Wen | columnist of Red Fish and Blue Fish Chopping Wood Academy
Edited | Mijiu
Zeng Guofan's life was too controversial and too much infamy. Some say he is the "reincarnation of a python"! "Shaved your head"! "Traitor"! "Traitor"!
However, there is not a single invective that can negate his exploits.
Mao Zedong said: "Give it to your neighbors, serve Zeng Wenzheng alone, and watch him clean up the Battle of Hong Yang and be perfect."
On Chiang Kai-shek's case, there is also a copy of the Complete Works of Zeng Wenzheng, and he also loves Zeng Guofan alone and regards him as a spiritual leader.
Zeng Guofan has become a favorite "fragrant feast".
He has many qualities to learn from, especially his foresight that changed his life's destiny.
In 1811, Zeng Guofan was born into a peasant family.
From the last years of the Song Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, in five or six hundred years, his ancestors did not produce a single talent.
When I arrived at my grandfather Zeng Yuping, I suddenly realized that it was better to have money than to have a meritorious name. His father, Zeng Linshu, was only forty-three years old when he won Xiucai, so Zeng Guofan became the biggest expectation of the Zeng family.
Zeng Guofan also experienced six scientific expeditions, but all failed. He was stupid, and he was born with that kind.
There is a joke circulating in the countryside of Hunan. When Zeng Guofan was a child, he studied very hard, and if he did not memorize an article, he would not sleep.
As a result, one evening, when he was reciting the "Record of Yueyang Lou", a thief came and hid on the beam of the room, wanting to wait until he slept before doing it. As a result, I did not expect that Zeng Guofan could not memorize this text, the thief slept on the beam of the room twice, and when he woke up, zeng Guofan was still carrying it there.
The thief really couldn't bear it, jumped off the beam, pointed at Zeng Guofan's nose, and scolded: "As stupid as you are, what other books are you reading?" You listen to me recite it to you! ”
With that, the thief carried a "Record of Yueyang Lou" from the beginning to the end. Then, angrily, he slammed the door and flew away, leaving Zeng Guofan stunned in the room.
Zeng Guofan also had self-knowledge, and heaven did not give him a clever brain. However, like his grandfather, he has a natural "stubbornness". He didn't break the jar and break it.
He once said: "The world is the most clumsy, and it can overcome the world's most skillful." ”
Clumsy looks slow, but the foundation is firmly laid, and the house is built taller than others.
What is rare is that he is stupid and not roundabout, knows how to reflect on himself, and learns from his failures.
He found that the previous articles lacked spirituality, lacked the penetration of the overall situation and the overall momentum.
Therefore, he has targeted efforts on the overall situation and momentum of the article, and this change has made his scientific expedition road smooth.
Reading his article and knowing his people, the change of the article also had a profound impact on his life pattern.
Zeng Guofan, who had just arrived in Beijing, had not read any books.
He's all been a hitch, so why do you say that?
In fact, what Zeng Guofan had read before was basically test-taking textbooks, and there was no collection of books at home. It is precisely because of this that Zeng Guofan, who first arrived in the capital, was particularly vulgar from temperament to concept.
In 1939, when Zeng Guofan was admitted to the middle school and returned to his hometown, he visited a reading house in the countryside of Hunan and saw many books that he had not read. So Zeng Guofan sighed in his diary: "Heavy rain lives in the Jiang family." Jiang has a collection of books. Books that I have not seen in the day of reading Yu, there are "Jianbao Collection", "Gui zhenchuan ancient text", Zhongbo Yanxuan "Han Wei series" and various miscellaneous books. ”
Among them, "Gui Zhen Chuan Ancient Text" was a very common book at that time, even Xiucai had read it, but Zeng Guofan had not read it, and this matter had a great impact on him.
Zeng Guofan often introspected himself in his diary, and he decided to change himself and calm down to study well.
When he read Wang Yangming, he realized that the most important thing in the world was not to study and become an official, but to be a sage.
He read Fan Zhongyan, Han Qi, Sima Qian, and Han Yu and found that being a saint is not unattainable, as long as he can make real efforts and work hard step by step, he can also reach the height of a saint.
So, at the age of thirty, he decided to be reborn and aspired to be a "saint."
What is a saint is to realize the heavenly principles through diligent study and asceticism, and to grasp the laws of the operation of all things under the heavens. In this way, his every move is inappropriate, and he can govern the country through the state and benefit the people. This is also the famous "meritorious and moral speech" in the history of Zeng Guofan.
When it comes to doing it, he quickly puts it into action. He made a daily study plan, of which writing a journal was the most important one.
By keeping a diary, he maintains his lucidity and progress over time.
Some people say that the road to success is not crowded, because there are not many people who insist, and Zeng Guofan is one of the few people who persevere.
When many people are dreaming of becoming rich, he has formulated a blueprint for life.
It was this lofty ideal that played a decisive role in his life like a beacon.
Zeng Guofan is a person with low emotional intelligence but high ideals.
So his character, in the official arena, is destined to be difficult. Although he ranked second in the rank of secretary of state, as Wang Meng said: When he became a minister, he knew that the official was small.
He was very disgusted by the corruption of the imperial court, so he wanted to resign his official position and go home many times. However, he was too poor and in debt to pay for the journey home.
Because of the low salary system of officials in the Qing Dynasty, if the officials were not greedy, it was a job that lost money, and the capital had a large expenditure and low income, so if they were not greedy, they could only borrow money.
Zeng Guofan was a clean and honest official, and in the relevant materials, posterity did not find any record of him seeking personal gain.
Later, when Daoguang died and Xianfeng ascended the throne, Zeng Guofan thought he saw hope.
He painstakingly wrote a letter entitled "Ying Zhao Chen Yan Shu", bluntly speaking about the ills of the official field of the dynasty. He also pointed out the problem of the army, and he believed that social unrest and the use of troops everywhere should be the top priority of the state. However, the army of the current dynasty was bloated and scattered, and its combat effectiveness was not good.
Later, he also went to the "Preparation of Chen Folk Diseases and Hardships". The "three major ills" of the people were proposed. He stressed that this is related to the ruling basis of the Qing Dynasty, and if it cannot be solved one by one with all efforts, then the world will soon be in chaos.
The problems pointed out in these recitals all reflect the depth and precision of his understanding of the current situation.
As early as Daoguang in 1844, Zeng Guofan predicted that there would be chaos in the world, but unfortunately Daoguang and Xianfeng were not smart, and they did not take Zeng Guofan's performance seriously.
However, Zeng Guofan's prediction was quickly verified, and soon after Xianfeng succeeded to the throne, the Taiping Rebellion broke out.
At that time, Zeng Guofan was on his way to Jiangxi to become the chief examiner.
He would have been able to go home in a few days. But at this time, the bad news of the death of the mother came.
When Zeng Guofan received the news, he was devastated and fainted several times. He had been away from home for fourteen years, and he had never returned home to visit his relatives in the middle, and he did not expect that Providence would make people, and it was yin and yang to meet again.
This time, Zeng Guofan was completely tired, he was disappointed in the officialdom, and he decided to stay in the shadows of the mountains and forests and concentrate on studying and learning.
Coincidentally, the Taiping Army marched north, and the Xianfeng Emperor ordered officials from all over the country to organize "regimental training", and Zeng Guofan, as a registered official, also received orders. Originally, Zeng Guofan did not intend to go out of the mountain.
However, his friend Guo Songtao woke him up: Aren't you going to be a saint? Isn't that an opportunity?
Therefore, Zeng Guofan came out of the mountains, not only for the country, but also for learning to be a saint, so that the entire Chinese civilization will not be destroyed.
In fact, many people may not know that the Taiping Army is not a benevolent and righteous master, and wherever they go, they will sweep away thousands of years of etiquette, righteousness, poetry and classics. Zeng Guofan was well aware of this, and he said in "Seeking The Cantonese Bandits": "This strange change of the Great Qing Dynasty is a strange change in the famous religion since its opening, and I Confucius and Mencius suffered from jiuyuan." ”
Therefore, if the Taiping Army wins, it will be the disaster of Chinese civilization. Even the Qing army could not collapse, so how could the "regimental training" resist the Taiping Army?
Therefore, Zeng Guofan and the Qing government fought sloppily, and in the name of "regimental training", he built a brand-new team, and he injected conscience and soul into the Xiang army, in order to become the last barrier after the defeat of the Qing army.
Sure enough, the Qing government's army collapsed, and the Xiang army played a huge role in suppressing the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement.
This is a far-sighted team, and the emergence of the Xiang Army has changed the life of Zeng Guofan and the direction of the whole of China.
Only when a person looks far ahead, he will keep pace with the times, can he see the puzzle clearly, and can also make people break through the weaknesses of human nature and take precautions.
Zeng Guofan's steadfastness, choice, persistence, and change are related to his vision beyond ordinary people.
After the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was pacified, Zeng Guofan was still making longer-term plans for China.
He ran foreign affairs and shipyards, and he advocated diplomacy with "sincerity" and also put forward the idea of "mastering the art of the master and the art of the master". In the eyes of modern people, it is very advanced.
He also did a particularly bizarre thing. It is funded by the Qing government to send international students to the United States to study, when the international students with dreams and expectations, the scene of boarding the ship, I am afraid that even people now feel spectacular.
This may be Zeng Guofan's hope for the future, he wants to exchange the growth of talents for the progress of the country, but unfortunately, the building will fall, and the torrent of history is finally too strong.
Zeng Guofan became the last navigator of the Qing Dynasty.
Although the Qing Dynasty collapsed, the spirit of Zeng Guofan was timeless and worth learning from each and every one of us.
The typography | hurried
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