On November 2, 1861, Empress Dowager Cixi joined forces with Prince Gong Yishi to launch a coup d'état of Xin You, which removed the eight ministers from power. Among them, sushun, the prince of Yi, and Duanhua, the prince of Zheng, who advocated the reuse of the Han people, were sentenced to capital punishment. Although Empress Dowager Cixi killed Sushun, she inherited many of his good policies, the most important of which was the reuse of Han Chen.
Zeng Guofan
Empress Dowager Cixi had already heard about Zeng Guofan's ability, and she decided to entrust the overall situation of the southeast to Zeng Guofan. When the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom that swept the world was finally sent to the "Kingdom of Heaven" by the Xiang Army, as the commander of the Xiang Army, Zeng Guofan stepped into the peak of his life, and at the same time, he also stood at a crossroads in his life.
At this time, Zeng Guofan was already the governor of Liangjiang, the minister of Chincha, and the assistant university scholar, holding the military power of the four anointed provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, and Jiangxi, and was the first of the officials in Xinjiang. His protégés were also all over the world, and three of the eight governors of the country were from the Xiang Army, and seven of the fifteen inspectors were his disciples or close to him. It can be said that as long as Zeng Guofan stomped his feet at this time, an earthquake would occur in the Great Qing Kingdom. He wanted to replace Manchu Ai Shinjue Roche, and it wasn't a difficult thing to think about.
At that time, Zeng Guofan's strength was fully capable of competing with the Qing government, and the combat effectiveness of the Xiang army under him was much stronger than that of the Eight Banner Soldiers who carried caged birds, and the Green Battalion soldiers of the Han people were not his opponents. If Zeng Guofan had raised the banner of anti-Qing, the Qing Dynasty would probably have collapsed 50 years in advance, and China would have become the world's number one power.
Zeng Guofan pacified the Taiping Army, which had already occupied half of Jiangnan at that time, and Wang Minyun pointed out two paths:
First, to march into Beijing with troops, affirm that the curtain is against the ancestral system, and please take care of your orders;
Second, in the southeast, raise up righteousness and be the master of all the people. Zuo Zongtang and Peng Yulin also advised Zeng to oppose the Qing, or to be Cao Cao.
If there were no soldiers to oppose the Xiang army after the Manchu Qing, and the Eight Banners were all waste, it can be seen from the Wuchang uprising that the army of the Wuchang uprising came from the Xiang army and the Huai army system, and the civilian party was also composed of the old department of the Xiang army and the Huai army, and if the Manchu Qing were to oppose the Manchu Qing, there would be no more finances or troops against the Xiang army.
Legend has it that Zeng Guoquan, Zuo Zongtang, Peng Yulin and Bao Chao, the four top figures, once had a conspiracy in Xuanwu Lake in Nanjing, known as the Xuanwu Lake Conference. Later, Zeng Guoquan led more than thirty senior generals of the Xiang Army to meet Zeng Guofan. Zeng Guofan knew the intentions of his brother and his generals, so he resigned. When everyone saw that Grand Marshal Zeng refused to come out to meet him, they were even more excited, and repeatedly let people go into the inner house to invite them. But no matter how please, Zeng Guofan was determined not to come out to see everyone. Later, after a stalemate for half a day, Zeng Guofan asked people to send a pair of couplets out. It is said that after everyone saw this couplet, some sighed, some shook their heads, some sighed, and even some people burst into tears. Finally, Zeng Guoquan said a sentence: "Everyone should not talk about anything more, today's matter must not be mentioned again, there are any branches, I have been the old nine one people to take care of it." With that, the crowd dispersed. So, what kind of couplet did Zeng Guofan write that could make these generals who wanted to support his rebellion disperse willingly? This couplet is very famous. The upper link is "relying on the sky to illuminate the sea flowers innumerable", and the lower link is "flowing water and mountain heart self-knowledge"!
Zeng Guofan's couplet said that he was determined not to rebel, and he also made the reason for not rebelling very clearly, that is, I had the persistence in my own heart, the realm of my own life, and those gorgeous scenes like "countless flowers" were not tempting to me.