185 1 After the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement broke out in, the rule of the Qing Dynasty was crumbling, and the Eight Banners green camp was of great use. The Qing court had to decentralize and let the Han landlord class form an army to suppress the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. At that time, young Li Hongzhang also had the idea of making contributions and organizing group training with fellow villagers. However, because the credit for taking back Luzhou was slandered by others, I couldn't stand in my hometown, so I had to go to Zeng Guofan, the teacher, as the staff of Zeng Guofan's shogunate.
Zeng Guofan had high hopes for Li Hongzhang, which not only made Li Hongzhang participate in the discussion of a core secret, but also increased his knowledge; He also tried his best to teach Li Hongzhang from the aspects of leading wars, being a man, officialdom tactics and living habits. Under the influence of Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, who was once arrogant, gradually became a peerless figure who could stand alone.
186 1 year, the Taiping army marched into Zhejiang and Shanghai, and the Qing army stationed there was losing ground. The interests of foreign powers in Shanghai were threatened to protest against the Qing court, so the pressure was all on Zeng Guofan, the governor of Jiangsu, Anhui, Zhejiang and Jiangxi provinces. Zeng Guofan himself had the idea of training a new army with the help of Anhui local strength. Coupled with the needs of the present form, the recruitment of Huai Yong has been put on the agenda. Li Hongzhang, who is still well-connected in Anhui, volunteered to take on the heavy responsibility of forming the "Huai Army".
1in March, 862, the Huai army was established in Anqing, and the organizational system was modeled after the Xiang army. There were 6,500 people at the earliest. Liu Mingchuan, Pan, and other major generals were personally inspected and appointed by Zeng Guofan, and then they were completely under the command of Li Hongzhang. To say that Zeng Guofan was really good to Li Hongzhang, a student, and was afraid that the Huai army was weak, he transferred the words "Spring", "Kyrgyzstan", "Kai" and "Lin" to help Li Hongzhang, and Zeng Guofan also gave his two battalions to Li Hongzhang for self-defense.
1862 In April, Li Hongzhang led an army of about 9,000 people to Shanghai and began his career. Three fierce battles at Hongqiao, Beixinjing and Sijiangkou made Huai Army famous at sea. Although the Huai Army first imitated the Xiang Army, due to the large number of foreigners stationed in Shanghai and rich taxes, the Huai Army quickly learned from the foreign powers, used foreign guns and hired western officers to train the army, which became the beginning of China's army modernization.
Li Hongzhang lived up to Zeng Guofan's teachings and adopted a series of measures to surrender and subdue everything, connecting forces at home and abroad. In just two years, he expanded the Huai Army to 60,000 to 70,000, becoming the main force of the Qing Dynasty, keeping pace with the Xiang Army. After the collapse of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Li Hongzhang rose step by step by relying on the forces of the Huai Army, and eventually became the governor of Zhili and the minister of Beiyang, holding the diplomatic, military and economic power of the Qing Dynasty.
In fact, Zeng Guofan asked Li Hongzhang to form the Huai Army. In addition to military needs, it also has profound political considerations. With the Xiang army becoming more and more powerful in the process of suppressing the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Qing court's fear of Xiang army grew day by day. For example, in 1858, the Xiang army was defeated in the Three Rivers War, the famous Li was killed, and more than 6,000 elite Xiang troops were wiped out. A very important reason is that the official document of Governor Huguang, a powerful official in the Qing Dynasty, did not send troops to support the Xiang Army. Zeng Guofan knew very well that if the Xiang army was allowed to develop, when the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom fell, it was the time when the Qing court and Xiang army turned against each other, and the appearance of the Huai army could just distract the Qing court.
Although the Huai Army came from Xiang Army and Li Hongzhang was Zeng Guofan's student, after all, the Huai Army and Xiang Army are two different forces, and they will strive for each other's merits and there will be friction, so that the Qing court will not completely destroy either side in order to balance, and both Huai Army and Xiang Army have the opportunity to continue to develop. As a result, as Zeng Guofan thought, the Huai army centered on the governor of Zhili and the minister of Beiyang in the north and the Xiang army centered on the governor of Liangjiang and the minister of Nanyang in the south became two huge forces affecting the fate of the Qing Dynasty.