Zeng Guofan, Xiangxiang, Hunan, now belongs to the Shuangfeng Lotus Leaf Pond people, the ancestors are mainly farmers, but the life is relatively rich, the father has no meritorious name is a private school teacher. Zeng, a mid-level scholar in the eighteenth year of Daoguang, was elected as a Shujishi of Hanlin Yuan.
Hu Linyi, a native of Yiyang Quanjiaohe, Hunan, belongs to Changsha Province, the character 贶生, the number Runzhi. Looking at his number, everyone should be able to think of something. His father, Hu Dayuan, was a tanhua in the middle and an official in the Jingtang, so Hu Linyi was a standard second-generation official. Hu, a sixteen-year-old scholar of Daoguang, was taught the editor of the Hanlin Academy, and successively served as the examiner of the examination and the deputy examiner of the Jiangnan Township examination.
The two people were born very differently, one was a poor scholar, the other was a second-generation official; but they belonged to Changsha Province, and the place of origin was counted as half of the hometown; according to the age difference, it was only one year; the middle jinshi was only one year apart; on the identity of this fellow, the same age, close to the same year (jinshi), both of them were in the Hanlin Courtyard of the capital, and they should have met the deceased in other places and should have become friends earlier, but in fact, the two were very distant, and basically less than a pot of urine.
Hu Linyi was a standard gongzi brother during the Hanlin Academy, and during the Beijing period as an official, probably because he was idle, had nothing to do, and went everywhere to find pleasure, including going in and out of customs and occasions, etc., how to play, how to play, come at will, basically can not see the performance of self-improvement. Compared with him, Zeng Guofan studied every day, reviewed his knowledge, wanted to become a celebrity in science, and from time to time found three or five friends to study poetry, or appreciate calligraphy and painting, or pulled Up Wu Ren and others to visit the master of science Tang Jian and listen to his lectures. The two styles are very different, just imagine how they can get together?
Later, the situation changed because Hu Linyi had an accident, and when he was serving as an examiner, the chief examiner was held accountable for "private belt", and Hu as the deputy chief examiner was also demoted and became the cabinet secretary from Qipin. It was a major blow to Hu, ruining his future, and killing his old father. Hu began to be depressed and depressed. Later, Lin Zexu and other friends and others persuaded him to donate officials and strive for release, and he agreed to come down. He returned to Beijing and prepared to donate a five-pin prefect, but he had no money on hand. Probably because of his good character, coupled with his father's friends, teachers, seniors, and friends all helped each other, and soon raised money, he himself almost did not pay any money, equivalent to picking up an official for nothing. However, this official was not a fat shortage, and he went to Guizhou. Why go to Guizhou? There are two reasons: first, he himself wants to do something practical for the people and "not to be worthy of the goodwill of good friends"; second, if he goes to those rich places, he is likely to be able to wait for the first time, and he himself is not willing to do idle posts and alternates in the capital, so he strives to be released. After he arrived in the local area, he successively served as the prefect of Anshun, Zhenyuan, Liping, and Guidong, and indeed did a lot of good things. For example, in Anshun to govern the Guancheng River, he paid for his own efforts; often wore short clothes, went deep among the masses, traveled all over the places under his rule to feel the people's feelings, and helped the poor; straightened out the administration of officials, strengthened regimental training and armor protection, suppressed the Miao people's uprisings in Huangping, Taigong, Qingjiang, Tianzhu and other places and the Uprising of Li Yuanfa in Hunan, explored the bandits' situation, led officers and men to fight against the bandits hundreds of times, accumulated rich combat experience, and compiled the "Hu's Art of War." Hu Linyi served as an official in Guizhou for eight years, clean and self-sufficient, and his official reputation was excellent. Zeng Guofan also heard a lot of Hu's political achievements during this period, and slowly changed many of his original views on Hu, and the relationship between Zeng and Hu changed, from estrangement to admiration for Hu.
After Hu went to the localities, he went deep into the people and also saw the corruption of the officials in the late Qing Dynasty. During this period, he was not idle in the capital, often writing folds to the emperor, hurting the shortcomings of the times, not afraid of the magnates, daring to impeach Qi Shan, Sai Shang'a and other big officials, so that Hu felt the attitude of wanting to do practical things, and he was in the environment, forming some resonance, Hu also slowly admired Zeng.
In the fourth year of Xianfeng, the Taiping Army swept through the two lakes, and Wu Wenrong, the governor of Huguang, complained to the imperial court, and the imperial court ordered officials from surrounding provinces to recruit troops on the spot and go to support. As soon as Hu Linyi was transferred to GuidongDaotai, he received orders to take more than six Qian soldiers to Hubei to support, but before anyone arrived, the governor Wu Wenrong was defeated and committed suicide. Hu was embarrassed, the singing had not yet arrived, and the stage was demolished.
At this time, the Xiang Army was just rising, and there was a shortage of silver and soldiers. This shortage of soldiers, not no one, but Zeng's selection criteria decided, eliminated a lot, urgently need talents from all over the world, especially farmers doing farm work, Hu Linyi with six hundred people is this type, and finally Zeng Guofan with "courage and greatness", vigorously recommended to the imperial court, accepted Hu Linyi's troops, and after rectification, prepared to attack Yue prefecture and further take Wuchang.
After joining the Xiang Army, Hu Linyi actively learned from his previous experience in suppressing bandits and suppressing peasant uprisings, and reformed the Xiang Army:
First of all, the construction of the Xiang Army horse team, the absorption of the Northeast horse team, such as the famous general Duolong'a, it was at this time to join the Xiang Army's combat sequence, so that the Xiang Army's land camp formed a situation of cavalry and infantry multi-service coordinated operations;
Secondly, it was to invent the fortress tactic, that is, to dig deep trenches, encircle them with iron barrels, and face the Taiping Army, which had an unstable foundation and an excessively long logistical front, and use strong manpower and material resources to offset them and drag them down. This tactic, Zeng Guofan's ninth brother Zeng Guoquan, was used to the extreme, including the later siege of Tianjing;
Finally, a step-by-step strategy of taking the Yangtze River from top to bottom and from Wuhan to Jiujiang to Anqing to Tianjing was formulated, which greatly brought into play the advantages of the Xiang Army's marine division.
This series of measures made Zeng Guofan look at him with astonishment, saw the great talent of Hu Linyi, and saw that there was still a dawn under his repeated defeats. The two slowly became interdependent, and the relationship between the two became closer.
In October of the fourth year of Xianfeng, the two of them joined forces to capture Wuchang, and this dramatic scene came. Xianfeng originally belonged to Yi Zengguo as the governor of Hubei, and he was the greatest in terms of merit, and Hu was a guest who followed the master, and it was not good to take credit. I don't want anyone to go into the rumors, "Returning to the hometown is like a pifu, shaking his arms in the countryside, and there are more than 10,000 people who respond, which is probably not a blessing for the country." After this, XianFeng made Hu Linyi the governor of Hubei, and Hu became the first feudal governor of the Xiang Army with real power. At the same time, there was also the Manchu official Wen, who was appointed as the minister of Chincha and the governor of Huguang, and stationed in Wuchang City with Hu Linyi, which meant that guan wen suppressed Hu Linyi. This kind of operation, suspicion and provocation means obvious.
Before Hu took office, the four inspectors were all killed, and his pressure can be imagined. Later, in order to take care of the overall situation, he took the initiative to establish a good relationship with Guanwen, and even attached himself to his family's concubine, but this made Zeng Guofan very unaccustomed, plus the psychology may be cut off by him for the position of inspector, and he once commented that Hu had "lost the integrity of a big husband", and there was a slight crack in the relationship between the two.
Later, Hu Linyi spent a long time with Zeng Guofan in a letter explaining, "My generation does not have to be too deep, the world is only the world's worldly and deeply misunderstood the state affairs", "When we get rid of this habit, go it alone, Yin and Yang are afraid of ignorance, and do not have to take into account everything." Later, after receiving Zeng's understanding, hu Linyi was amazed that Hu Linyi could "use his prestige to carry out his own ambitions" and was "weaker than strong". At the same time, Zeng also really saw that Hu's approach brought convenience and benefits to the development of the Xiang Army, and after a series of reforms in Hubei, Hu Linyi provided the Xiang Army with military expenses every year, which was about three times that of Hunan, which was the largest among the three provinces of Hubei, Hunan, and Jiangxi where the war was urgent at that time, and it was also the most timely supply of military salaries. At the same time, Hu Lin's wing was not peaceful for several years, and he did not have many troops at hand, but also distributed more than 2,400 people to Hu, and sent a capable general Luo Zenan to lead his troops to garrison Hubei, so that he was later beaten by Shi Dakai and trapped in Nanchang. At this time, the two can be described as pushing the heart and stomach, and the liver and gallbladder look at each other. At this time, Hu Linyi's strength and prestige had actually surpassed Zeng Guofan.
The real friendship of suffering is still to face the difficulties together and advance and retreat together. In the seventh year of Xianfeng, Zeng Guofan's father passed away, he was on the front line in Jiangxi, according to the etiquette system should go home to keep filial piety, he repeatedly expressed his hope that the imperial court would deal with it and let him stay. However, the helpless imperial court did not want to see Zeng continue to sit on the throne, and zeng was abandoned for more than a year. During this year, Hu Linyi repeatedly pulled the official wen and went to the imperial court together, asking for the reuse of Zeng Guofan, saying that he was "lonely and loyal to the golden stone, respectable and readable." In the tenth year of Xianfeng, the Jiangnan camp was attacked by the Northern Expeditionary Army of the Taiping Army, and the imperial court once favored Hu Linyi to take over as the governor of Liangjiang, but Hu Yi also pulled the official Wen Shang to play and recommended Zeng Guofan to take up this post, and finally succeeded in making a comeback. This process shows that Hu Linyi's friendship with Zeng Guofan was extraordinary, and the imperial court originally wanted to use Hu Pressure to suppress Zeng, but it was completely miscalculated.
Hu's kindness to Zeng was not only financial and material, but also human. This is reflected in two aspects:
On the one hand, Hu Weixiangjun selected a large number of talents, such as the above, including the famous general Duolong'a and others are recommended, and will not be repeated here;
On the other hand, Hu greatly cooperated with Zeng's personnel arrangements and coordinated the relations with the generals and various ministries, such as Zeng Guofan and Zuo Zongtang, who at that time guarded Hubei and led the army to live in Jiangxi, and Hunan was Zuo Zongtang, the inspector of the master, who was actually in charge, Zuo Zongtang was proud of his talents, and often scolded Zeng, and the relationship between the two was once deadlocked, and it was Hu Linyi who came out to be a peacemaker; and then another Daoist member, Li Mengqun, who was once a water division camp officer, once wanted to promote Peng Yulin and Yang Yuebin, but he was also a restrain, and at this time, Hu also saw Zeng's intentions. Li Mengqun led the Xiang Army battalion to support Anhui, thus transferring the water division and vacating the position.
The personalities of Zeng and Hu are very different, Hu Linyi has a bright personality, and Zeng Guofan has some woodenness. However, this does not affect the two people to work together for the country and the people, under the common ideals and beliefs, the two have become close friends, take care of each other, and once commented that Hu "cares about everything and is a family with each other.". In the eleventh year of Xianfeng, after the defeat of the Xiang army in Sanhe Town, Chen Yucheng quickly entered Hubei, Hu Linyi died, and Zeng Guofan sighed that there was no longer a "person who was extremely fit".
Nowadays, posterity evaluates the three major figures in the early Xiang Army: Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang, and Hu Linyi. The first two are still very famous, how many people know Hu Linyi?