In the eleventh year of Xianfeng, in the same year that emperor Xianfeng died, an inspector also passed away. Zeng Guofan, who had not yet finished the battle with the Taiping Army, heard the news and lamented that "those who work together from now on are those who have no desire." So what is the origin of this member of the supervision, and Zeng Guofan actually sighed to this point.
This has to start from the seventeenth year of Jiaqing (1812). This year, a child was born in the home of an official eunuch surnamed Hu in Yiyang, Hunan. The child's father, who was ranked third in the first rank and the first, was promoted to sipin Kyodo. Born in this way, the education they received naturally did not lag behind their peers. Indeed, he was gifted and intelligent in the sixteenth year of Daoguang and entered Hanlin. However, he who is a little clumsy and habitual will even go in and out of the willow alley of the flower street. It was not until Daoguang visited Tao Shu in the twenty-sixth year (1846) that he had the ambition to serve the country. However, it was not until he was over forty years old that he jumped from Daoist to Overseer. This late-blooming talent, the character Zhao Sheng was named Lin Yi.
▲Wu Lin Tsubasa Image
The moment when Hu Linyi showed his ability was concentrated when he was the governor of Hubei. In 1855, the Taiping Army and the Xiang Army fought for several months. Due to the forced situation, Hu Linyi returned to Wuchang. Before arriving, the city of Wuchang was destroyed, and Inspector Tao Enpei committed suicide in defeat. At this time, the Qing court temporarily promoted Hu Linyi to the post of Governor of Hubei.
On March 3, the fifth year of Xianfeng (1855), Hu Linyi was officially appointed as the governor of Hubei. However, under the offensive of the Taiping Army, Hubei had jurisdiction over 60 Chuzhou Counties, and only twelve or thirteen were still under the control of the Qing court. Looking at Hubei at that time, the people's morale withered and the people were displaced. Moreover, the officials are like beggars, and the grain is empty, so it can be said that Hu Linyi has taken over a mess. But he did not give up, but chose to go all out to rectify.
▲ Taiping Army in film and television dramas
<h1>I. Rectify the administration of officials
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Hu Linyi believes that as an official, you must have ambitions, and you can't blindly pursue family and private fun and interests. At that time, the country was in chaos because of the corruption and fainting of officials. Therefore, as soon as he arrived at his post, he went to the imperial court to investigate corruption and rectify the rule of officials. To this end, he reported to Xianfeng that he would often participate in the role of corrupt officials, and on the other hand, he demanded that the personnel appointment and dismissal of officials at the state and county levels be placed in his hands. Hu Linyi believes that as long as one parent official is selected, the meticulous and detailed things do not have to be too bothered.
Adhering to this creed, Hu Linyi vigorously punished corruption and promoted talents during the period of governing Hubei. At the beginning of his term of office alone, more than 20 officials were impeached, including 3 in Guangzhi County. Over the next four years, he impeached dozens of officials. Such a vigorous reorganization of the ranks of officials is rare, regardless of the Manchu Qing Dynasty.
▲Portrait of the Xianfeng Emperor
He appointed and promoted honest and capable officials in an eclectic manner. In the sixth year of Xianfeng, Hu Linyi proposed to the Qing court that the talents after he sorted out and recommended them should be immediately put in office. According to the qing court regulations, for the vacancies of officials at or above the county level, the supervisor should be transferred from among his subordinates. The appointment of personnel who is promoted out of the ordinary needs to be reported at all levels and strictly examined and approved.
However, at this time, the devastated Qing court could no longer take care of the rules. In order to restore control of the whole country at an early date, the Qing rulers agreed to Hu Linyi's request to appoint talents in an extraordinary way. In the seventh year of Xianfeng alone, Hu Linyi promoted 29 people from Zhizhou and Zhixian. And other senior members recommended by him can make a long list. Guo Songtao, Li Hongzhang, Li Xubin, Li Xuyi, Yan Jingming, Luo Zundian, Yan Shusen, Shen Baozhen, Mao Changxi, Mei Qizhao, and other members of the late Qing Dynasty were all recommended by him.
▲ Old photographs or portraits of some ministers recommended by Hu Linyi
Electing officials is one thing, but people can change, power can make people corrupt, and wealth can make people greedy. Therefore, the work of supervision and assessment should not be neglected. In order to achieve this, Hu Linyi set out to thoroughly investigate the Caozheng in Hubei when he was still fighting the Taiping Army in April of the sixth year of Xianfeng. Because it involves the collection of taxes, it is closely related to the interests of officials. At that time, officials would more or less share their own expenses when collecting taxes.
The purpose of finding out the situation of Cao's government is to lay the foundation for the next link. After learning about the actual situation of tax collection in various parts of Hubei, Hu Linyi set the specific amount of tax to be paid in various localities and strictly ordered officials at all levels not to exceed the prescribed amount of tax collection. At the same time, he also established a system of inventory bureaus in Hubei to verify local taxes with officials he trusted.
Under his management, the situation in Hubei has greatly improved. Not only was the administration of officials greatly improved, but the financial shortage was immediately reversed, so that the local revenue reached 4 million taels of silver. This not only provided a material basis for the Xiang Army to fight with the Taiping Army, but also provided a good start for the comprehensive rectification of the local cao government and ensuring that normal production activities were not affected.
<h1>Second, improve cao administration</h1>
In the seventh year of Xianfeng, the Xiang army regained control of most of the prefectures and counties in Hubei, and Hu Linyi officially began to rectify the Cao government. In June of that year, he ordered Zhang Yaosun to be in charge of the three prefectures of De'an, Anlu, Jingzhou, and Jingmen to Caozheng, the prefect of Wuchang Prefecture, Yan Shusen, the prefect of Wuchang Province, and Rushan, the prefect of Hanyang Province, to also manage the cao administration of the prefecture. Although the war was still not over, he still strictly ordered the above three people to leave for various places as soon as they received the notice.
In September of the same year, they returned to Hu Linyi the specific regulations for the situation in various places and rectification. After receiving the report, Hu Linyi set two key points for the local Caozheng reform. First, from that year onwards, all parts of Hubei province collected silver and silver at a discounted price after accounting. The second is to reduce the additional levy fees of various departments, and the department responsible for collecting grain takes the lead as an example.
▲ Caoyun old photos, Caoyun is to transport tax grain into the capital by water
Attaching personal interests to officials, large and small, when collecting taxes, is an unavoidable problem in successive dynasties. At the beginning of the founding of the country, which was politically clear and the court was clean, corruption could still be effectively controlled. In the last years of the dynasty, it was not uncommon for officials to embezzle grain taxes and even intercept grain taxes. In the last years of the Qing Dynasty, the Qing court even agreed to supervise the withholding of taxes in order to let the villagers collected in various places have grain and wages to resist the peasant movement.
As a result, the Qing court treasury tax revenue was even less. Even after the war had slowed down a bit, that hadn't changed much. However, in order to ensure the integrity of the official contingent, Hu Linyi decided to vigorously rectify the Cao administration. To achieve this, he set the following procedure. The first is to clear the land and ensure the amount of tax paid by each family. The second is to set up official collection points in various localities, and taxpayers will report their own taxes to ensure that no contractors obstruct them. The third is to strictly investigate the transfer registration, ensure that the land transaction is left in the official government, and revise the tax payable by the relevant households. Finally, it is important to inventory the land property under the names of large households in various places and ensure that it is not hidden.
▲ Local regiment training representatives at the end of the Qing Dynasty - old photos of the Xiang Army
After a year of rectification, the operation of caozheng in Hubei has gradually become compliant and formal. Therefore, after reporting to the imperial court for slight modification, this set of regulations was extended to the whole country. However, we cannot deny that in that era, Hu Linyi could not achieve completely clean taxation.
After all, whether or not there is no moisture in the land is difficult to guarantee. Therefore, in order to suppress the officials' arrogance as much as possible, Hu Linyi made a compromise. He proposed the income of the unruly Xu officials and calculated a sum of "office expenses" for departments at all levels. This practice of turning illegality into legality is like the Yongzheng Dynasty's practice of "returning fire to the public" and then setting up incorruptible silver. He partially legalized the illegal income of the original officials to ensure the income of the officials and their subordinate petty officials.
To this end, Hu Linyi allowed localities to retain taxes as operating expenses for local governments. As mentioned above, the Qing court agreed to Hu Linyi's regulations for the rectification of the Cao government, which means that the Qing court officially institutionalized the practice of local withholding taxes. In this way, it can be said that it has a far-reaching impact on the society of the late Qing Dynasty. After the localities had financial power, they naturally gradually broke away from the control of the Qing court. It can be said that the local forces gradually rose in the late Qing Dynasty, and Hu Linyi's behavior had a great impact.
<h1>3. The Xiang Army Giant
As an important member of the nouveau, Hu Linyi naturally had outstanding performance in the military field. Moreover, he could even become the "Zeng Hu" in the Xiang Army with Zeng Guofan. However, because he often submitted to others, many of his achievements were recorded in the other generals of the Xiang Army. But one thing that cannot be denied is that he helped the Xiang Army in the battle from the perspective of the overall situation.
The first was the solicitation of the Manchu governor's official wen. As a local army, every move of the Xiang Army attracted the attention of the Qing court. In the contradictory choice between suppression and dependence, every order of the Qing court was related to the life and death of the generals of the Xiang Army. In order to gain enough trust for the Xiang Army, Hu Linyi decided to send 3,000 taels of silver to Guan Wenfeng every month, under the name of "office expenses".
In this way, after gaining the trust of the official. Whenever there was a military operation related to the Xiang Army, Hu Linyi would play it with Guan Wen or ask Guan Wen to play it as a soloist. With the help of this important officer trusted by the Qing court, the Xiang Army was naturally able to fight without worries, and the generals of the Xiang Army did not have to fear that the head of the Xiang Army would be in danger.
Second, the operation against the Xiang Army proceeded from the overall situation. When Hu Linyi led the troops to retake Wuhan, he immediately attacked Jiujiang. When the war was still raging, Chen Yucheng led his troops to attack Hubei. Without taking a break, he immediately led his troops to block the attack. Even Jiangxi, Hunan, Anhui, Henan, and Zhejiang can see him leading troops to help. At that time, the Qing court did not ask him to control the military affairs of several provinces, and he did so out of consideration for the overall situation.
Moreover, he was also the glue among the generals of the Xiang Army. In the later period, the generals of the Xiang Army, Bao Chao and others disobeyed Duolong'a. In order to avoid the expansion of the dispute, he coordinated it with his prestige and position, ensuring the stability of the army. In addition, when Zeng Guoquan wanted to lead an army to surround Tianjing, it was also Hu Lin's wing that came forward to support the action. Judging by the results that followed, this is correct.
The last point is the recognition of the Xiang Army. In fact, in the face of the internal and external troubles at that time, Hu Linyi put forward the proposal of "mobilizing the masses" when he was still serving as a petty official in Guizhou. He held that "it is better to fight than to keep one's word, it is better to use soldiers than to use the people, it is better to use the people's strength for self-defense, it is better to defend the people with geographical advantages first," and "it is better to defend the people than to resist foreign kou", which can be seen from China's future years of glory, and the strength of the masses of the people is indeed incomparable.
In the short period of time he served as the governor of Hubei, although he failed to make more glorious achievements. But the foundation he left behind was enough for Zhang Zhidong to free his hands and feet to do foreign affairs in Hubei. In the eleventh year of Xianfeng (1861), this late Zhongxing heavy minister ended his short career as a meteor. When recalling this colleague, Zeng Guofan had to regret that his luck was not as good as his own.
In this way, this famous minister who became a late master only showed his talent on the stage of a small party supervision. If we can stand in a higher position, the turnaround of modern Chinese society may or may not appear earlier. However, the world ambitions that he failed to achieve were inherited by future generations. The years of peace that we can enjoy today are inseparable from these predecessors who have the world in mind and aspire to be at home.
Resources:
Draft History of the Qing Dynasty: A Biography of Hu Linyi
Zhao Shanqing, "Hu Linyi and the Rectification of Hubei Officials in the Late Qing Dynasty"
Zhao Libo, "Hu LinYi: The Fallen Star"
Sun Xuhong, "The Contribution of Hu Linyi to the Development of the Xiang Army"
Hong Jun, "Adjustment of Interests under a Crisis: On Hu Linyi's Rectification of Hubei Caozheng"
Tao Haiyang, "Hu Lin Wing, the Giant Leader of the Xiang Army"