How did Zeng Guofan, who was an official to vice minister, become the 'target of everyone'?
Zeng Guofan, who was the official to the vice minister, wanted to make a big show of his great achievements, but he encountered a bottleneck in the official field and became the 'target of everyone'.
Zeng Guofan's original name was Zeng Kuanyi, and Guofan was the name he changed for himself when he entered the Hanlin Temple, which means 'The Fence of the Kingdom'. From the beginning of his determination to be a saint, Zeng Guofan wanted to make some contributions to the country. Waiting for the official to the deputy minister, coinciding with the internal and external troubles of the Qing Dynasty, the outside had just experienced the First Opium War, the land was cut off and indemnified, the internal chaos could be said to be 'no official is not greedy', the Daoguang Emperor in his later years was conservative and content with the status quo, Zeng Guofan had the ambition to reform, but no one supported him, at this time Zeng Guofan had the intention of retreating, and clearly recorded Zeng Guofan's mood at this time in Zeng Guofan's family letter.
Thirty years after Daoguang, the Daoguang Emperor died, and the new emperor Xianfeng took office, saying that the new official took office with three fires, and the first fire of the Xianfeng Emperor burned to Mu Zhang'a, and the Xianfeng Emperor thought that Mu Zhang'a usually used clever words to fool his father and emperor, and immediately dismissed Mu Zhang'a, which made the government and the public feel a little different, of course, including Zeng Guofan.
The second fire was an edict to speak up, to ask the courtiers to dare to tell the truth. When Zeng Guofan saw that the Xianfeng Emperor was going to do something, he spent the night writing a book criticizing the bad official style and no one really doing things. Zeng Guofan said this:
1. Back off.
When something big happened, the officials were all pushing you and I pushed you, and they only knew how to ask the emperor for advice, and no one dared to speak up.
2. Small is not big.
Let's have a meeting, the meeting is very well done, but the content of the meeting discussion is not once helpful to the national development policy.
3. Perfunctory.
Just a word "drag", if the problem is not solved, it seems that the delay can be solved.
4. Surface articles.
The people's lives seem to be peaceful, but in fact, the evil forces are rampant, and the Beijing officials know it but no one cares.
This also foreshadows Zeng Guofan to become the target of public criticism in the future!
The Xianfeng Emperor was actually very attached to Zeng Guofan at the beginning, making him concurrently the deputy minister of the five ministries (there were six departments in the Qing Dynasty at that time). Zeng Guofan's speech this time was highly praised by the emperor, and he also encouraged his subjects to learn from Zeng Guofan. This time, the truth was praised by the emperor, which made Zeng Guofan feel that the Xianfeng Emperor was a Ming Emperor. So he wrote another note to the emperor, this time completely angering the Xianfeng Emperor. He said this: Saying that XianFeng looks very shrewd and powerful, but he only picks some small problems in etiquette all day long, which are trivial things, which are not worth noticing at all, and the big things are not understood.
In fact, the Xianfeng Emperor was a narrow-minded and inferior person, why did he say this? There are two stories about the succession of the Xianfeng Emperor, one is the Tibetan Humble Show, and the other is the Tibetan Humble Showman. Emperor Xianfeng had actually been living in the shadow of his younger brother YiXuan (later Prince Zhong), Yixun was clever from an early age, proficient in piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, and was very appreciated by the Daoguang Emperor, the Daoguang Emperor intended to examine his two sons, so in the spring he took his two sons to hunt, YiXun hunted a lot of prey, and Xianfeng got nothing, Daoguang Emperor asked why, Xianfeng said that spring is the season of animal breeding, if I shoot them, it is likely that the children in their stomachs will also die, I can't bear it, this is' There was also a time when the Daoguang Emperor was seriously ill and invited his two sons to talk about the way of governing the country, Yi Xian talked about it very reasonably, while Xianfeng did not talk about the way of governing the country, crying and saying that it was very painful to see his father seriously ill, which is the story of 'Tibetan Humble Filial Piety'. Moreover, the Xianfeng Emperor had a leg disease and was a cripple, which was also a reason for the Inferiority Of the Xianfeng Emperor. The Xianfeng Emperor's criticism of the chancellor's minor problems was the embodiment of his inferiority.
Zeng Guofan's telling the truth actually 'offended' the other two ministers.
One is Qi Shan
Qi Shan is known to posterity because Lin Zexu and the First Opium War, Qi Shan was the lord and faction, he negotiated with the British privately, ceded Hong Kong made the Daoguang Emperor angry, qi Shan "dismissed and locked, confiscated family property", Qi Shan was in his thirties as the governor of Henan, and later was used as the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu, and was impeached for killing innocents indiscriminately when he was the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu. Xianfeng handed him over to the Punishment Department for disposal. Qi Shan was deeply entrenched in the capital, and many officials were either his old subordinates or his students, and during interrogation, they asked him irrelevant questions, but in fact wanted to help him exonerate.
Zeng Guofan was very angry when he saw the situation, scolded the officials who were doing things, and reported to the emperor, the vice minister's insistence should not be underestimated, Qi Shan was dismissed from his post, and he was assigned to Jilin Province, at this time, Zeng Guofan immediately offended all his colleagues who were related to Qi Shan, and they regarded them as a thorn in the flesh.
The other is Seshana
Although this man was in a high position of power, he was very timid, and when he suppressed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, he was not well dispatched, and he also took the lead in escaping, and after a long time, he was handed over to the Punishment Department for disposal. In the eyes of many people, this is not a big deal at all, but Zeng Guofan believes that this matter is related to military affairs and must be severely punished in order to shock the hearts of the army, and Sai Shang'a was also dismissed.
Zeng Guofan's behavior completely offended the powerful at that time, so that no one at the same table wanted to share the table with Zeng Guofan.
It may seem inconceivable that Zeng Guofan, who has been an official in Beijing for more than ten years and has been an official to a vice minister, should have known the way of the officialdom and should not have encountered walls everywhere like this, on the contrary, Zeng Guofan's promotion as we said earlier was based on the appreciation of the Hanlin Examination and the Daoguang Emperor. This is one of the embodiments of Zeng Guofan's multi-faceted life, and it is also a side that ordinary people can see, learn and see to the ordinary side of Zeng Guofan, the development of his career and the trajectory of his life!