3 minutes a day, get to know the real Zeng Guofan!
How can you make your people selflessly help you? In fact, this situation almost does not happen, the late Qing Dynasty famous minister Zeng Guofan encountered countless nobles in his life, from his practice, if you want to get the help of nobles, you must change yourself, in your body, you need to have the mind of a gentleman, the means of a villain.
Below, we explain in detail the operation mode of Zeng Guofan.
In interpersonal communication, gentlemen will undoubtedly be welcomed by more people. According to Zeng Guofan, not everyone is born a gentleman. So, what kind of mind does a gentleman need to have?
Zeng Guofan believes that:
But if he is a gentleman and a gentleman, if he is afraid of the inability of a good, he who has fallen into the underworld will have a depravity; if he does not go away, he who is trickling will have no time. The house is leaky and like an emperor, square and solid as a golden stone.
The meaning of this passage is:
A gentleman handles things, lest he do a good deed incompletely, and in obscurity there will be degenerate behavior; if a bad problem is not corrected, it will be like a trickle of water that will make mistakes for many years. The awe-inspiring evil thoughts in the dark room are like facing the gods, and the main heart is as hard as a golden stone.
In this passage, Zeng Guofan explains the gentleman's mind very clearly, including a total of three points:
First, gentlemen have a beginning and an end in everything they do. Gentlemen will not go with the flow, and they will not be half-hearted. After Zeng Guofan entered the official field, he aspired to be a "inner saint and outer king", and he established this ambition as a lifelong ambition. It is also his lofty ambitions that make his official position bigger and bigger, becoming a generation of famous courtiers.
Second, gentlemen are good at reflection and summarization. This is something that many people are difficult to do, or difficult to do continuously, Zeng Guofan is a very good at reflecting and summarizing people, after he entered the official field, in order to improve his cultivation behavior, every day through the way of keeping a diary, reflect on their mistakes, always spur themselves forward, accumulated over time, Zeng Guofan eventually became a popular person.
Third, the willpower is firm. As Zeng Guofan said, only when a person is "as leaky as the emperor and as strong as a golden stone" can he make himself strong.
When a person has the mind of a gentleman, he brings his own light and can attract the attention of others. After Zeng Guofan aspired to be a saint, he only entered the court for three years as an official, and then he was promoted by Mu Zhang'a, the first assistant minister of the military aircraft. After receiving the promotion, Zeng Guofan, because of his serious work, steadfastness, and loyalty to the imperial court, and won the appreciation of the Daoguang Emperor, so he became a waiter in the Zhengerpin Ceremonial Department at the age of 37.
It can be said that if Zeng Guofan did not have the mind of a gentleman, he would naturally not get the help of nobles.
In real life, we cannot ask everyone for a gentleman's lifestyle, and if we want to get help from nobles, we also need the means of villains.
Let's take another example of Zeng Guofan.
In the second year of Xianfeng (1852 AD), zeng guofan received a holy decree from the Xianfeng emperor while he was a native of his mother shouxiao, ordering him to serve as the minister of hunan regiment training and form a civilian armed force to resist the Taiping Army.
As a literati, Zeng Guofan did not know much about the military, so he did not want to take on this errand. Just as Zeng Guofan was preparing to write a recital and resign from this errand, his good friend Guo Songtao suddenly came to visit. Guo Songtao was a famous scholar in Hunan, and in addition to coming to mourn filial piety, he also took the orders of Zhang Liangji, the governor of Hunan, and urged Zeng Guofan to come out of the mountains. Guo Songtao advised Zeng Guofan:
Gong Su has the ambition to clarify, and now does not take advantage of the time to self-effect, such as the king father?
During the Qing Dynasty, there were indeed very few vacancies in the official field, and if an official Ding You was at home, his position would be replaced by others immediately, so it was really not easy to get a chance to get out of the mountains. In fact, it is not that Zeng Guofan does not want to go out of the mountain, he has a bitter heart, that is, he needs someone to help him. Guo Songtao is not only a person with courage and insight, his family is also a famous large household in Hunan, and has business dealings with merchants all over Hunan.
If he could get Guo Songtao's help, at least in terms of grain, Zeng Guofan could get a certain amount of sponsorship. In order to let Guo Songtao take the initiative to help himself, Zeng Guofan made a means, that is, he promised him verbally, but did not act. Guo Songtao's temperament was more urgent, and he thought that he had moved Zeng Guofan, so he immediately went to Zhang Liangji to resume his life.
However, after Guo Songtao left, Zeng Guofan never left for Changsha. Guo Songtao had no choice but to go to Zeng Guofan's home again to invite him. Zeng Guofan saw that the time was ripe and proposed a condition, that is, to make Guo Songtao his shogunate governor and help him form the Xiang Army. Guo Songtao had no choice but to agree.
It was with the help of Guo Songtao that Zeng Guofan was very smooth when he formed the Xiang Army, and finally made the Xiang Army a strong force in the late Qing Dynasty.
From the practice of Zeng Guofan, we can see that if you want to make noble people selflessly help you, you need to have a certain strength. This strength is that you need to have the mind of a gentleman and the means that a villain has. When the noble person is impressed by the charm of your body, he is naturally willing to help you.
This is a method of taming people in Zeng Guofan. This method can make others unconsciously use it for you.
Author: Ke Duo (real name Tian Jianzhong, media person, historical and cultural researcher, author of "Zeng Guofan Heart Study", "Zeng Guofan Official Marketing", "Zeng Guofan for the OfficialDom of Learning: Promotion and Promotion have a Way", "Zeng Guofan Power Strategy" and so on).
References: The Complete Works of Zeng Guofan, The Biography of Zeng Guofan, The Great Biography of Zeng Guofan, The Annals of Zeng Guofan, Draft History of the Qing Dynasty, etc.