Zeng Guofan was originally pointed-faced, and after being forced to lead the Hunan army to withdraw to Huaibei in 1862, he worked day and night, and at this time he was even thinner, and his pointed face became an awl face. Tired look, tired appearance, Zeng Guofan's eyes seemed to be burning with a kind of heat, but people felt a little ghostly.

At the meeting of the main generals of the Huai River defense line of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, Zeng Guofan was not depressed or confused, and he proposed his own strategy to Jiang Zhongyuan, Zuo Zongtang, Li Hongzhang, Liu Kunyi and other generals. "At this time, the only way is to protect the armor, sit together, and Tuntian. There must be a three-pronged approach! ”

Today, Zuo Zongtang was driven from Zhejiang to northern Jiangsu, and he no longer had arrogance at this time. just quietly listened to Zeng Guofan's opinion. However, Jiang Zhongyuan was still a little calm, and he asked: "Brother Disheng, these strategies have been written in your letter last time, and I ask Brother Disheng to explain it more clearly." ”

Zeng Guofan habitually straightened his long beard, and said calmly: "To protect the armor, you must control the villagers of all villages. Ten households are one person, and one is set up. The top ten are one guarantee, and one is set up as a chief. Sending troops, money and food are all borne by the first commander and the chief of security. But if something happens, the method of joint sitting will be used, and if the person has an accident, the chief will be punished. If something happens to each of them, punish the chief of security. As for what to do at the moment, Tuntian is the first priority. Huguang was all taken by Wei Gou, if there is no food, I am afraid that the army will not be able to support it for too long. ”

Zuo Zongtang felt that Zeng Guofan's ability was limited a long time ago, but his own appearance was not necessarily much better than Zeng Guofan, so Zuo Zongtang originally thought that he should not speak. But the lion-nosed and wide-mouthed talent finally couldn't hold back, and he asked in surprise: "Juntun? ”

Jiang Zhongyuan asked, "What is Ji Gao's opinion?" ”

"It's not feasible to be a military camp!" Zuo Zongtang replied immediately.

"Please also ask Ji Gaofen to say." Zeng Guofan is worthy of being a person who cultivates his mind, there is not the slightest dissatisfaction in his voice, at least what Jiang Zhongyuan saw from Zeng Guofan was only humbly accepting.

Zuo Zongtang replied with a straight face: "First, where did the land of Juntun come from? Second, the north of the Huai River is not as good as the south of the Yangtze River, the south of the Yangtze River is planted and harvested in the same year, and the wheat planted in the north of the Huai River must survive the winter. Your idea is good, but it is difficult to realize. ”

Jiang Zhongyuan sighed in his heart, in fact, Zeng Guofan and Zuo Zongtang are both quite outstanding talents. It's just that Zeng Guofan is good at planning, and Zuo Zongtang is good at execution. If the two can cooperate sincerely, it will definitely be invincible, but Zuo Zongtang does not want to be subservient to Zeng Guofan no matter what. Although he knew where the contradiction between the two was, Jiang Zhongyuan had no way to reconcile this contradiction.

Zeng Guofan was not angry, he said slowly: "What is Ji Gao going to do?" If you can't get a military camp, do you rely on the allocation of the imperial court? It is true that the north of the Huai River is not the south of the Yangtze River, the people here are many simple and simple, and the trade is not prosperous, and the method of collecting centijin is not suitable for the north of the Huai River. At present, if we wait for the tax of the imperial court, I am afraid that it will be no more difficult than waiting for wheat for half a year. ”

Jiang Zhongyuan quite agreed with Zeng Guofan's thinking, as the governor of Anhui, Jiang Zhongyuan certainly knew the difficulty of collecting money and grain. He expressed his thoughts very implicitly, "It is said that Wei Ze also has military camps in various places. ”

Recently, there are more than a dozen guys from the landlord and gentry who have been low-level officials in the Guangfu Governor's Mansion. After being "brutally purged" by the old revolutionaries, the gang felt that they had no future and had not been able to reap any benefits from being civil servants. So they came and went to the "court".

With the information provided by these people who were involved in the actual operation of the new government, and the Manchu investigation, Jiang Zhongyuan and others were now able to determine that the Liberation Army had a large number of state farms. Each unit set up a farm and cultivated vegetable fields in the garrison. Although staple foods still need to be levied, non-staple foods are self-sufficient.

When Jiang Zhongyuan raised this issue, he did not want to discuss the organizational model of the Liberation Army, but expressed his support for Zeng Guofan very implicitly.

"Let the soldiers go farming?" Li Hongzhang's voice had a sense of opposition in it.

Zuo Zongtang's face was ugly, and he didn't even want to object. Jiang Zhongyuan is actually very weak-minded, the purpose of being a soldier is to eat food and get paid, and he is willing to farm at home honestly, so what kind of soldier is he still a soldier. However, Jiang Zhongyuan knew very well that the Manchu Qing Dynasty was on the verge of destruction, not to mention Wei Ze, who occupied the most elite area in the world at this time, with the area that the Qing court still continued to own, if he wanted to deal with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Twist Army, he could not force the local people to rebel. At this time, Jiang Zhongyuan's real target who could give orders was actually only his troops.

"The land of the military cantonment, the six armies of the people, and the four armies, are similar to the current land rent." Zeng Guofan said, "The people are short of land, and I just need to get the land now." ”

Hearing Zeng Guofan say this, everyone's attention was put back on Zeng Guofan. Zuo Zongtang asked, "Where does the land come from?" ”

Zeng Guofan pointed to the map of Huaibei, "From here!" ”

After a few glances, everyone was sure of one thing, Zeng Guofan was referring to the area where the Twist army was entrenched. From 1853 onwards, the Twist Army, which mainly sold illicit salt between Henan, Anhui and Shandong, began to rebel. They first colluded with the Taiping Army, and even took advantage of the opportunity of Wei Ze's Second Northern Expedition to greatly expand their territory and strength. Zeng Guofan seems to be preparing to seize the territory of the Twisted Army and implement the Tuntian policy here.

"Then the local people ......," Jiang Zhongyuan asked.

"The people in the area are all chaotic, and they have to be eliminated." Zeng Guofan replied calmly.

Hearing this understatement, the other generals were speechless. They really couldn't think of any other choice.

After the meeting ended, Jiang Zhongyuan went to Zuo Zongtang privately, and he asked Zuo Zongtang, "Ji Gao, do you have any progress on the matter of forming a new army?" ”

The three armies of the Huai, Hunan and Chu armies were naturally considered new armies compared to the Green Battalion, but after these three armies had been tempered by the flames of war, the senior generals during them believed that a stronger and more effective army must be built to confront the Guangfu army. Then such an army is naturally a new army. The characteristic of the new army is that it "imitates the Western army," and the Huai army is an artillery unit that has been taught and trained by foreigners. The results are much better than those trained by the Huai army itself. The Chu army not only invited foreign teachers for artillery, but also foreign teachers for the army. When it comes to forming a new army, the Chu army, which has more contact with foreigners in Shanghai, should naturally be the most experienced.

Zuo Zongtang listened to Jiang Zhongyuan's question, and he smiled bitterly: "Jiang Gong, how much does it cost to build a new army?" Is the court rich now? Do we still have money? ”

This guy got to the most important point, and Jiang Zhongyuan couldn't say anything. In the past, Zeng Guofan had Hunan and Hubei, Zuo Zongtang had Zhejiang and Fujian, and Jiang Zhongyuan only had Huaibei. The Huai army, which had the worst conditions at that time, has now become the richest of the three armies. After many years of operation, the tax revenue in the Huaibei area is finally stable. Collect taxes from whomever and how much, Jiang Zhongyuan at least will not be blinded. But the once relatively wealthy Hunan army and the Chu army were sitting on the empty mountain at this time, and life was difficult day by day.

Although he is bitter and mean, he can always point to the point, which is Zuo Zongtang's characteristic. Jiang Zhongyuan knew very well that Zeng Guofan himself had always been very bad in practice, and he was able to formulate the key points of strategic planning for the Hunan army, but he personally led his troops to fight a war, which was bound to lose every battle. At the level of military practice of the Hunan army, the navy division has Peng Yulin, and the army has Zeng Guoquan. Relying on these generals, the Hunan army can become stronger and stronger.

As for Zuo Zongtang, he has a very high level of practice and can also use theory in practice, but Zuo Zongtang himself cannot create a set of theories. This is not to say that Zuo Zongtang has a low eye, but Zuo Zongtang is very capable of doing things, so he has higher requirements for theory. At least the Hunan army's military theory of "knowing the host and the guest, and fighting a dumb battle" was ridiculed by Zuo Zongtang as worthless.

Just wanted to form a whole set of theories like the Guangfu Army, which was still beyond Zuo Zongtang's level. Therefore, Zuo Zongtang's biggest expression at the moment has become the ability to accurately see the problem, but there is no way to come up with a solution to the problem. In comparison, although Zeng Guofan's method has all kinds of problems, it is still a way if it is really implemented. Compared with the two, Jiang Zhongyuan's evaluation of Zeng Guofan is relatively high.

"I actually think it's weird, Wei Ze is a country man, where did he learn these skills here?" Jiang Zhongyuan turned the topic to the direction of not hurting feelings.

"This ......," Zuo Zongtang groaned. The more you know about Wei Ze, the higher Zuo Zongtang's evaluation of Wei Ze is, in fact, a few years ago, Wei Ze's evaluation of Zuo Zongtang far exceeded that of Zeng Guofan. The standard for commenting on the emperor in this era is the martial arts of civil governance, and the martial arts naturally need not be said again, and the Guangfu Army founded by Wei Ze has established a great reputation. In terms of cultural governance, he compiled Xinhua dictionaries, established a large number of schools, and taught various courses. Zuo Zongtang sent people to Guangdong to investigate and purchased primary school textbooks. After reading those textbooks, Zuo Zongtang felt that the opening of the book was beneficial, and he felt a little enlightened on many issues.

Zuo Zongtang was arrogant, and in the face of those who defeated him with absolute strength, he couldn't say anything with a clear conscience. So Zuo Zongtang said to Jiang Zhongyuan: "Maybe the news we got from Wei Ze before is not right. This person may not have been born in poverty. ”

"It seems that this is the only way to look at it." Jiang Zhongyuan also felt that this statement was very reasonable, and after he sighed, he solemnly said to Zuo Zongtang: "But Ji Gao, Wei Ze has only come to this day after twelve years of hard work, and the money and food in my hands are much better than Wei Ze's original, and we must cooperate sincerely at this time." I think Brother Di's plan may not be a good strategy, but it may not be impossible to implement. ”

"The money and food in our hands may be much better than Wei Ze twelve years ago, but the enemy in front of us is much stronger than the officers and troops twelve years ago. There is no strife. Zuo Zongtang sneered.

This is indeed a point of view, and Jiang Zhongyuan was speechless when he was refuted.

However, Zuo Zongtang never looked down on Jiang Zhongyuan, who was also quite capable of practice, and he continued: "What Jiang Gong said is that we must cooperate sincerely at this time. I'm going to do my best when I fight the army. ”R1058