Ding Baozhen was an important figure in the political arena of the late Qing Dynasty, with outstanding political achievements and a long reputation in his lifetime, and the official revision history "Draft History of the Qing Dynasty" was given to Ding Baozhen, and people at the time regarded it as an example for officials, and there was an evaluation that "those who rule with words often work with Shen Baozhen and call themselves, especially Qing Cao".
Ding Baozhen (丁宝桢), courtesy name Zhi Huang, is a native of Pingyuan, Guizhou. In the third year of Xianfeng (1853), he was admitted to the jinshi and was elected as a Shujishi. Due to the death of his mother living in the countryside, coinciding with the rebellion of Yang Longxi in Zunyi, Ding Baozhen spent all his family wealth to recruit 800 heroes to defend his hometown.
At the end of the funeral, just when the Miao people's rebellion sprang up, Inspector Jiang Weiyuan went to the imperial court and applied for Ding Baozhen to stay in the counter-rebellion army, and the emperor specially ordered him to be granted the post of editor. Ding Baozhen increased recruitment, the total number of soldiers reached 4,000, recovered Many cities such as Pingyue and Dushan, and in the Tenth Year of Xianfeng (1860), he was granted the prefect of Yuezhou, and only then dismissed the recruited army. He put five hundred taels of silver on the table and said to everyone, "I have been working with you for a long time, and now there is a shortage of money and grain in the treasury, so what should you do when you go home empty-handed?" "Everyone said with tears: You will not hesitate to donate all your family property to save the country, how dare we have another request, so we have left."
In the second year of Tongzhi (1863), he was promoted to shandong envoy, coinciding with the command of the army in Lu and Henan, and ordered Ding Baozhen to attack Song Jingshi in Hebei, and soon Ding Baozhen was impeached and proposed to be appeased, and the military department deliberated and decided to demote him to the third rank, and then in the following year he was promoted to be a political envoy. The monk Gelinqin died in battle in Caozhou, and because he had violated the law by interfering in the imperial discussion, he was pardoned by the emperor's grace and retained him in his original post, so the counselors collected and fabricated other crimes to impeach him, and the matter was sent to Zeng Guofan, who told the emperor that he was not guilty.
Yan Jingming, the governor of Shandong, had always admired Ding Baozhen's talent, and at this time he asked for retirement and recommended Ding Baozhen to replace him, so the imperial court appointed him as the inspector of Shandong. At that time, the Twister Army (Note: the peasant rebel army in the north during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom) approached Haili, Li Hongzhang proposed to build a long wall defense at the Jiaolai River, Ding Baozhen met the army to approach the vigilance, in the sixth year of Tongzhi (1867), the East Road Twister army fled to the Mao River, the East Road Army Wang Xin'an had just built a fort, but the embankment wall was not yet completed, the Twister Army drove straight into the river to cross the Mao River, Ding Baozhen told the emperor about this matter, the emperor was furious, and li Hongzhang was handed over to the military department for consideration, Ding Baozhen was also dismissed from his post and temporarily retained, before this The Eastern Route Army town guarded the Mao River. Originally the anhui general Pan Dingxin garrison area, the Anhui army had just moved south, and the north road was immediately defeated. The emperor ordered Wang Xin'an to be beheaded, Ding Baozhen wrote a letter bluntly refuting, the emperor forgave Wang Xin'an and reprimanded Li Hongzhang, Baozhen repeatedly wrote to expose, the emperor then more and more reprimanded Li Hongzhang for being mean and jealous, indulging the enemy, the next year, the Western Twist army rushed to Dingzhou, the vicinity of Gyeonggi was greatly shaken, Ding Baozhen heard the military situation warning, immediately galloped to Dongchang, led a thousand cavalry, three thousand elite infantry, with five days of grain, day and night, to aid the north, the Twist army then fled south, this battle, The imperial court sent forbidden troops to guard against the Twist army outside the capital, and all the generals who commanded the soldiers were reprimanded, and the emperor only because Ding Baozhen's army suddenly appeared before the enemy, and turned to fight between Xiongxiong, Ren, Shen, Qi, Gao, and Su prefectures, and regained Raoyang, with the greatest merit, and repeatedly sent down the Holy Will to praise and praise, and added the post of Prince Taibao.
And the incident of his killing of Andehai was especially praised by the people, An Dehai, as a eunuch to serve Empress Dowager Cixi for many years, quite abusive, in the autumn of the eighth year of Tongzhi (1869), An Dehai took a building boat down the canal, the flag was different, claiming to have a secret dispatch, where he passed, befriended powerful people, took bribes, no one dared to report, to Tai'an, Baozhen had already entered the court first, sent cavalry to arrest Andehai and detained. Anderhay also said something big, saying, "You people are just causing trouble yourself!" Passing the solution to Jinan, Ding Baozhen said: "Eunuchs who leave Beijing without permission are not in line with the ancestral system. Moreover, the ministers had not heard of such a secret dispatch order, and there must have been some deception. Emperor Ming, so he put Andehai on the spot to correct the Fa.
In the second year of Guangxu (1876), he replaced Wu Tang as the governor of Sichuan. The Chengdu general Hengxun once again verified the embankment project, and then criticized the salt transport as a scourge to the merchants and the people, and the abuses were very great, refusing to criticize and argue. The emperor was worried that Ding Baozhen would be confused by the rumors, and personally ordered Ding Baozhen not to change his original thoughts. Soon after, he was officially granted a real post, and Ding Baozhen was also more vigilant and encouraged, paying more attention to storing grain, and strictly supervising and arresting. Ding Baozhen ruled Sichuan for a total of ten years, and when he first took office, there were cases of theft and robbery in the city every month, and by this time he had almost killed the bandits, claiming that he would not pick up the road, and in the eleventh year of Guangxu (1885), he died in office, posthumously awarded the crown prince Taibao, the nickname Wencheng, and gave the honor of building ancestral halls in the three places of Guizhou, Sichuan, Shandong.
When Ding Baozhen's temperament was just and solemn and majestic, when he first arrived in Shandong, the monk Greenqin was encircling and suppressing the Twist army in Zichuan, and he felt that his status was noble and very proud, and when he saw that officials below the provincial level did not have seats, Ding Baozhen submitted a name post and asked to see him, saying that Ding Baozhen, a low-ranking military officer, submitted a letter to the prince, and when he gave a seat, he would see him, and if he did not give a seat, he would not see, and the attendants around him were shocked, and the monk Greenqin admired his toughness and indomitability, and paid tribute to Ding Baozhen's change of appearance. After Jingming heard about this incident, he was greatly amazed, and on the day that Ding Baozhen arrived, he personally greeted him in the suburbs, and from then on, no matter how big or small, he consulted Ding Baozhen before implementing it, and today when it comes to the style and achievements of the officials, he is often praised together with Shen Baozhen. In particular, after the death of the coffin back to the hometown, the retinue around the entourage gathered together to help handle the funeral, and the coffin returned to the hometown to be able to make the trip. He had five sons, Ding Tichang was particularly famous, and he was an envoy to Guangdong.
(Qilu Evening News, Qilu One Point reporter Zhang Jiulong)