After the Qianlong Dynasty descended, the Qing Dynasty was not the world of the bannermen. Although the emperor preferred to believe in and rely on the bannermen, Hanchen had already gained absolute superiority in the court, and in order to maintain his world, the Manchurian emperor also had to rely on Hanchen. When the Tongzhi Dynasty mentions the four Hanchens, everyone thinks of Zeng, Zuo, Li, Hu and others, but if the four Hanchens are mentioned in the Xianfeng Dynasty, they will definitely get different answers.

On October 22, the fifth year of Tongzhi, enjoying the reputation of "three generations of emperors" and "four dynasties of Wenchen", was called by Zuo Zongtang as "staying in Beijing, the world's hope" of the important minister Qi Liaozao drove the crane to the west, at the age of 74, the Qing court gave the nickname "Wenduan", enshrined in the Xian Liang Temple, which can be described as a long encounter. In less than half a year (April of the sixth year of Tongzhi), another eunuch Zhou Zupei died at the age of 75. The Qing court did not slack off, and gave him the nickname "Wenqin", which was really merciful.

The old ministers withered one by one, causing endless sighs from the younger generations. Weng Tongyi wept when he went to Qi Mansion to mourn, and wept and cried: "The first father's deacon friend has withered so far!" As we all know, Weng Tongxiao's father is a university scholar Weng Xincun, except for Qi Junzao and Zhou Zupei, there is also Peng Yunzhang. The advances, retreats and actions of these four elders at the time of Xianfeng and Tongzhi were absolutely pivotal to the growth and change of the political situation, and could be regarded as a model for the politics of the elderly at that time. If it was in the early Xianfeng Dynasty, when the four Hanchens were mentioned, people often thought of these four old men.

The old man is also transformed from a rookie, and no matter how great Qi, Peng, Zhou, and Weng are, they can't break this natural law. However, in the political arena, in addition to ability, emotional intelligence and luck, there is of course another element. The people who sell tofu at the street also pay attention to their ancestral craftsmanship, and the family background is naturally indispensable for the government. The family backgrounds of these four old men are naturally unusual, and compared to ordinary poor scholars, they are all enough to be called door valves. Therefore, their lives are no longer just their own, they have long been planned as part of the development of the family.

Qi Liaozao, the word Chunpu, was born in Shouyang, Shanxi. His father, Qi Yunshi, was a director-level Beijing official of the central ministries and commissions, and he was well-informed, and it can be said that he had accumulated a certain foundation for his son's future development. Moreover, Qi Junzao, who was born in Shaanxi, has a very solid family, and his father is in charge of the household department, and the relationship between them and Shanxi ticket numbers is self-evident. Qi Liaozao was gifted and intelligent, and he entered the Hanlin Academy at a young age. In the first year of Daoguang, the Qi family entered the south study, and was often accompanied by Emperor Daoguang, coupled with his profound knowledge, as well as general principles and evidence, he was quite appreciated by Daoguang and became a "close minister of the Son of Heaven". After more than ten years of training, in the twenty-first year of Daoguang, Qi finally achieved a positive result and became one of the military aircraft departments, and since then he has been in the center of the palace for 14 years, and he has heard countless secrets.

Peng Yunzhang, whose name is Yongguo, was born in Peng, a famous family in Changzhou, Jiangsu. Peng Yunzhang's great-grandfather was Peng Qifeng, the secretary of the military department of the Qianlong Dynasty, and his family had been in the palace since the Qianlong Dynasty. Relying on this ancestral favor, Peng entered the green channel of officialdom as a person, and served as Zhang Jing in the Military Aircraft Department as the secretary of the cabinet, accumulating a lot of network resources. Later, he was admitted to the Jinshi, so his career became more and more flat, and Xianfeng entered the military aircraft department in the first year, and then stayed for ten years.

Zhou Zupei's father is also worth showing off, and he is not inferior to the first two. His father, Zhou Yue, was the official to the Shaoqing of Honglu Temple, and he could be stuck at the deputy director level according to his official rank, and he was also decent among the officials in Beijing. Zhou Zupei is even better than the blue, at the age of twenty-seven he was named on the gold list, and after the experience of several major ministries and commissions, although he has never been able to enter the military aircraft, but after all, the official worships the Renge University Scholar, and is definitely called a high power. And he has mixed in the positions of various Shangshu, which can be called a senior ministry and an absolute real power.

Weng Xincun's background is slightly inferior, if he fights his father, he will definitely lose. His father, Weng Xianfeng, once served as Haizhou Xuezheng, equivalent to the director of the local education bureau, and belonged to the grassroots civil servant sequence, so he could not facilitate the development of his children in the capital. However, Weng's father's strict family education, profound knowledge and good study style had a great influence on Weng's heart, and his ability to change his fate through reading had a great deal to do with this. Since the age of 30, Weng has been diligent and humble, and has gone smoothly all the way, serving as the emperor's teacher twice, and also achieving the high position of a scholar of Tirenge.

There is no doubt that the old people who have experienced countless storms and storms have a rare experience in governance, which is very valuable, but also very terrifying, and these experiences will make the elders tend to be inactive and sophisticated. Qi Liaozao is a typical example, although it is old and serious, it is often empty and not pragmatic. In the early days of Xianfeng's ascension to the throne, he was bent on seeking treatment, so he always asked the old man Qi for advice on "the way of employing people and administration". Old Man Qi always "quoted scriptures and classics, and moved beyond the sundial", and his endless and unrealistic remarks made the ministers feel deeply distressed. Xianfeng listened to it at first, but later he was quite impatient. Old Man Qi didn't do anything at all, but his ability to memorize scriptures was really powerful, more Tang Seng than Tang Seng, Xianfeng didn't ask anything, and he was still thinking about it.

In the fifth year of Xianfeng, the old man Qi finally said that he was sick and asked for a retreat, but Xianfeng did not make any reservations, and agreed very simply. didn't even do face work, just begged the old man who memorized the scriptures to get out of here. Moreover, Xianfeng did not temporarily retain the position of scholar for Old Man Qi as usual, but immediately awarded it to Jia Zhen, the teacher of Prince Gong Yixin, and Xianfeng had already preferred to cheap political enemies in order to get rid of Old Man Qi. Old Man Qi's retirement was not because of any illness, but because of his understanding of current affairs. At that time, King Gong had already entered the military plane and replaced the chief position of Old Man Qi in an unconventional way, and coexisted with a nobleman in his early twenties. Old Man Qi chose to live in Sanjin, "Seeing him rise up Zhu Lou, seeing him feasting guests, and seeing his building collapse", it is really an excellent embodiment of old age.

Yi Xin actually meant it in the military aircraft, how could Xianfeng tolerate his annoying younger brother, so the big pie of the chief military aircraft minister quickly smashed on Peng Yunzhang's head. Mr. Peng's style of acting has always been "honest and cautious, and every time he has a meeting, he must be cautious". To put it mildly, it is a peacemaker who does not express his position, does not take responsibility, only kowtows, and speaks less. At that time, his colleagues privately nicknamed him "Peng Hulu", which was intended to satirize his always "only a tolerant person, never a white man". Such unambitious and mediocre people occupy prominent positions, and it is not uncommon in the turbulent officialdom, but in terms of the increasingly dangerous situation, it is by no means a blessing. Later, when Zeng Guofan commented on the two Xiangguo of Xianfeng Dynasty Qi and Peng, he used the words "learned but uneducated", which can be described as quite pertinent, and during their tenures, the decline of the Qing Dynasty deteriorated into a crisis.

In the face of a serious political crisis, especially when life and death are at stake, the role of the elderly is particularly crucial, and their judgment and guidance are often directly related to the rise and fall of a certain faction's strength. During the tenure of Old Man Peng, Su Shun has quietly risen. As Su Shun became stronger and stronger, Peng Yunzhang, who has always been wise and wise, was named Shoufu, and he was actually accompanied by the prime minister. Later, he felt that the situation was not good, so he simply opened the vacancy on the grounds of recuperation. In this way, the only high-ranking Han officials who can compete with Su Shun in the court are Weng Xincun and Zhou Zupei.

After two moves, Old Man Weng and Su Shun, the descendant, knew that they were not opponents at all, so they resigned very neatly and ran away. However, Su Shun was not ready to let him go, and after a year, he gave Mr. Weng the punishment of dismissal and retention in the name of negligence in the "Hubu Treasure Money Case". In this way, among the four elders, only Zhou Zupei and Su Shun were left, and it happened that this old Zhou was the Tai Chi master of the void and the snake. The old man knew that in the face of aggressive Sushun, it was obviously unwise to come hard, so he could only retreat and wait for the opportunity to move, and then he waited until Xianfeng breathed.

Xin Younian is the year when Old Man Zhou shined, from Dong Yuanol's performance to the Beijing Gate, from the death sentence of Su Shun to the change of the Tongzhi year name, Old Man Zhou almost exhausted himself to death. Although Su Shun came back in the end, the old man didn't do anything, and he left an excellent impression on the Queen Mother of the Two Palaces. Zhou Zupei has been a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle for several years, just in order to put Su Shun to death at a critical moment, the old guy's spiciness can be seen.

After Tongzhi ascended the throne, based on a variety of considerations, the imperial court needed the old old people to come out of the platform, so the old people returned one after another. Qi Junzao, Peng Yunzhang, and Weng Xincun were all at odds with Su Shun, so they went to the position one after another. Now that Sushun no longer has the scenery of the past, they will naturally recover. Qi and Weng "counseled Chong and returned for a while", and Peng was in charge of the military department again. Time seems to have gone back to the early years of Xianfeng, and these old guys are all back.

As the saying goes, "A tree must have deep roots", so that the branches can flourish. It is precisely because of the ups and downs of the center for decades that the old people often have an extremely extensive network of contacts, or have even formed their own factions, so they want to maintain their own power, even if they retreat, they must take care of and even protect their own henchmen. It's a pity that the thighs of the past are no longer beautiful, and the little brother He Guiqing, who they tried their best to support, still fell under Zeng Guofan's knife. This incident made the old guys hate Zeng Guofan to the core, and they often dispensed medicine to Zeng Guofan in front of the emperor. Back then, Qi Junzao almost abolished Zeng Guofan with one sentence, but now a few old guys are united, and they are even sharper. After Zeng Guofan recovered Nanjing, it was almost a step by step, and it was all the trouble that these old guys gave him.

The traditional society respects the elderly, and people often praise the humerus ministers for "holding the country through the old", but they don't know that once the political interests behind it are involved, the old ministers can also mislead the country. Whether to hold the country or to misunderstand the country, the distance is often a thin line, but the result is very different. The reason why old trees are evergreen all year round is that the roots are deep-rooted and new branches are often soothed. As with our ancestors, it is important to consider the cultivation of a successor to the family's political career. The young master of the Zhou family relied on his father's blessings to get mixed with the idleness of a foreigner, and the young masters of the other three families repeated the glorious story of Lao Tzu back then. Peng Yunzhang's son Peng Zuxian sat in the governor of Hubei, and Qi Shichang, the son of Qi Junzao, also followed in the footsteps of his father, and once served as the secretary of the Ministry of Industry. In a trance, this string of names seemed to herald that history was back to square one. Perhaps the fatality of gerontocracy lies not only in its ability to influence the political situation, but also in its ability to use its children and grandchildren to continue the life of the family's political cause, so that the sound of the waves is still alive. However, in the era of great change, the sound of political evolution should not be so still, but the sound of the waves still has to be so calm and capricious.

The backbone of the hawks under Yixun's command is the protégé of these four families, and the Confucian gate lords are closely united around Yixun just like the Donglin Party back then. They don't care about Westernization, reform, Western studies, etc., but they want to kill Yixin, they want to kill Zeng Guofan, they want to destroy the reform of the Qing Dynasty, because they want to protect their vested interests. Of course, there is another person on their list, and that is Guo Xing'a of Changchun, this deviant bastard is so rich that he must be killed and then robbed of his property.