In China, a sage is almost the highest height that a person can reach, and generally refers to a person who is highly respected, has great wisdom, and has reached the highest and most perfect state of human beings. And it needs to be a person who has made achievements in self-cultivation, morality, speech, and meritorious service, and is close to perfection. Although Zeng Guofan has been demanding himself according to the standards of saints, and he is good in self-cultivation, morality, speech, and meritorious service, there is still a big gap compared with ancient saints. And Zeng Guofan is a little lame, he is a little weak in terms of standing up. Needless to say, Confucius was a great sage, and Wang Yangming also had his own complete theoretical system "Yangming Xinxue", while Zeng Guofan, although he had a family history, he did not have a relatively systematic theoretical system after all.

Zeng Guofan, the word Bohan, the number Disheng, although he was born a commoner, but his ancestors are also very good, and he is known as the seventieth grandson of the sage Zengzi. Zeng Guofan was diligent and studious since childhood, entered the school at the age of six, could read four books and recite the Five Classics at the age of eight, and could read the anthologies of "Zhou Li" and "Historical Records" at the age of fourteen. In the eighteenth year of Daoguang, he entered the Hanlin Academy and was a protégé of Mu Zhang, the minister of military aircraft. Retired cabinet bachelor, the Ministry of Rites, the Ministry of Soldiers, Workers, Criminals, and Officials of the Ministry of Soldiers, and University Scholar Wu Ren, Huining Dao He Guizhen and other close friends, with "practical learning" to temper each other. Zeng Guofan's ambition was originally to be a Taoist, but Hong Xiuquan, the first talent, changed the fate of Zeng Guofan, a good student, after Zeng Guofan formed the Hunan Army, he turned the tide and destroyed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom after years of fierce battles. Zeng Guofan has always been committed to serving in government, taking patience as the first priority, advocating that everything should be diligent, thrifty and honest, and not to be proud of officials. He cultivated himself and disciplined himself, sought officials with virtue, gave priority to etiquette, and sought government with loyalty, and achieved great success in officialdom.

Zeng Guofan's claim to be the emperor was not something that only happened to Nanjing, and someone mentioned it to him a long time ago. After all, the people who follow the chaos below are all looking forward to Zeng Guofan's rebellion, and those who are younger brothers will look forward to the eldest brother making the field bigger and bigger. After Zeng Guofan's Hunan army grew stronger, the people below naturally had some ideas that violated etiquette. In the eleventh year of Xianfeng, Xianfeng died in Chengde, and then Guo Xing'a, Yixin and others fought in a pot of porridge under the city of Beijing. Li Yuandu, the general of the Hunan army, sent such a couplet to Zeng Guofan at that time - the prince has no species, and the emperor has the truth; Ding has weight, it seems to be questionable. Zeng Guofan took the couplet, looked at it, put it aside, and didn't say a word. Li Yuandu was also interested, and he didn't dare to say anything more. Zeng Guofan's fellow countryman Wang Minyun, although he ate with Su Shun, but after Guo Xing'a fell out with Su Shun, he also had a strange thought, and even discussed this matter with Zeng Guofan in person. Zeng Guofan didn't say a word from beginning to end, and finally dipped his hand in tea and wrote two words on the table, and left alone. Wang Minyun looked over and saw that it was the word "ridiculous". Later, when Zeng Guofan celebrated his birthday, Hu Linyi, who was the governor of Hubei at the time, handed him a note. I once opened it and saw that it said that there was no owner in the southeast half of the wall, how could my father care? As usual, Zeng Guofan didn't say a word, and tore it to pieces casually.

His subordinates hoped that he would be the emperor, and his partners persuaded him to sit in the world, Zeng Guofan was a famous Han minister, if he wanted to rebel and support the army to stand on his own, it seemed to be a matter of providence and the will of the people, but Zeng Guofan refused to live or die. Because Zeng Guofan knows better than anyone that once he rebels against the Manchu Qing, the world will really be in chaos again.

Zeng Guofan can be regarded as a model of Chinese traditional knowledge elements, and his contemporaries Li Hongzhang, Zhang Zhidong, and Yuan Shikai all admired his character. Decades later, the two great men who would most influence Chinese history* and Chiang Kai-shek, both praised him. Therefore, from the perspective of self-cultivation and governance, Zeng Guofan's personal charm far surpasses the dispute between parties and political opinions. One of the biggest advantages of his achievement is that Zeng Guofan is particularly good at introspection. Every day, he reflects on himself, and more often than not, on his own race. It is precisely because of such profound and comprehensive introspection that he completely gave up doing such a major thing as rebellion and self-reliance. Unlike the rebellions of other dynasties, the anti-Manchu Qing set up another emperor, first of all, against the Manchus, and then against the Qing. And the former made Zeng Guofan quite worried.

In the more than 200 years since the founding of the Qing Dynasty, not only have the banner people been integrated with the Han people and fully integrated into the Han society, but the Han people have also thoroughly learned to obey, and everyone is used to thick and long braids. Once the flag man is driven out of the Central Plains, the braid on this head is easy to cut, but the braid on the heart is not easy to cut. After all, it is very difficult for a banner man in Guoxing'a to cut the braids of the Han people, and Zeng Guofan will not be much more convenient than Guoxing'a.

Moreover, in addition to these conceptual problems, there are also many very practical situations, the great powers of various countries are looking at the outside world, Guo Xing'a, Zuo Zongtang, Li Hongzhang, Shen Baozhen, Seng Lingqin and other heroes stand side by side, and the anti-Qing move at this time is very likely to be self-chaos and self-destruction. After witnessing and experiencing the tragic situation of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which caused the lives of the people to be miserable and worse than death, Zeng Guofan was even more resolute and unwilling to take such a risk for his own glory. This kind of prudence can be understood as a kind of cowardice and fear, and it can also be understood as a great benevolence and courage that pities the world.

Guo Xing'a once lamented that the Chinese love to fight in the nest, and Zeng Guofan not only had the same feelings, but also knew that the Chinese people were all masters in this regard. Zeng Guofan, who was familiar with the Book of Changes, knew very well the truth that if the surplus is full, it was also true, just when the Hunan army seemed to be at its peak, it was precisely when the Hunan army began to split. Even without the siege of Guoxing'a's troops, after the fall of Nanjing, Zeng Guofan also faced the problem of the collapse of the Hunan army.

At present, the troops under the control of Zeng Guofan nominally have 300,000 people, but he can really use less than 120,000. Among the 120,000, only 50,000 he brought out at the beginning, and many of his subordinate generals Zori were from the banner people. The remaining sixty percent of the Hunan army belonged to different factions, among which the more influential ones were Zuo Zongtang, Li Hongzhang and Shen Baozhen. Among them, the relationship between Zuo Zongtang and Zeng Guofan is very bad, Zuo Zongtang scolds Zeng Guofan almost wherever he goes.

No matter what the occasion, Zuo Zongtang only said two things when he saw people, the first thing was to boast about how majestic and brave he was on the battlefield, and the second thing was to scold Zeng Guofan for how hypocritical he was. Apart from these two things, the third topic is never mentioned. In the early years, Zeng Guofan still had support and help to Zuo Zongtang, and many people couldn't understand why Zuo Zongtang had such a big opinion on Zeng Guofan, which naturally had two people acting together to show the court and make the court feel at ease, but the heroic Zuo Zongtang did not fit well with the self-denying and introverted Zeng Guofan in terms of personality. Whether the two of them are acting or not is serious, and it is really something that no one can say. If Zeng Guofan really rebelled and raised troops to fight for the world, the first person to quell the rebellion might really be Zuo Zongtang.

Li Hongzhang was in charge of Zeng Guofan, who was in charge of the people before and after, and called the teacher, and without Zeng Guofan's strong assistance, Li Hongzhang's Huai Army would not have been able to get up at all. But Li Hongzhang is a bit of a problem with his character, Zeng Guofan's power Li Hongzhang must still be a good student of Zeng Guofan, but if Zeng Guofan rebels and encounters some setbacks, Li Hongzhang will definitely stand on the side of the imperial court, resolutely suppress Zeng Guofan, and will not even say a word of mediation.

Shen Baozhen relied on his father-in-law to be Lin Zexu, and he was dissatisfied with Zeng Guofan, who was born as a civilian. When Zeng Guoquan besieged Nanjing, there was a shortage of food and silver, and Zeng Guofan asked Shen Baozhen to send some grain and grass over again and again, but Shen Baozhen just ignored it. Zeng Guoquan is not a good bird either, so he wrote down Shen Baozhen in the little black book. After conquering Nanjing, he deliberately let go of Guangde and Xuancheng in southern Anhui, so that the remnants of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom could enter Jiangxi and harm Shen Baozhen, the governor of Jiangxi. This has not yet won the world, a group of Han people have already been fighting so lively, if they really want to have the temptation of the emperor's throne, it is estimated that this person will be in a mess first. And in addition to these uncles, the two lakes also have the official documents that hold the old nest of Zeng Guofan, Yangzhou and Zhenjiang have Fu Ming'a and Feng Zicai who are looking at the gate, and there are also Monk Greenqin and other main forces in the banner group of the Qing Dynasty, and Northeast Manchuria is still entrenched in the dinosaur Guoxing'a, it is easy to oppose the Qing Dynasty, but it is difficult to unify China again.

These are all external factors, Zeng Guofan has a huge internal factor in his heart, and he doesn't want to rebel at all. Zeng Guofan has studied the "Yangming Mind" all his life, and he is immersed in the Confucian classics every day, and he has a deep-rooted idea of loyalty to the monarch in his heart. Zeng Guofan was deeply influenced by Tang Jian, a master of late purification, and the purpose of raising troops was quite clear: to defend the famous religion and the Qing court. His personal pursuit is to be a minister of Zhongxing, a marquis to worship the prime minister, and to glorify his ancestors. Zeng Guofan was deeply immersed in traditional Chinese Confucianism, and he studied tirelessly, studying hard day and night, especially after taking the imperial examination in Beijing and entering the Shuchang Hall to study, "reading as a profession every day". Diligent in seeking advice, not ashamed to ask, read history, attach importance to science, and read a large number of poems and ancient texts, talented, full of wealth. Because he was well-read and dabbled in literature, he also had his own unique views on politics: that is, the ruler should be "an inner sage and an outer king", and freely use Confucianism to govern the world. He admired Cheng Zhu Lixue and once put forward methods for governing the world, involving the rule of officials in integrity, the selection and use of materials, material and financial use, military strength and the art of war, etc. But all this is from the perspective of a courtier, and Zeng Guofan has never had the idea of replacing it in his heart.

It was precisely because of various reasons that Zeng Guofan had no intention of rebelling, so after Tan Shaoguang and Zeng Guoquan suddenly got into trouble, Zeng Guofan didn't know how to deal with it for a while. The majestic giant ship was constantly approaching the city of Nanjing, as if it was ready to attack the city at any time, and Zeng Guofan's psychological pressure also increased with the approach of the giant ship's heavy artillery.

But Zeng Guofan's gang is not all a tragedy, and there is no shortage of fierce people under the command of the Hunan army, after hearing that Tan Shaoguang kidnapped Zeng Guoquan, Xiao Fusi and others immediately led people to copy the guy. Although he was afraid of injuring Zeng Guoquan, he also relied on the advantage of his strength to surround the hundreds of people under Tan Shaoguang's command near the Purple Mountain.

Both sides had their own scruples, and neither dared to make the first move, and then it reached a stalemate. Tan Shaoguang kidnapped Li Xiucheng and Zeng Guoquan, but the Hunan army almost arrested Tan Shaoguang. After a stalemate for three days, neither army broke up because of the problem of food and grass, and there was still no reaction, but the imperial court reacted.