When he was in Beijing, Hu Linyi and Zeng Guofan were not the same people

▲ Hu Linyi set up a proverbs academy in honor of his father

During the Xianfeng period of the Qing Dynasty, Zeng Guofan and Hu Linyi were in the Battle of Pinghong Yang, and it was well known to the world that the two cooperated sincerely and saw each other sincerely. Especially before Zeng Guofan acted as the governor of Liangjiang, Zeng had no territory, led a guest army to send people to the fence, painstakingly supported, and Hu Linyi, who was the governor of Hubei, took the overall situation as the most important, raised grain for the Xiang army, and dredged up high-level relations.

After Hu Linyi's early death, Zeng Guofan was in pain. In a letter to Hu Linyi's close friend and in-law Zuo Zongtang, he said: "Hu Gongbao died on the twenty-eighth day of August (Xianfeng eleventh year, 1861) and mourned bitterly. Worried about the country with a pure heart, careful with friends, and painstakingly protecting the generals, would the world rather have a Slovak people? ”

Zeng Guofan was born in 1811. Long Hulin Wing is one year old. Zeng Guofan entered the priesthood in the middle of the eighteenth year of Daoguang (1838) and was elected as the Shujishi of Hanlin Yuan. Two years ago, in the sixteenth year of Daoguang, Hu Linyi was a zhongjin soldier and entered the Hanlin Academy. According to the rules of the science field, Hu can be counted as zeng's predecessor. Hu is a native of Yiyang County, formerly from Xiangxiang County, and belongs to Changsha Province. The two also had a long time intersection in Hanlin Academy. But when they were officials in Beijing, the two compatriots didn't seem to have much contact.

In the diary of Zeng Guofan, he spent a lot of time asking questions and visiting friends during his study and service in Hanyuan in Daoguang's 20th, 21st, and 22nd years. During this period, his main contacts were with the same villagers and the same year, and he was very close to the Beijing officials in Hunan, especially in Changsha Province. For example, Mei Zhongshu (Linsheng) of Ningxiang, Chen Yuangong (Daiyun) of Chaling, Zou Yanjie (Yunyan) of Liuyang, Ling Yuyuan (Dizhou) of Shanhua, Tang Peng (Haiqiu) of Yiyang, and He Shaoji (Zizhen) and He Shaoqi (Zijing) of Yongzhou Prefecture, they and Zeng Guofan ate together, discussed their learning, and went shopping together. Hu Linyi, who was similar in age to Zeng Guofan and a fellow villager in Changsha Province, was rarely recorded in his diary.

Only in the twenty-first year of Daoguang (1841), Hu Linyi's father Hu Dayuan died in Jingshi, and during the Funeral of the Hu family, Zeng Guofan mentioned Hu Linyi several times in his diary, but it was also a brush stroke.

In the early morning of May 25 of that year, Zeng Guofan heard the evil consumption of his friend Mei Zhongshu's illness and death, and "heard that his fellow villager Mr. Hu Yunge also died last night." Hu Dayuan Zi Yunge, who died at the age of sixty-five, was not a short life at that time. Hu Dayuan was born in the third place of the Jinshi First Class (that is, Tanhua), was the first three in the history of Yiyang Keju to enter the temple examination, and the official Zhizheng Sipin's Shao Zhan Shi (Zhan Shi Fu was originally a specialized institution for cultivating and serving the prince, after the abolition of the prince after the Kangxi Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty, this institution became a subsidiary of the Hanlin Academy, in charge of the affairs of the article), and was very prestigious among his fellow villagers. Many years later, Zeng Guofan wrote the "Record of the Proverbs Academy" for the Hu family, which said:

Daoguang Pengshu (1838) was a scholar of the Imperial and Xiang Dynasties, and many of them were in the same generation, while Mr. Hu Yunge, a young zhan shi Yiyang, offered wine alone for the teacher, and the people of the township were suspicious of the kao de, such as the candle of the shadow, and the crowd was invincible.

As a fellow villager, Zeng Guofan, of course, had to go to Hu Mansion to mourn. Zeng Guofan's diary has a brief record of this.

On the first day of June, "go to the city to mourn Mr. Hu Yunge". On June 16 and 7, "Mr. Hu Yunge's recitation." On July 14, "After dinner, I will go to Brother Mei Shi's place, and tomorrow I will go to the south to ask about everything." He went to Xu Shishu to send him off, and then to Zhou Huafu's mother to pay homage to Shou. Then he went to The place where Hurun was and asked about the burial of Yi Fulan. Hu Sent Yu's "The Complete Works of Tao Wenyi" in two parts. ” On the 29th of July, "it is the day that Hu Yongzhi (i.e., Runzhi) sends Yu Kang mats and Kang pillows. ” On the third day of the first month of August, "I sent Mr. Hu Yunge out of Beijing and returned to the mouth of Dongzhu City." ”

From these diaries, it can be seen that Zeng Guofan has great respect for Mr. Hu Dayuan. As a fellow countryman, for this Hanyuan senior whose scientific examination results exceeded his own, he had been reasonable and should also do the etiquette on these scenes. It is reasonable to say that with this relationship, he and Hu Linyi should have more contacts. But according to the diary, his interaction with Hu was only because of the death of Hu Dayuan, and Hu Linyi was a filial piety. However, from a few strokes, it can also be seen that Hu Linyi is very good at being a person. In order to express his gratitude, he first gave two parts of the complete works of the old man Tao Shu to Zeng, which was a not light gift at that time, especially for Zeng Guofan, who was a famous courtier; second, before escorting his father's coffin back to Yiyang, he made a special trip to Zeng's house to send kang mats and kang pillows. Of course, such daily necessities are not worth much money, which may be due to the custom of "leaving a memory". The objects used by the respected deceased are given to relatives or juniors as a souvenir.

Hu Gong and Zeng Gong met again in June of the eighth year of Xianfeng (1858), during the period of Zeng Guofan's father's worries, when he was ordered to go out of the mountains to re-lead the Xiang army, and when he passed through Wuchang, he "stayed in the festival for eight days" and "became familiar with the big plan" with Hu Linyi. Ergong had been in violation for seventeen years, and his impression of Hu was very different from that of when he was in The Beijing Division.

I thought that the root cause of the lack of friendship between the two of them when they were in Beijing was that they were not the same people at that time. Hu Linyi is a typical "second generation official", and Zeng Guofan is a "phoenix man" with good luck. The talents of the two had not yet been fully revealed, and it was not yet time for them to appreciate each other. Different family environments and growth processes determine that they do not belong to the same circle of friends.

When Hu Linyi was young, he worked as a "left-behind child" in his hometown of Yiyang for a period of time, and was raised by his grandfather. When Hu Linyi was eight years old, Tao Shu went from Anhua to Sichuan to become an official, and after visiting his grandfather through Yiyang, he was shocked to see Hu Linyi and gave him his daughter Tao Jingjuan. Since then, Hu Linyi has traveled back and forth between Hunan and Beijing, where he has been taught by famous teachers, such as He Xiling and Cai Jinquan. Daoguang ten years Hu Linyi returned to Yiyang to complete the marriage with Tao Jingjuan. In the eleventh year, Daoguang was ordered by his father-in-law Tao Shu to take his family to Jiangning and live in the yamen of his father-in-law, the governor of Liangjiang. Daoguang sixteen years into the priesthood and the first, into the Hanlin Academy.

It can be seen that Hu Linyi's youth was very smooth, he was not only the young master of a high-ranking official in the imperial court, but also the uncle of a feudal official, not to mention that he did not have to worry about food and clothing, and the books he could read, see people and things were far beyond the comparison of Zeng Guofan, who grew up in the countryside of Xiangxiang County. Juncai grew up in the family of officials and eunuchs, and his growth has advantages and disadvantages. The benefits are good living and educational conditions, a wide range of knowledge, and a broad vision. In the twelfth year of Daoguang, the twenty-one-year-old Hu Linyi participated in high-level politics in the Lao Zhangren Bureau. In the same year, he recommended to Tao Shu Lin Zexu and Iribu as the successors of the governor of Liangjiang. In the ninth year of Xianfeng (1859), Hu Linyi said in a letter to the official wen:

Lin Yi saw the governor of other provinces at an early age, but Tao Wenyi, Lin Wenzhong and Qi Zhuxuan, Lu Houshan's Heart Technique virtue was the same as that of Zhongtang Heart Technique. When Lin Yi saw Tao Wenyi at an early age, he asked his secret bodyguard Lin Wenzhong and Mr. Yi Xinnong to be the two rivers for him, and Wen Yi was deeply impressed.

Juxtaposing Guan Wen and Lin Zexu and others is, of course, Hu Linyi's horse ass to shoot Guan Wen. And this year, what is Zeng Guofan doing? He went with his father to take xiucai, and in his father's bamboo pavilion public examination, Zeng Guofan fell to the first place.

The disadvantage of Hu Linyi growing up in such a family is that he is easy to get involved in playboy problems when he is young, spends a lot of money, and his personal life is informal. A rich, talented, handsome, considerate, and brash nobleman like Hu Linyi not only likes women, but probably men also like it. When he was in Jiangning, he went in and out of the Qinglou on the banks of the Qinhuai River with his friends all day, and Tao Shu not only did not rebuke him, but also told people that Runzhi would work for the country in the future, and that he should enjoy himself when he was young. ------------------------------------ When he was in Beijing, his frequented places changed from the banks of the Qinhuai River to the Eight Great Hutongs, and most of his friends were relatives and nobles and famous eunuchs.

Zeng Guofan was the son of a landowner who had just entered Beijing as an official, and he worshipped Tang Jian and Wu Ren as his teachers, demanding himself by the standards of a saint, and even if he looked at his friend's beautiful concubine a few times, he had to blame himself in his diary as a beast. Zeng Guofan, who lived a bitter career as a Beijing official, had the money and mind to be as poetic and wine-like as Hu Linyi? His social circle is also his like-minded compatriots, the same year. Obviously, Hu Linyi belongs to another circle, and the two may not be able to look at each other.

After Zeng Guofan sent Hu Dayuan's coffin out of Beijing to bid farewell to Hu Linyi, the luck of the two was reversed. After that, Zeng Guofan rose straight up and reached the rank of waiter at the age of thirty-eight. After Hu Linyi buried his father back in his hometown, he kept the system at home. Two years ago, in the nineteenth year of Daoguang, his father-in-law Tao Shu, who was deeply respected by the Daoguang Emperor, died. Because Daoguang was tired of the main examination Wenqing when he was the deputy chief examiner of Jiangnan for twenty years, he was unable to make a comeback when he served the mourning period. By the twenty-sixth year of Daoguang (1846), he had to donate a huge sum of money to the officials before he could recover and distribute it to Guizhou as the prefect.

I think that the five years that Hu Linyi returned to his hometown in Yiyang should be the darkest period of his life. The two patrons of life are gone, and when he was young, he tasted the cold and warm of human feelings and the cold of the world. After the comeback, Hu Linyi, like a changed person, changed the style of the year, when he was the prefect of Guizhou, he wore shorts and shorts to lead the soldiers to go deep into the Miao village to quell the chaos.

After experiencing the washing of the years and the great changes in life and the situation, after being willing to taste bitterness, the two middle-aged compatriots Hu Linyi and Zeng Guofan can transcend the difference in origin and become the same way and best friend who are imprinted with each other and help each other.