Zuo Zongtang and Zeng Guofan lost peace truth Zuo Zongtang and Zeng Guofan lost peace truth

Zeng Guofan and Zuo Zongtang were both famous courtiers in the late Qing Dynasty and Xianfeng period, and both made great contributions to Tongzhi Zhongxing. They have played an irreplaceable role in China's recent history. The two have worked together for more than 10 years, and their friendship is very thick, and their moral articles are not distinguished. However, since the Three Years of Tongzhi's Xiang Army conquered Nanjing, the two men cut off their robes and broke off their righteousness, and there was no correspondence. The discord between Zuo Zongtang and Zeng Guofan is a historical case that has attracted people's attention. The friendly relations between the two yipin ministers for many years once fell to the freezing point, why did they lose their happiness?

Zeng Guofan abandoned the army without the permission of the imperial court and went home to run for his father's funeral, and Zuo Zongtang wrote a handwritten letter to bluntly criticize

In the seventh year of Xianfeng (1857), Zeng Guofan's father Zeng Linshu died of illness, and Zeng Guofan abandoned the army without the permission of the imperial court to return home to his father's funeral, and then Zeng Guofan also abandoned the camp and returned to his hometown. Zuo Zongtang, with his characteristic upright personality, severely criticized them: it was unreasonable to leave the military camp where the war was being carried out intensively without the permission of the imperial court!

Zeng Guofan received the news of his father's death on March 6, 1857, and then reported ding's worries on the 11th, because he was in a hurry to mourn, and embarked on the road back to his hometown on the 16th without waiting for the reply of the edict. In this regard, Zuo Zongtang bluntly criticized in his handwritten letter to Zeng Guofan: "There are also those who cannot be doubted by the trial elder brother Yu Rushing to the funeral. However, if he has already asked for his will, he should only obey the orders of the court... Sincerely with military rites and funerals as the same murder, there is no such thing as Xi Rong's thoughts of forgetting mourning; At the time of the fight, the situation is urgent, and there are those who cannot be unchanged. ”

Subsequently, Zeng Guofan did not want to make a hasty comeback, and stayed at home for more than a year before returning to the Jiangxi camp. Zuo Zongtang also wrote a letter to put forward his own views, saying that Zeng Guofan not only "rushed to mourn, did not want to die, and seemed to be indecent and unjust", but also "since he has returned with a star, he has already done nothing; If you don't return with your life, how can you not return with your life? "This is a mistake after a mistake, a manifestation of disloyalty to the court and injustice to friends. Zeng Guofan expressed disapproval of Zuo Zongtang's criticism of him. As Zuo Zongtang pointed out in his letters to Liu Zhiheng, Hu Linyi, and others: "The emperor did not live up to his fate, he returned with a star, and his brother Chen Qi could not do it, but there was nothing left to do." If you hear something strange, you can only hear it"; "This duke (referring to Zeng Guofan) is still negative as before, and I am also negative as before."

Zeng Guofan and Zuo Zongtang both argued for a certain amount of truth. Zuo Zongtang emphasized that loyalty and filial piety cannot be complete, and that before the imperial order is ordered, it should obey a loyal word and focus on a rational word; Zeng Guofan stressed that he had already played the imperial court and would be approved sooner or later in time, focusing on a filial piety and a love word.

When Zeng Guofan re-emerged from the mountains in the summer of the following year, he passed through Changsha and took the initiative to visit Zuo Zongtang and collected "Respect for Victory and Neglect, Righteousness over Desire; Knowing its male, keeping its female" 12 words for the union, asking for its seal book, indicating the meaning of humility. Afterwards, Zuo Zongtang also made self-criticism. This incident did not affect the relationship between the two, on the contrary, they still cooperated tacitly on many major military and political issues.

Because of the impeachment of Li Yuandu's case, the rift between the two further expanded

From 1860 to 1862, Li Yuandu was impeached by Zeng Guofan three times. Although Zeng Guofan felt a little sorry for Li Yuandu, he always believed that the distinction between public and private should be distinguished, and he had to do so for the sake of serious military discipline. Zuo Zongtang did not agree with Zeng Guofan's strict impeachment of Li Yuandu, on the grounds that in addition to Li Yuandu's saving grace for Zeng Guofan, more importantly, he believed that Zeng Guofan's military strategy was quite related to Li Yuandu's military defeat. Because before the fall of Hangzhou, Zeng Guofan had instructed Zuo Zongtang to "give up Zhejiang to protect Gan", and after Li Yuandu led the "AnYue Army" from Hunan to the border between Zhejiang and Gansu, he was ordered to be dispatched by Zuo Zongtang. Zuo Zongtang raised objections to the strategic principle of "giving up Zhejiang and Baogan", but Zeng Guofan did not fully adopt it. Therefore, when Hangzhou fell and Zhejiang Governor Wang Youling was defeated and killed, the actual responsibility should be borne by Zeng Guofan, and Li Yuandu should not be used as a scapegoat.

Zeng Guofan's reason for impeaching Li Yuandu was also very clear: Li Yuandu had both the habit of a literati to speak out loud, and the mistake of wanting to set up another portal and deliberately staying without listening to dispatches. After being impeached in 1860 in the Case of the Fall of Huizhou, Li Yuandu did not wait for the trial and returned to Hunan without authorization to recruit Yong to go to Zhejiang to return to Zhejiang to dispatch Wang Youling. In addition, he stayed on the way to hangzhou with the "An Yue Army" on the way to aid. This is Li Yuandu's "former negative subject, and later negative wang youling." The Fa is difficult to forgive, and the emotions are also difficult to forgive. Therefore, Zeng Guofan believed that Li Yuandu should be severely punished. Later, the Qing court ordered Zuo Zongtang to handle the impeachment of Li Yuandu with full authority. Zuo Zongtang and other Xiang generals tried their best to speak for Li Yuandu and make him punish him lightly. Zeng Guofan pushed the boat along the water and said that he was willing to listen to Zuo Zongtang's disposal.

Although the unhappiness between Zeng Guofan and Zuo Zongtang caused by Li Yuandu's case did not affect the fundamental situation of their concerted efforts to suppress the Taiping Army, it has shown that the rift between the two has further widened. In essence, the question of whether Li Yuandu should be strictly involved reflects the "public affairs" of how to use soldiers to govern the army and how to employ people with leniency and moderation, but it reflects the differences in personality characteristics such as the behavior of Zeng Guofan and Zuo Zongtang.

"One Heart Like Gold" and "Attacking the Wrong Stone"

A characteristic of Zeng Guofan's use of troops is that he pays attention to the overall planning of the war, fights steadily and steadily, and does not easily enter the army. After the Xiang army captured Anqing in early September 1861, Zeng Guofan planned to attack Nanjing. He adopted the steady military policy of "if you want to uproot the roots, first cut the branches and leaves." Therefore, more than 5 months after the Xiang Army captured Anqing, it began to launch an all-out offensive against the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom base area centered on Nanjing.

At the end of May of that year, when more than 20,000 people from Zeng Guoquan's army arrived at the city of Nanjing, Zeng Guofan was not only not happy, but worried, and repeatedly persuaded Zeng Guoquan to retreat and not to fall into a situation of being alone and helpless. This was because several of the main forces of the Xiang Army at that time were difficult to support Zeng Guoquan: Zuo Zongtang's troops were far away in Zhejiang, Bao Chao's troops were blocked in Ningguo, and Duolong Abu was on his way to Shaanxi.

Sure enough, Zeng Guofan's concerns were not superfluous. Subsequently, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom launched the "Thirteen Kings Return to Save Tianjing". The battle between the two sides began in mid-October and ended November. Originally, more than 200,000 Taiping troops could have defeated Zeng Guoquan's Xiang army, but only because of Li Xiucheng's decision-making mistakes did Zeng Guoquan's Xiang army win by chance.

In September 1863, Bao Chao's Xiang army attacked Nanling from Wuhu, Jiang Zhongyi's Xiang army attacked Qingyang, and the decisive battle in southern Anhui was imminent, so Zeng Guofan wrote to Zuo Zongtang to send troops from Zhejiang to anhui hui division. However, Zuo Zongtang believed that the taiping army in southern Anhui could not become a big climate, and under the pressure of the Xiang army's large troops, it was possible to transfer into the territory of Zhejiang, and if it would be in southern Anhui, Zhejiang would be empty, and the plan to besiege Hangzhou would be frustrated. Therefore, not only did he not obey the dispatch of Zeng Guofan's division in southern Anhui, but on the contrary, he quickly transferred Liu Dian's army and Wang Kailin's army in Anhui province to guard Jixi and other places on the border of Anhui and Zhejiang. At the same time, Zuo Zongtang made a kind criticism of Zeng Guofan's use of troops to seek stability, and although Zeng Guofan expressed dissatisfaction with Zuo Zongtang's failure to "meet the teacher" in time, he did not hesitate because it was later confirmed that Zuo Zongtang's estimation that the Taiping Army would inevitably enter Zhejiang was correct.

After Li Xiucheng's Taiping Army attacked Shanghai for the second time without results, Li Hongzhang's Huai army marched westward and successively captured Wuxi, Suzhou and other cities. In early 1864, Li Shixian of the Taiping Army lived in Liyang and cooperated with the brother troops of Jurong and Guangde to block the passage of the Xianghuai Army on the borders of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui. In the face of this military situation, Zuo Zongtang made three proposals to Zeng Guofan that Li Hongzhang's Huai army should be drawn to attack Guangde, Anhui Province, and not concentrate all its forces on Changzhou, Jiaxing, and other places. Zeng Guofan disagreed with this suggestion, believing that the Taiping Army's power in southern Anhui was still quite prosperous, and if the army attacked Guangde, it would be possible to force the Taiping Army into Jiangxi and threaten the rear of the Xiang Army. The two men had their own opinions, and eventually Zuo Zongtang played the Qing court, expounding his views while criticizing Zeng Guofan's mistakes in using military strategy. Soon, although the Taiping army in Nanjing failed to break through jurong and other passages, the Taiping army of Guangde captured Jixi by ningguo, and the facts proved that Zuo Zongtang's analysis was correct. When Zeng Guofan gently criticized himself in his letter to Zuo Zongtang, Zuo Zongtang looked down more and more on Zeng Guofan's military talents, and the contradiction between Zeng Guofan and Zuo Zongtang deepened.

In July 1864, after the Xianghuai army captured Nanjing, Zuo Zongtang used Zeng Guofan to report that the military situation was wrong, and launched a verbal attack on Zeng Guofan. Originally, Zeng Guofan, because he did not know the truth, informed the imperial court that Hong Xiuquan's son Hong Tianguifu, the young king of Heaven, had died in the rebellion (in fact, Hong Tianguifu had escaped but did not die), and Zuo Zongtang learned the truth and went to the Qing court to correct it. Zeng Guofan suspected that Zuo Zongtang was deliberately emperor Zhang, and also argued with Shangshu. Zuo Zongtang did not give in to each other, and then neglected to argue with each other, and his words were fierce, almost attacking. On October 25, Hong Tianguifu was captured in Jiangxi, the truth came out, and Zuo Zongtang used this to make a big accusation against Zeng Guofan, which made Zeng Guofan, who has always been known for his tolerance, not only feel embarrassed in his face, but also felt in his heart that only by respecting Zuo Zongtang could he avoid more unhappiness. Since then, the two have not been heard from each other for 8 years.

Needless to say, the difference of opinion between Zuo Zongtang and Zeng Guofan not only existed, but also appeared quite prominently on certain issues. However, if we look at the historical data, we will find that their difference of opinion reflects the dispute over "official affairs" and "state affairs", and is not mainly a dispute over unnecessary personal will. Furthermore, this contradiction and argument does not profoundly affect the friendship between the two people.

After Zeng Guofan's death, Zuo Zongtang remembered the friendship between the two in the early years, quite sad, and he said to his eldest son Zuo Xiaowei in his family letter: "I am very sad about the loss of Marquis Zeng. Not only is the situation worrying, but the friendship is also difficult to be sympathetic. Four hundred gold has been awarded. He also specially made a pair of pull-outs and dissected his heart: "The loyalty of the country, the wisdom of knowing people, and the shame is not as good as yuanfu; If the heart is like gold, the attack is like a stone, and the phase period is not to bear the life. This shows that his life-and-death friendship, although stranded in the middle, did not abandon it indifferently, let alone cut it off, and also showed that Zeng Guofan was a rare and fearsome friend of his.