As the saying goes, "Someone in the DPRK is a good official," and if a bureaucrat wants his career to be smooth, there must be appreciators and promoters behind him, which is the unspoken rule of the officialdom in the feudal era. But where the power lies, the vortex is. It is not uncommon in history for officials to be involved in power struggles at the top and even become victims. Therefore, there is a lot of wisdom in how to deal with the relationship between oneself and the top level.
Zeng Guofan was a famous courtier in the late Qing Dynasty, and whether he was praised by posterity for learning, for officials or for people, especially for officials, he could be described as scheming and calculating, the city government was extremely deep, and he never fell into a high-level power struggle.
During Zeng Guofan's tenure as an official in Beijing, his career path was very smooth. In 1838, he was promoted to cabinet scholar and ceremonial attendant in 1847, and in the next four years he was promoted to the rank of military, worker, criminal, and ceremonial attendant, and was moved seven times in ten years, and was promoted to seven levels in a row. At such a speed, even he himself was quite proud, saying that "there is not a single person in hunan thirty-seven to two products in this dynasty."
Of course, the reason why Zeng Guofan was able to be promoted so quickly was related to his own hard work and ability and the prestige of Shilin, but there was also someone behind him, he was Mu Zhang'a, a powerful minister of the Daoguang Dynasty.
Mu Zhang'a was a cabinet scholar and chief military minister, he was extremely good at playing with power, and the history books said that he was "a protégé who was a protégé and a former official all over the world, and many well-known people were quoted, and he was once called Mu Dang." ”
The light lineage of Zeng Guofan and Mu Zhang'a originated from the 1838 Pengshu Branch Examination, the main examination of this subject was Mu Zhang'a, Zeng Guo's examination was a jinshi, according to the rules of the Qing Dynasty officialdom, he naturally became Mu Zhang'a's protégé. After the 1843 Hanzhan Examination, Mu Zhang'a was the chief examiner, and this examination also became a first-class official opportunity for Zeng Guofan.
Prior to this, Zeng Guofan had been a reviewer of the Hanlin Academy, and his grade had not moved for many years, and it was this big examination, under the promotion of Mu Zhang'a, who was promoted almost every year, and within five years, from a Hanlin of the Seven Pins, he jumped to become a member of the Erpin Sect, which corresponded to the saying that "there are people in the DPRK who are good officials".
However, Zeng Guofan's cleverness lies in the fact that he relies on Mu Zhang'a but is not a true member of the Mu Party. Zeng Guofan had always flaunted Cheng Zhu Lixue, and he was deeply disgusted by the atmosphere of the Daoguang Dynasty, and on many issues, he even contradicted Mu Zhang'a's political views, such as his different views on the treatment of Lin Zexu by the Daoguang Emperor in the Opium War, although this disposition was manipulated by Mu Zhang'a.
Therefore, during the Daoguang Dynasty, Zeng Guofan and Mu Zhang'a always maintained a looming distance, and this appropriate distance also put himself in a favorable situation. After Xianfeng ascended the throne, he liquidated Mu Zhang'a's party, but Zeng Guofan was not implicated in any way.
Zeng Guofan had a similar experience with another powerful courtier, Sushun of the Xianfeng Dynasty. Sushun was very favored by the Xianfeng Emperor, especially in the late Xianfeng Dynasty, Sushun's power was getting bigger and bigger, and he formed a political group with Zaiyuan the Prince of Yi and Duanhua the Prince of Zheng, who were also from the imperial family, on the one hand, to exclude and combat dissidents, and on the other hand, to pay attention to the han people.
Zeng Guofan was the person that SuShun tried his best to win over, and Sushun was very concerned about the political force of the Xiangjun clique. In fact, Sushun did have a very delicate relationship with the Xiangjun clique. He often expressed his affection for Zeng Guofan, Hu Linyi, and others, and Sushun also played a great role in Zeng Guofan's appointment as the governor of Liangjiang.
However, Zeng Guofan's cleverness lies in the fact that he did not throw himself into Sushun's arms at once because of Sushun's overtures. On the contrary, he was extremely sensitive to the political situation, and only maintained an indirect connection with Sushun through Guo Songtao and others.
Therefore, when Sushun fell after the coup d'état of Xin You, and Empress Dowager Cixi took power to thoroughly investigate the Party, she found that many ministers from the government and the opposition had contacts with Sushun, but Zeng Guofan had no paper connection with Sushun, so that Empress Dowager Cixi repeatedly sighed and called Zeng Guofan "the first righteous person".
Interestingly, after the fall of Sushun, Cixi, who held great power, had more trust in Zeng Guofan, causing him to supervise the military affairs of the four provinces, and the civil and military officials below him were restrained. As a result, after the fall of Sushun, Zeng Guofan's position was not only not affected in any way, but his power reached its peak.
For the feudal officialdom, it is not just an unspoken rule that someone in the DPRK is good to be an official, but it contains extremely profound skills, and those who rise up according to people can also fall according to people, which is a dialectical relationship and a law in the official field. Zeng Guofan's practice of "one set on the surface, one set behind the scenes", although sometimes it seems not thick enough, is the survival law for officials.