Zeng Guofan thought of a stupid way for abstinence, which ordinary people can't do? Zeng Guofan is very self-disciplined, why is he still scolding himself in his diary?
Since ancient times, those who can achieve great things have been very demanding on themselves. Zeng Guofan, a famous minister of the Qing Dynasty, in order to devote his limited life to the infinite struggle of life, was very strict with himself, and even harsh to the point of inhumanity. In order to standardize his behavior, Zeng Guofan insisted on writing a diary to achieve the purpose of three provinces and one body in one day.
Zeng Guofan was born into a landlord family, diligent and studious since childhood, and entered the school at the age of 6. At the age of 8, he can read four books and recite the Five Classics, and at the age of 14, he can read the "Zhou Li" and "Historical Records" anthology. In the eighteenth year of Daoguang (1838), he entered the Hanlin Academy and was a protégé of Mu Zhang'a, the Minister of Military Aircraft. The Cabinet of Ministers, the Ceremonial Attendant, the Officer, the Engineer, the Criminal, and the Bureaucratic Attendant. When the Taiping Army was revived, Zeng Guofan returned to his hometown to form the Xiang Army, confronted the Tianbing, and after many years of fighting, he finally became famous, and was called "Zeng Hu" with Hu Linyi, and "four famous ministers of late Qing Zhongxing" with Li Hongzhang, Zuo Zongtang, and Zhang Zhidong.
Throughout his life, Zeng Guofan took patience as the first priority in his administration, advocating that everything should be diligent and thrifty, and should not be proud of officials. He cultivated himself and disciplined himself, sought officials with virtue, put etiquette first, and sought government with loyalty, which made him a great success in the official arena. Moreover, he was the first celebrity in Chinese history to write about his abstinence experience in his diary.
The reason why Zeng Guofan wanted to abstain from sex was closely related to his way of dealing with the world. In the early years, Zeng Guofan formulated the "Thirteen Principles of Self-Cultivation" for himself: the Lord's Respect, Meditation, Getting Up Early, Reading The Truth, Reading History, Speaking Carefully, Nourishing Qi, Self-Preservation (Abstinence, Labor Saving, Diet), Writing a Diary, Knowing The Death of the Day (Remembering The Tea And Occasional Talks Every Day, Dividing the Virtue Discipline, the Learning Gate, the Economic Discipline, and the Art Gate), The Moon Has Forgetting Ability (composing several poems every month to test the number of accumulated reasons, and the prosperity of nourishing qi), writing (where the pen and ink are rewarded, as their own homework, personally doing it), and not going out at night (exhausting themselves, and being vigilant).
Among them, abstinence is one of the contents of "self-preservation". Confucius has said, "Eat color, sex also", and Zeng Guofan, who is in his prime, has tried his best to restrain his desires. Eventually, he discovered that keeping a journal was the best way to supervise. Zeng Guofan's first object of abstinence was his wife. Because Zeng Guofan was often entangled with his wife, he often did not leave much time to study, and in order to break free from the entanglement, he often alerted himself in his diary. It was under the vigilance of the diary that Zeng Guofan's angry heart suppressed his lingering heart, and eventually he spent more time on learning.
However, lust is difficult to prohibit. Heroes are sad about beauty, let alone a popular reader? In order to control his evil intentions caused by seeing other people's wives and concubines in other people's homes, Zeng Guofan also began to constantly warn himself in his diary. When he found that ordinary vigilance had no effect on him, Zeng Guofan would scold himself in his diary, and when he scolded him most severely, he even called himself a beast.