As for which four of the four famous ministers of the late Qing Dynasty ZTE were specifically, there has always been no small controversy. Some think it is Zeng, Hu, Zuo, and Li, some think it is Zeng, Zuo, and Li Zhang, and many people think that Peng Yulin is also one.
But no matter which way of saying it is, Zeng, Zuo, and Li are all fixed, and as for the remaining one, is it Hu Linyi, Peng Yulin or Zhang Zhidong? This is to say that the public is reasonable and the wife is reasonable. However, Zuo Du Yushi insisted that it was Zhang Zhidong, and for such an argument, the exclusion method could be used.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > let's start with Hulin Wing</h1>
Hu Linyi came out of the official eunuch family, and his father Hu Dayuan was born into the jinshi, and the highest was the sipin jingtang. More importantly, Hu Linyi's father-in-law, Tao Shu, was a famous courtier during the Daoguang period and the official residence of the Viceroy of Liangjiang. With such a family background, Hu Linyi is naturally successful in the official arena.
After Hu Linyi entered the priesthood in the sixteenth year of Daoguang, he entered the Hanlin Academy as a Shu Jishi, and also served as the deputy chief examiner of the township examination, and within a few years he was mixed with the prefect. It should be said that at the beginning of Hu Linyi's entry into the army, he was more smooth than Zeng Guofan.
Hu Linyi was also the first of the Xiang army group to serve as an inspector, and in April of the fifth year of Xianfeng, Tao Enpei, the governor of Wuchang, was killed by the Taiping Army, and Hu Linyi was the governor of Hubei. At this time, although the Xiang army group had Zeng Guofan as the supreme commander, Zeng's title was only the rank of waiter, and he did not have local military and political power in his hands. Therefore, Hu Linyi served as the governor of Hubei and could cooperate and assist Zeng Guofan well.
In terms of seniority, Hu Linyi is also an elder figure in the Xiang Army group, and many generals in the Xiang Army have achieved fame under the recommendation of Hu Linyi, that is, Zuo Zongtang also benefited from Hu Linyi, and only then did he have a great future.
Like Zeng Guofan, Hu Linyi was not good at leading soldiers to fight, and his strength was in discovering talents and being able to recommend them to the imperial court regardless of previous suspicions. In addition, Hu Linyi had a gentle personality and was good at reconciling the contradictions between the Xiang Army and other factions, and was a mediator between Zeng Guofan and the local governor.
Later generations spoke highly of Hu Linyi, with Wang Minyun saying that he was "the cause of Zhongxing, the foundation of Hu"; Zeng Guofan commented on him: "Lin Yi's perseverance, the ability to reconcile the generals, and the talents of comprehensive verification are not caught by the subjects, but especially the fierceness of his advancement." ”
Unfortunately, Hu Linyi died too early, and soon after the Xiang army conquered Anqing, he died of illness. It can be imagined that if Hu Linyi had not died, after conquering Tianjing, he would have sat on an equal footing with Zeng Guofan. In this way, Hu Linyi can definitely be regarded as a famous courtier in the late Qing Dynasty.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="29" > let's talk about Peng Yulin</h1>
Peng Yulin is not from a science class, and the highest education is only a student. Moreover, he was much less senior than Zeng and Hu, and Peng Yulin's origins were entirely dependent on Zeng Guofan. Shortly after the formation of the Xiang Army, a water division was established, with Peng Yulin and Yang Zaifu as the commanders.
Throughout Peng Yulin's life, he was dealing with the Xiang Army's marine division, although he was one of the most important generals in the Xiang Army group, but he never entered the strategic decision-making level, and Zeng, Hu, Zuo, etc. were not an order of magnitude.
After the Xiang army conquered Tianjing, Peng Yulin proposed to the imperial court several times to resign, and Empress Dowager Cixi, in view of his hard work and high achievements, asked him to inspect the Yangtze River water division. In the seventh year of Guangxu, Peng Yulin was made the governor of Liangjiang, but he resigned forcefully, and the imperial court ordered him to be promoted to Bingbu Shangshu.
Peng Yulin was also a senior figure in the Xiangjun clique, especially his honesty for officials and his courage to ask for the people's lives, which was well received by later generations. However, in terms of its strength, it should not be enough to rank among the four famous ministers of ZTE.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="32" > finally Zhang Zhidong</h1>
Zhang Zhidong started very late, although his fame is not small, but he is not the same era as Zeng, Zuo and Li. Zhang Zhidong was in the second year of Tongzhi, at this time the Xiang Army had already trapped the Taiping Army in Tianjing, and Zhang Zhidong had just entered the army, obviously an unknown junior.
Moreover, we find that when Zhang Zhidong first entered the official field, his relationship with the Xiang Army and the Huai Army was not harmonious, and he belonged to one of the Qingliu leaders of Cixi's balance of the Xiang and Huai armies. When Zhang Zhidong was a young and vigorous official in Beijing, he did not have much experience, and often talked about Zeng, Zuo, Li and others.
It was not until the seventh year of Guangxu that Zhang Zhidong served as the governor of Shanxi and became a local feudal territory. At this time, Zhang Zhidong found that it was not easy to be a feudal official, and quickly changed from a theoretical school to a practical school.
Zhang Zhidong did not belong to the Xiangjun clique, nor was he the Huaijun clique, he had long served as the governor of Huguang, and had also formed his own political clique in Huguang, but it was obvious that in front of Zuo Zongtang and Li Hongzhang, he still had to be shorter.
Zhang Zhidong had no military merits, the greatest merit was to implement the Foreign Affairs Movement and help the imperial court implement the New Deal at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and after Li Hongzhang and Liu Kunyi, he became a representative of the Han bureaucracy, and in the last few years of the late Qing Dynasty, Zhang Zhidong's prestige reached its peak.
The above is a brief introduction to the biographies of Hu Linyi, Peng Yulin and Zhang Zhidong, and does not seem to give an accurate answer. So who can become one of the four famous ministers of the late Qing Dynasty?
There are two very important words here – ZTE. When we talk about the late Qing Dynasty ZTE, there must be a time node, the so-called "ZTE" can refer to "Tongzhi ZTE", but more refers to "Tongguang ZTE".
The time of Tongguang ZTE is very good, counting from the three years of Tongzhi to the capture of Tianjing, until the defeat of Jiawu, exactly thirty years. In the past three decades, the country has been basically stable, bureaucrats have sought prosperity and strength, the "foreign affairs movement" has been vigorous, Western technology, capital, and talents have been introduced, new-style naval and army forces have been trained, a large number of modern military enterprises, civilian enterprises, and new-style schools have been established, and overseas students have also begun to be sent overseas. This faction came to an abrupt end in the military fiasco of the Sino-Japanese War.
Therefore, we can first exclude Hu Linyi, because he died in the eleventh year of Xianfeng and did not catch up with "Tongguang Zhongxing"; secondly, we can exclude Peng Yulin, because he was never the leader of the Xiang Army, let alone participated in the major decisions of the imperial court.
Although he was not as senior as Zeng, Zuo, and Li, nor did he participate in the suppression of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Twist army uprising, he played a huge role in the foreign affairs movement and the political arena of the late Qing Dynasty, so it can be recognized that he was one of the four ministers of the late Qing Dynasty.