In the six months since Zeng Guofan arrived in the Ming Dynasty, there was no turmoil in the Hunan army, which made the Qing court happy, but they were even more panicked, because they saw that Zeng Guofan's prestige in the Hunan army was really irreplaceable, and the Qing court did not have the slightest ability to control this army. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

Of course, Zeng Guofan is not an immortal, nor is he a saint, even after his reform and opening up, he is at most touted by the literati as a half-saint.

Therefore, it is impossible for Zeng Guofan to really convince the Hunan army with just one letter.

In order to maintain the stability of the Hunan army after him, Zeng Guofan used quite a lot of political means, and in the process, the Qing court fully cooperated with Zeng Guofan.

For example, Zeng Guofan proposed to let the Qing court make up the military salary, but the Qing court gritted its teeth and repaid the arrears to the Hunan army from various places, especially in the end, borrowing a large amount of foreigner loans to repay the arrears for more than half a year.

In addition, Zeng Guofan asked the generals of the Hunan army for a title, and the Qing court also adopted them one by one.

Although there were many famous generals in the Hunan army, with the death of early generals such as Luo Zenan and Li Xubin, the two pillars of the later period were the Jizi battalion led by Zeng Guofan's younger brother Zeng Guoquan, named because Zeng Guofan was recruited in 1856 to support Ji'an, Jiangxi, and the other main force was the Bao Chao Department of the Hunan Army, known as the Thunder Army.

Needless to say, Zeng Guoquan is the younger brother of Zeng Guofan in terms of identity, and he also has great achievements, the Battle of Anqing, the Battle of Tianjing, and the later offensive operations of the Hunan Army, almost all of which were commanded by Zeng Guoquan, so his prestige is very high, and he is almost regarded as the natural heir of Zeng Guofan by the Hunan Army.

Bao Chao's identity is a little embarrassing, he debuted earlier, as early as when the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was still in Guangxi, he led the Sichuan army to fight under the Eight Banners general Xiang Rong, but the real career was still in the Hunan Army period, but he himself was not a descendant of Zeng Guofan, but debuted with Hu Linyi, the governor of Hubei.

Hu Linyi took Bao Chao as a confidant, asked for money for money, and asked people to give people, which made Bao Chao's military exploits. And compared with Zeng Guoquan, Bao Chao is a more pure general.

In terms of military exploits, Bao Chao's combat exploits were slightly weaker than Zeng Guoquan's, and in the Anqing Operations and the Battle of Tianjing, Bao Chao basically fought on the periphery and cooperated with Zeng Guoquan. For example, in the early days of Zeng Guoquan's siege of Tianjing, Bao Chao participated in the battle, and after the encirclement was stabilized, Bao Chao led people to Jiangxi to continue to fight against the peripheral forces of the Taiping army such as Huang Jinwen.

But in terms of military strength, Zeng Guoquan and Bao Chao are comparable, Zeng Guoquan's main Jizi battalion is less than 20,000 troops, and Bao Chao's elite is only 12,000.

But the identities of the two are very different, Zeng Guoquan is Zeng Guofan's younger brother, Bao Chao followed Xiang Rong in his early years, followed Hu Linyi, although Hu Linyi has always been the first to look forward to Zeng Guofan's horse in the past, but Hu Linyi himself is dead, so Bao Chao's troops, the position is very embarrassing, it is said that it is a miscellaneous card, he has strong combat effectiveness, it is said that he is a descendant, and he always feels far away from the Zeng brothers.

In the face of these two people, Zeng Guofan sent a letter to the Qing court, promoting Zeng Guoquan to the governor of Anhui and Bao Chao to the general of Jiangning.

The Qing court happily adopted this suggestion, because they saw that this was Zeng Guofan's own mixing sand into the Hunan army, and he could use Bao Chao to balance his younger brother Zeng Guoquan, Bao Chao's position was already embarrassing, if Bao Chao was transferred to Zeng Guoquan's account to listen to orders, Bao Chao himself would not complain, on the contrary, he would be steadfast because he leaned on the big tree of the Zeng brothers.

However, Zeng Guofan promoted Bao Chao and Zeng Guoquan at the same time, especially Bao Chao, the official position of the garrison general before, but it was exclusive to the banner people, and now he has made an exception to a Han person, Bao Chao's status is equivalent to a great improvement, and even stabilized Zeng Guoquan, because the garrison general is on an equal footing with the governor, and the governor is obviously under the governor.

But the problem is that Zeng Guoquan's power is obviously much greater than Bao Chao's, especially the status of the Zeng brothers, coupled with his outstanding military exploits, it can be said that as long as Zeng Guofan is dead now, Zeng Guoquan will ascend to the heights, and the more than 100,000 troops under the jurisdiction of many famous generals of the Hunan Army will definitely support Zeng Guoquan.

Therefore, Zeng Guoquan is bound to be dissatisfied with Bao Chao, and Bao Chao will not show weakness to Zeng Guoquan because of his improved status.

Dismantling the two pillars of the Hunan army is equivalent to dismembering the Hunan army, so that Zeng Guoquan and Bao Chao are unable to divide one side, why not do the Qing court, they only dared to think like this before, but now since Zeng Guofan proposed it, they are happy to push the boat.

It's just that since then, the Hunan army has been more defensive, and not aggressive enough. Zeng Guoquan continued to be stationed in Anqing and did not move a single step, not only because he was dissatisfied with this arrangement, but also because his strength was really poor, and it was difficult to confront the Taiping army that had recovered for a while.

However, it was impossible for the Taiping army to bypass the Hunan army in Anqing, so the two armies were deadlocked on the Yangtze River.

This is the current situation in the north, it can be said that to a large extent, it is caused by Zeng Guofan's coming to Lingnan, Zeng Guofan's southward movement to Lingnan, the impact is so great, his personal behavior is obviously no longer a private matter, but has become a political event, this is the power of the real minister, like the dragon king, walking with a cloak and rain.

Zeng Guoquan led the headquarters and other Hunan troops stationed in Anqing to 40,000 troops, and Bao Chao's men also expanded to more than 30,000, and then stationed in the Guazhou area of Jiangbei, facing the Taiping army in Zhenjiang across the river to prevent the Taiping army from crossing the river, and the others also controlled more than 50,000 people in the Jiangbei Green Battalion and the Eight Banners as Jiangning generals.

Bao Chao was in Jiangbei, and the two forces of Zuo Zongtang and Li Hongzhang were placed here and it was a little crowded, so the Qing court appointed Zuo Zongtang as the governor of Jiangsu to garrison Huaiyang, and transferred Li Hongzhang north to suppress the twisted army in Shandong, giving Li Hongzhang the identity of the governor of Shandong.

Obviously, after creating disagreements with the Hunan army, the Qing court continued to use political tactics to dismantle the Han warlord group, and continued to elevate the status of Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang.

It can be said that in the Zeng Guofan southward incident, the political group that benefited the most was undoubtedly the Ming Kingdom, because by taking Zeng Guofan as a hostage, the threat of the Hunan army group to the Ming Dynasty was dismantled; And the individual who has benefited the most must be Li Hongzhang.

Taking this opportunity, Li Hongzhang suddenly grasped the real power of Shandong, and Shandong was close to Gyeonggi, obviously his position in the local power of the Qing court had become the second person after Zeng Guofan, and he stabilized the more powerful Zeng Guoquan, and also left behind his old opponent Zuo Zongtang, who only controlled half of Jiangsu.

Seeing Zeng Guofan, Zhu Jinglun casually asked the people around him what Zeng Guofan was doing recently.

He had been very concerned about Zeng Guofan before, but since he decided to ignore political affairs, he has not received news for a long time.

The local officials immediately reported that Zeng Guofan had been in Xin'an County during this time, often going to foreigners' churches, observing people's worship on Sundays, and often going to listen to priests' sermons, and heard that he had established good relations with many foreigner priests.

"Didn't he see anyone?"

By successfully blocking the expansion of the Taiping army in the Huguang area, although it was not able to complete the battle, due to the intervention of the Ming Dynasty, the Hunan army failed to capture Tianjing two years ago, but the general attitude of the scholar class still believed that if it were not for the emergence of Zeng Guofan, the Taiping army would have exterminated the Qing court long ago, and at the same time exterminated the Chinese people.

The great achievement of defending the famous Confucianism and Taoism made Zeng Guofan enjoy extremely high prestige even in the Ming Kingdom, because the scholar class did not regard him as a famous minister who saved the Manchu Dynasty, but regarded him as a defender of the interests of the Chinese millennium.

This kind of guardianship is really terrifying, and in the West, it will definitely add the title of a saint.

Therefore, Zhu Jinglun always believed that if Zeng Guofan intended to contact the scholar class of the Ming Dynasty, although it was impossible to bring any subversive trouble to the Ming Dynasty, it would be easy to give the Ming government a headache for a while, so he was very concerned about Zeng Guofan's movements before, and knew that Zeng Guofan himself was very restrained before, and always insisted on not contacting the local literati, but had close contacts with foreigners.

What puzzled Zhu Jinglun was that it would not be strange for Zeng Guofan to communicate with some foreign engineers and even diplomats, but Zeng Guofan was keen to interact with foreign priests, which made Zhu Jinglun very incomprehensible.

Could it be that Zeng Guofan wanted to believe in Christianity?

It's a funny idea just to think about.

"He doesn't want to socialize with the local literati, you might as well invite him, he may be avoiding suspicion, and the official will come forward to let him do something, and nothing big will happen."

Zhu Jinglun thought to himself, if Zeng Guofan deliberately looked for trouble, it would be troublesome, but now it seems that Zeng Guofan is hiding from trouble, if he has no intention of making trouble, then there will be no trouble, but such a famous Confucian of science, he does not interact with the literati of the Ming Dynasty all day long, and runs to the church every day, I am afraid that there will be more trouble.

Therefore, Zhu Jinglun wanted to promote Zeng Guofan to communicate with the literati of the Ming Dynasty, especially those conservative rural scholars who had always complained very much about the government and regarded themselves as loyal ministers of the Qing court.

"In addition, please ask him to go to our academy and listen to the advice of this great confucian, maybe he will have some good ideas."

Zhu Jinglun continued to suggest.

The problem of the country school made Zhu Jinglun dissatisfied, if it is a simple comparison, it can be said that there has been great progress in recent years.

After several years of construction, the education system of the Ming Dynasty has taken shape, through the imperial examination of mathematical geometry knowledge, has made the Ming scholars dare not not learn mathematical geometry, it can be said that Zhu Jinglun is to take the imperial examination as a bait, has slowly changed the traditional education system.

However, Zhu Jinglun is very dissatisfied with the popularization rate, which has been five or six years, but the enrollment rate of the universal education he envisioned is only 30% at present. Of course, from less than 10 percent a few years ago, it is already a huge progress to be able to cover 30 percent of school-age children, but when he thinks that when the Japanese started, the literacy rate was already 50 percent, Zhu Jinglun felt that this universal education was still too slow, and he hoped to complete the popularization within 10 years, but now it seems that there is a long way to go.

The most fundamental obstacle is the obstruction of the country corporal doctor, and Zhu Jinglun could not have imagined that there was a force that was obstructing the popularization of education.

He wanted to see if there was any good way for Zeng Guofan to have the most conservative attitude towards Confucian scholars in the countryside. (To be continued.) )