As we all know, the late Qing Dynasty Zuo Zongtang's expropriation of Xinjiang is a feat worthy of a great book in China's modern history. Needless to say, Zuo Gong took command at a young age and quelled the Agubai Rebellion, and later in the face of the strong authority of Tsarist Russia, he even carried the coffin out of spite of his old age and illness, and snatched food and regained Ili, which is of great significance to today's China, no matter how much praise can be praised.
Statue of Zuo Zongtang
However, Zuo Zongtang is a handsome man, responsible for planning, and when it comes to decisive victory thousands of miles away, he still needs the assistance of the great future. In Zuo Zongtang's western expeditionary army, the generals were full of stars and talents, and not only was the commander-in-chief Liu Jintang wise and courageous, who also had the style of an ancient famous general, but the rest of the generals were also able to act alone.
To introduce one by one, an article is limited to space and difficult to expand, today I will first introduce you to Zhang Yao, the general of the Songwu Army, who was also known for his outstanding merits in Zuo Zongtang's Western Expedition, and was one of the early generals who left Guantuntian, and his life deeds are worth a book.
1. Wounded by rice and fled to Henan
Zhang Yao, who has infinite manpower, is a rider of all kinds, and is also a very good soldier. Zuo Zongtang relied heavily on this general and favored him in particular. Zhang Yao's life is quite legendary. Originally from Zhejiang, he was born in Daxing, Shuntian (present-day Hebei) because of his ancestors' occupation of Guozijian, and was born of ordinary labor. Zhang Yao is responsible for milling rice, and his body is very strong, it is said that he can carry nearly 550 kilograms of rice, while an ordinary worker can only carry less than 100 kilograms.
One day an old woman and her widowed daughter-in-law were arguing in the street, and he was involved. At that time, the old woman was forcing her daughter-in-law to remarry, and Zhang Yao said that this deviated from the custom, and there was a quarrel between the two sides. Zhang Yao was young and angry, lost his temper, and threw a bag of rice at the old woman, and actually smashed her to death at once.
Zhang Yao could only embark on the road of death and fled from Hebei to Henan, where the Twister Army was making a disturbance in the local village. The Twister army did not have firearms at the beginning of the battle, and the villagers saw him as if he had been rescued. Zhang Yao, with his bravery and strength, won the battle against the Twister Army. As a result, he was elected by the villagers as the leader of the militia, and his reputation spread far and wide, and his reputation even spread to the provincial capital of Kaifeng.
2. Meritorious service in battle, embracing beautiful people, and honoring Zhi County
Later, Zhang Yao went into exile and came to Gushi County on the southeastern border of Henan. During his stay in Gushi County, the Twister army surrounded the area and besieged it for a long time, and the residents of the city were almost desperate. Zhixian of Gushi County was a scholar, and he had a daughter who was very famous in the local area, and said that she was natural and beautiful and had excellent literary talent. Zhixian posted a notice in a desperate situation, saying that if anyone could repel the Twister army and save the county, he would marry his daughter to him.
Zhang Yao stepped forward at this time, and he hurriedly gathered 300 Zhuang Ding and took advantage of the night to raid the Twist Army. The disparity in the strength of the enemy and us was huge, and Zhang Yao would have had a hard time winning, but he was favored by heaven. At this time, the famous Mongol prince monk Gelinqin arrived just in time, and the Twister army fled in a hurry. Zhixian did not disagree on the way to win, and the wedding was held as scheduled. This time, the poor boy hugged the beauty and became the dragon-riding son-in-law of Zhi County.
It is said that the blessing is incomparable, but this sentence is not suitable for Zhang Yao. Luck really can't stop it, Zhang Yao, who has just been in the cave room flower candle, will soon become an official again. What's going on? It turned out that the Mongols had always admired warriors the most, and the monk Gelinqin witnessed Zhang Yao's heroic performance on the battlefield and liked him very much, so he recommended him to the imperial court as a zhi county. Gaining the favor of such a big figure as the monk Gelinqin (pictured below) was more effective than passing the imperial examination, so Zhang Yao was appointed as the county magistrate and sat on an equal footing with the zhangren.
3. Worship your wife as a teacher and obey your words
Zhang Yao is illiterate, but he has the help of his wife, and the two respect each other as guests. I don't know if it was because of his wife's Wangfu luck, but after only two years, Zhang Yao was promoted to the rank of fantai and in charge of Henan's finances. Maybe Heaven felt that he couldn't let this poor boy go too smoothly, and a change came. Originally, the Metropolitan Inspection Bureau thought that this was a loss of decency, and an emperor named Liu Yunan said that Zhang Yao was illiterate and could not even sign various documents, how could he control the finances of a province. Therefore, the imperial court removed Zhang Yao from his post and granted him the rank of general instead.
Since ancient times, the status of civilian officials has been significantly higher than that of military generals, and the Qing Dynasty is naturally no exception, so "cultural reform of military affairs" is a very humiliating thing. This sudden change caused Zhang Yao to lose face, and for a while he was dissatisfied and full of complaints. As a general, he began to neglect his duties, but thanks to his wife's hard advice, he did not cause a big disaster.
Later, Zhang Yao thought to himself, if you can fight a war, you can read books; if you can fight a good war, you can also read good books. So he made up his mind to study well. At such an old age, I can't carry a school bag into school every day. There is a very good teacher around, study nearby, at any time to ask for advice, what a convenient path to enter the school! Therefore, Zhang Yao took his wife as his teacher and respectfully performed the disciple ceremony. He asked his wife exactly in accordance with the etiquette of the students to the teacher. Guess what, there is also an element that Zhang Yao is afraid of his wife. However, the most important thing is that he is devoted to learning, immersed in seeking the Tao, and sincerely respecting the teacher.
Because of academic problems, Madame would often scold Zhang Yao strictly, and even beat him with a whip, but Zhang Yao was always comfortable with him, without the slightest disobedience or anger. Under the careful teaching of his wife, under Zhang Yao's careful study and continuous persistence, Zhang Yao later became familiar with literature and history, and was no different from the Confucians who read from childhood.
In addition to knowing the shame and courage, taking the lady as a teacher, and learning from The angry like Meng Tong, Zhang Yao also engraved the "Illiterate Ding" seal and wore it with him to warn himself. Later, Liu Yunan, who played his "illiterate" role in that year, was impeached and dismissed, and Zhang Yao did not care about his previous suspicions and "gave thousands of gold", and this was the case every year. Every time a letter to Liu Yunan is stamped with the seal of "Illiterate Ding", in order to thank Liu Yunan's virtue of Yucheng, he has achieved a good story.
Obeying his wife does not mean that Zhang Yao has no temper and personality after marriage. The man's blood and straightness, he still did not lose half a point. It is said that since he was reassigned from an envoy to a general soldier, Zhang Yao has been angry in his heart. Many times, Zhang Yao treated the orders of the imperial court with an arrogant attitude.
Later, Zuo Zongtang, the Duke of Wenxiang, suppressed the Shaanxi-Gansu rebellion and reported to the imperial court, asking Zhang Yao to lead the army. Zhang Yao did not respond, still untamed. Because Zhang Yao's reaction was slow, the imperial court issued a strict order for Zhang Yao to immediately implement it, and Zhang Yao still ignored it. Zhang Yao's staff saw that the situation was not good, and thought that if this continued, something big would definitely happen, so they went to persuade Zhang Yao, and Zhang Yao was still the same and was not moved by the persuasion of everyone.
After the lady learned about the situation, she said to Zhang Yao, "Lord! You are proud of your military exploits, and you have disobeyed the orders of the Holy Spirit several times, do you think that the imperial court cannot kill you? In this history, in this dynasty, military merit is higher than yours, and it is rare for people to land on the ground? ”
As soon as Madame's voice fell, Zhang Yao was immediately stunned, and his mouth kept saying: "Madame said it very reasonably!" Madame said it so scarily! Therefore, Zhang Yao immediately packed up his bags and hurried to Zuo Zongtang's place to serve the public. Because he assisted Zuo Zongtang in fighting effectively and made great achievements in recovering Xinjiang, Zuo Zongtang recommended Zhang Yao to the imperial court that zhang Yao had the talent to seal the territory. Soon, Zhang Yao was again appointed to a civilian post and was promoted to the rank of Shangshu of the Inspectorate of Shandong And bingbu.
The long-term inability to release the scrolls has greatly improved Zhang Yao's cultural accomplishment (Zhang Yao's handwriting in the picture below), and has also enabled him to deal with many government affairs with a broad mind, which can be seen from his later achievements in governing the Yellow River, repairing river embankments, building water conservancy projects, building roads, and opening machinery bureaus during his later tenure as governor of Shandong.
But Zhang Yao was born in the military after all, and once he was rough and inky, he liked to show off. There is a joke about this: one winter, the envoy (cultural and educational official) invited Zhang Yao to enjoy the snow in Jinan with Fan Si (administrative official) and Zhi Si (judicial official). During the banquet, Zhang Yao proposed a joint sentence to compose a poem, and he slowly and methodically recited a poem: "Dancing in the air with heavy snow." The clan continued: "Silver flowers are planted everywhere like soil." He also came from the army, and he pondered for half a moment before he uttered a poem: "Gray noodles are piled up and do not eat mountains." "Don't eat the mountain should be the mountain of not its own, also known as the Iron Riding Mountain, located in the northwest of The Laoshan Mountains of Qingdao. He mistakenly meant "eating", meaning that snow was like gray noodles but could not be eaten. The last sentence of the scholarly envoy ridiculed the first three: "The paste is full of Jinan Province." It means that the brains of the inspectors, clans, and shoji are like paste.
4. Meritorious management of the Yellow River, the people build shrines and sacrifices
After Zhang Yao arrived as the inspector of Shandong, he spent a lot of time investigating and studying the situation of the Yellow River in Shandong. According to the characteristics of Shandong's narrow river channel, in addition to arranging for strengthening the embankments on both sides of the river, Zhang Yao also put forward the idea of "dividing" and "dredging" the river. He believes that the embankments on both sides of the Yellow River in Shandong are not strong enough, and the river channels are narrow, so that when the river rises, it is easy to flood, and there must be measures to divide the water to solve this problem. Therefore, led by Zhang Yao, a water reduction sluice dam was built in Zhao Zhuang, Liu Jia Miao and Dong Atao Chengpu in the Qi River to prevent disasters caused by abnormal rises in the river.
In the thirteenth year of Guangxu (1887 AD), the Yellow River broke through in Zhengzhou Shibao, and the Yellow River in Shandong stopped flowing, and Zhang Yao took the opportunity to carry out a dredging and dredging project for the river in Shandong. In the first month of the fifteenth year of Guangxu (1889 AD), the Yellow River returned to its hometown, during the Flood Season, due to the dredging of the previous river channel, the ice water smoothly entered the sea.
In view of the fact that the Yellow River was not smooth from the oyster mouth to the sea at that time, Zhang Yao took advantage of the situation and used a machine boat to dredge and change the Yellow River from Han Jiadun into the sea, so that the estuary was unobstructed. Zhang Yao once said: "To cure a river is to cure a disease, flooding and rushing, and the disease of this river is also silted up, the sand beak of the silt beach, and the river is across the river, and the cause of this disease is also the cause of the disease." ”
He believes that cutting the sand beak of the silt beach is the top priority of the Yellow River. He also suggested using 50 flat-headed round boats, each with 16 people, each with excavation tools, to cut the silt sand nozzle. Where there is a silt beach in the river, after the water falls, you can climb the beach to dig; if the water is deep, you can take a boat to rake. It is also possible to build a dam on the opposite bank to carry water and wash it away by the flow of water. He also advocated that when the soil in Peidi was too far away, small rails could be laid and iron carts could be used to transport soil. At that time, under his leadership, 1080 meters of rails were built.
In June of the seventeenth year of Guangxu (1891 AD), Zhang Yao was stationed on the riverside and rushed to protect Shi Jiawu, Wang Yangjia and other dangerous workers. In July, due to gangrene on his back, Zhang Yao died of illness soon after. After his death, the imperial court posthumously awarded him the title of Crown Prince Taibao (太保), with the posthumous title of Qinguo (勤果), and was admitted to the Ancestral Hall of Xianliang, and allowed him to establish a special shrine to sacrifice in the provinces where he had made meritorious contributions (the Zhang Gong Ancestral Hall in the present-day Daming Lake tourist area of Jinan still exists).
epilogue
Zhang Yao often talked about his wife with his staff and subordinates, and admired her talent. When talking about these household routines, Zhang Yao would ask them: "Are you all afraid of your wives?" Someone replied, afraid. There are also people who answer, not afraid. When he heard someone say that he was not afraid of his wife, Zhang Yao would look at him carefully, and then say seriously: "Your courage is so big!" Wives dare not be afraid! ”
Some people say that people who are afraid of their wives are difficult to achieve big things, and after watching Zhang Yao, the "Diligent Fruit Gong", who would say so? Having a good wife is so important to a man, just look at Qin Guo Gong Zhang Yao, you will know! If he wasn't afraid of his wife being afraid of going out of the realm, I'm afraid he wouldn't have had such a big achievement later. I don't know what the readers think?
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