Zeng Guofan and Zeng Guoquan brothers, although one person said "Zeng shaved his head" and the other called "Zeng Iron Barrel", zeng Guoquan's shaved head was not inferior to Zeng Guofan.
In order to "become holy", although Zeng Guofan also led his troops to fight, he still had his own bottom line, but Zeng Guoquan was difficult to talk about what bottom line he could talk about, and when he went to the battlefield, it was called a fierce, and perhaps it was precisely because of this that he could become a member of the Xiang Army.
However, although Zeng Guoquan can be called a fierce general, it is difficult to be called a famous general, why? Because his military command level is not very clever, he can be called "Zeng Iron Barrel" is not to say how capable he is, but because he likes to use the dull tactics of digging trenches to besiege the other side's cities, like iron barrels.
In addition to being ruthless, Zeng Guoquan's troops were particularly greedy.
For the soldiers under their command, if you fight a war, you can live today, not necessarily live past tomorrow, why don't you take advantage of the fact that you are alive to fish a little more?
For Zeng Guoquan, letting the soldiers under his command covet money, or even rob them, is to stimulate their combat effectiveness and buy their hearts, of course, Zeng Guoquan himself is also greedy.
In 1864, the person who surrounded Tianjing City was Zeng Guoquan, who blew open the wall of Tianjing City, and it was Zeng Guoquan who attacked Tianjing City.
Zeng Guofan once tried to let Zeng Guoquan train the "Huai Army", but Zeng Guoquan saw that the Tianjing would be broken and was reluctant to leave, so the matter of training the army fell to Li Hongzhang's head.
It has been 14 years since the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom began in Guangxi and Yang in Guangxi until 1864, and the Qing Dynasty was exhausted at the same time, but also hated the Gang of "bandits" of Hong and Yang, at this time Zeng Guoquan attacked Tianjing, which was definitely a monstrous feat, so he had been waiting for the Reward of the Qing Government.
However, Zeng Guoquan not only did not get the benefits he imagined, but he was also scolded, why?
Because after capturing Tianjing, when reporting to the Qing government, they said that the "holy treasury" of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was empty and had no money, and then in order to ask for credit, before they could capture the young heavenly king Hong Tianguifu and did not see Hong Tianguifu's body, they actually said that Hong Tianguifu was dead, and it did not take long before he was beaten in the face.
At that time, few people in the court believed Zeng Guoquan's statement, Hong Xiuquan had been occupying Jiangnan for more than ten years, scavenging countless times, and you actually said that Sheng curry had no money? Of course no one believed it.
Not only did the Qing government not believe it, but the people didn't believe it either, and who didn't know how greedy Zeng Guoquan and his troops were?
What is the impression or perception of Zeng Guoquan?
"Every gram of a city, play a triumphant song, must take a leave of absence to go home once, quite in order to ask Tian tian to give up self-obscurity", not to mention that he went home to buy a field and a house after winning the battle, but it is obvious that he made a lot of money through the war.
Therefore, after he conquered the old lair of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, he actually said that Hong Xiuquan's Saint Curry had no money? Who believes?
Li Boyuan of the Qing Dynasty recorded in the Notes of the Southern Pavilion:
"Zeng Zhongxiang was the younger brother of Wen Zhenggong, attacked Jinling and destroyed it, searched for the enemy, and entered the Heavenly King's Palace... Wen Zhongxiang received tens of millions of dollars in this. Wherever the cover is, it is also where the cellar is located. In addition to a few retributions, the rest are at home. ”
This is the view of the people of the time about what Zeng Guoquan did after he attacked Tianjing, and under the banner of "searching for the enemy", he scavenged for money in Tianjing and the Heavenly King's Mansion, and although he "obtained tens of millions of dollars", he only handed over a small part to the Qing government, and most of them were transported back to his home.
Even if the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom itself has already consumed a lot, maybe Zeng Guoquan has not gained tens of millions or even hundreds of millions, but Tianjing is after all the taiping Heavenly Kingdom's powerful gathering place, adding up the cash and other finances, there can be a few million, right?
Therefore, Zeng Guoquan's money in Tianjing was definitely quite a lot, but the amount reported to the imperial court was small.
Zeng Guoquan as the manager is still like this, where can the people under his hands be clean? After they entered Tianjing, of course, they were also busy making a fortune!
In their opinion, you once ate meat in an iron bucket and ate it with a mouth full of oil, so you have to give us a mouthful of soup, right?
What's more, Zeng Guoquan was still in arrears with the salaries of his own soldiers and soldiers at that time, and if he did not give money or promises, he might mutiny, how did he give it later? Let them go into town and grab it.
Therefore, as soon as Zengbu entered the Tianjing City, he was like a robber who entered the people's home and frantically snatched it up. At first, they stared at the Taiping Army to rob, and then after robbing the Taiping Army, they felt that it was easy to get rich by robbing like this, so they couldn't control it and turned their target to the people.
As for the Taiping Army, they robbed when they wanted, and killed when they wanted.
The same is true of the common people, who are covered in corpses and bleeding under the adulterous captivity of the Xiang Army.
Since then, Zeng Guoquan's name of "old food" has spread all over the world.
Zeng Guofan originally wanted to use his exploits to conquer Tianjing City to go to a higher level in his career, but who knew that because of his greed and connivance of his subordinates, he was repulsed by the Qing government and the Manchu Qing council, and the official was not promoted, but was replaced by the later Li Hongzhang.
It's really time to be alive.
Once the "bandits" were destroyed, the Xiang army was finally treated by cunning rabbits and lackeys, and was forced to be dismissed, and the Zeng brothers no longer had the possibility of supporting the soldiers and respecting themselves.
However, the zeng shaved head and the old food brothers also got a good death, and the shaved head became a "semi-saint", and there was also mourning after the death of the old man.