to compensate the foreigners with 460,000 taels of silver and sent a delegation to apologize to France. What is even more chilling is that Zeng Guofan issued an order that "but the peace situation is quick, do not ask whether one of the crimes should be denied or not", no matter whether the circumstances are serious or not, the "Diao people" in Tianjin who participated in this riot were all arrested by officers and soldiers and sentenced to capital punishment.
Through this incident, the people of Tianjin Wei completely saw through Zeng Guofan's face and were greatly disappointed by him. In the eyes of many scholars of later generations, this historical incident was only a diplomatic mistake of Zeng Guofan. However, in the author's opinion, this is the inevitable manifestation of Zeng Guofan's "nest horizontal".
However, why was Zeng Guofan able to be praised in later generations? This is the effect of Zeng Guofan's Kung MengWang Dao and the Fa Family's hegemony.
All the means used by Zeng Guofan are essentially Xunzi's theories, that is, the organic combination of Confucianism and Dharma. For the internal, especially when the "sheep" rose up, Zeng Guofan showed that the means was to kill the ring, even at the expense of "ambushing millions of corpses". The reason why Zeng Guofan acted in this way was to refer to the Thinking of the Fa's "Chaotic World with Heavy Codes".
However, in foreign relations, Zeng Guofan instead began to display the "benevolent and righteous" side, taking the "way of Confucius and Mencius" as the benchmark everywhere. "Yiwu is difficult to deal with, but its fundamental is nothing more than Confucius's faithfulness and respect for the four characters", which is the core idea of Zeng Guofan to the outside world. Of course, this narrow concept is not the first creation of Zeng Guofan, but the old routine of "Huairou Yuanren".
In fact, Zeng Guofan was an out-and-out conservative faction, and many of the late Qing ministers, including him, could not break out of the circle of Confucianism and law, so they could not bring qualitative changes to old China. Just like Engels's prophecy for the late Qing Dynasty, many people of insight have seen that the Late Qing Dynasty is on the verge of extinction and hopeless.
In the Japanese document "The End of the World", the reasons why China's "Five Constants of Benevolence and Righteousness" cannot "recreate glory" are in-depth, and its views are quite sharp:
The history of the Qing Dynasty began in the Tao Yu period and lasts for forty centuries to this day. The reason why China was once famous was because Chinese attached great importance to benevolence and righteousness and the five constants. However, because the Qing Dynasty could not accept modern civilization in time, morality and wisdom gradually declined. Even so, the Qing people are still like frogs at the bottom of the well, dreaming of the Spring and Autumn Period of "heavenly kingdom", believing that everything in the Qing kingdom is stronger than foreign countries, which is the saddest point of the Qing kingdom.
What is obvious is that Japanese scholars have vividly analyzed the internal factors for the inability to revive the Qing Dynasty from the perspective of "bystander Qing". When the Manchu Qing Dynasty was unable to combine the two studies of Confucianism and Law with reality, it was bound to be "benevolent and not human, and the king's way was not king", and there was only one way to perish.
So, why do people today think that Zeng Guofan is known as a modern saint, and people who admire him abound?
First of all, it is concluded that Zeng Guofan is not a saint, and he cannot even touch the edges of a saint, and even if he is not a hero. The reason why Zeng Guofan is called a "saint" is because in ancient times there were so-called "three immortals", that is, the so-called "meritorious service and moral speech". From the standpoint of the Qing government, Zeng Guofan has done all three things.
At the end of Mr. Jin Yong's "Biography of the Eagle Shooter", a stupid boy named Guo Jing said something like this: "A hero who has come to be admired by the world and admired by future generations must be a person who benefits the people and loves the people." In my opinion, killing a lot of people is not necessarily a hero. ”
Resources:
【"Zeng Guofan", "The End of the World"】