Governor Zhang is deeply loved by Lin Zexu because of his love for talents, honesty and integrity. Under the strong recommendation of Lin Zexu, Zhang was listed as the governor a few years later. But he is a civil servant and can't lead troops to fight. And at that time, green camp had neither the ability to fight, but also liked to make trouble, which was unreliable. Hunan, like other provinces, is corrupt in bureaucracy, but after all, there is such an honest official supporting the table. But soon, Zhang was promoted to the position of acting governor of Huguang in Wuchang. Fortunately, he did a great thing in Changsha and won a famous "touting". After that, Zeng Guofan led the Xiang army to fight in the province. This "touting" is quite supportive of giving him more pay or recruiting for him in Hunan.
When Zeng Guofan was still in Xiangxiang, the Taiping rebels stormed Changsha, and Zhang thought of a person, the later famous Hunan native Zuo. Let's start with this guy.
If Liu Rong compares Zeng Guofan to a phoenix, then Zuo is really Wolong. There is also a saying of "Sanming" among the literati in Hunan. Old Zenan, Liu Rong, this beam is left. "Bright" is Zhuge Liang.
Left is from Xiangyin, Hunan. He was born in 18 12, one year younger than Zeng Guofan. At the age of 2 1, Juren studied all his life, but this person never took the exam again. I failed the first exam and got into 15 the second time, but because there were too many places in Hunan, I brushed him off and took him as a scribe. Zuo disdained it and left home to give lectures at Liling Lijiang Academy. In the seventeenth year of Daoguang, Tao Shu, the governor of Liangjiang at that time, was also from Hunan. On the occasion of the military parade in Jiangxi, he returned to the tomb of Hunan Province. This man is a prestigious minister in the Qing Dynasty and an example admired by Hunan literati. When passing through Liling, the county magistrate asked Zuo to write a couplet for the place where Tao Shu lived. Left is a master of couplets, a wave of his hand said:
The spring language in the temple is calm, and the enlightenment stone in Jiashan for 20 years is there;
The river flows day and night, and the children of Bazhou look forward to the public return.
This couplet has allusions. "Spring Temple Pingyan" refers to that in November of the fifteenth year of Daoguang's reign, Daoguang summoned Tao Shu at Gan Qing Palace 14 times in a row, and personally wrote "Initiating Stone House" for the place where his teenagers studied. This is an unprecedented honor, and Uncle Tao has always been proud of it. The second couplet expresses the admiration and expectation of hometown scholars for Tao. Therefore, Tao Shu was surprised to see this couplet, and immediately wanted to see the person who wrote it. Zuo is a genius. He admired his hometown elders for a long time, so he asked for advice and talked with Tao Shu all night. Tao Ziran looked at the 26-year-old hometown wizard with special respect and predicted that he would surpass himself in 30 years, so he decided to forget the turning point of that year.
Zuo is still down and out in the third exam. On my way home, I received a letter from Uncle Tao asking him to go to Nanjing to take care of the funeral. It turned out that Tao Shu was seriously ill at this time, and he wanted to leave his only son Tao Ming alone and marry him. Zuo felt grateful to meet him, saying that he would never take the exam again and devote himself to Liu Zhuang, letting Hunan farmers die.
Shortly after the death of Tao Shu, Zuo took his only son to his hometown in Anhua to live in seclusion and taught him carefully. When the Taiping Army attacked Changsha, Zuo, like many others, moved to Baishui Cave in Dongshan, east of Xiangyin.
At this time, Zuo completely compared himself with Zhuge Liang. He has two couplets, one of which reads:
The second Western Han Sima; Economic Nanyang-Wolong.
Another yue:
Without saying a word, worry about the country and the people; Read through thousands of books and make friends with the ancients.
These two couplets show that although he lives in seclusion here, his ambition has not diminished. Just like Zhu Gekongming in those days, he was always looking forward to doing something great, but his luck was not good, and he only sighed. He often signs "Bright Today" at the signature of letters to others.
When Zhang Chu came to Hunan, Hu Linyi, then the magistrate of Liping, Guizhou (also a native of Hunan, like Zuo, and one of the four famous ministers of ZTE, which we will talk about later) wrote to him and strongly recommended Zuo. The letter said: "This man is honest and upright, kind in nature, loyal to the liver and courageous, which is quite different from the customs of the times." His mind is full of ancient and modern maps, Sun Tzu's art of war, and the national seal of the current dynasty. He is pragmatic and proficient in current affairs. "
However, considering the high left heart, it may not come. Then follow the example of "three visits to the cottage"? I'm afraid this man is exaggerating. After careful consideration, Zhang came up with a strange plan.
He sent someone to send a letter to Fu Tao Tao Gongzi, saying that the rich contributed a lot to the Changsha crisis. Tao Jiashi owes money to the country and is a rich man. He wanted to set an example for the officials and people in Hunan, and asked Tao Shu's son Tao Ming to prepare 100,000 taels of silver for military supplies within five days. Where did the Taoist priests get 100 thousand taels of silver, so they had to move to Xiangyin and ask for leave. The son of a left-handed Taoist priest is just like his own son. There is no room for the government to oppress the Taoist priest, so he immediately rushed to Changsha. When he arrived in Changsha, Zhang had already sent troops to "catch" Tao Gongzi. So Zuo arrived at the governor's yamen again. When you get there, you will know the trick. In this way, Zhang skillfully won the left to Changsha. Zuo felt sincere and agreed to be his "master". Zhang's plan is quite similar to Cao Cao's plan to earn Xu Shu in those years, but Cao Cao's plan will not fool him for a while, and it will earn Xu Shu's body instead of his heart. Therefore, Zhang is much better at this point. After Zhang arrived in Wuchang, Zuo was still asking questions under Luo Men, and he did it for eight years.
As a "rookie", Zuo's first achievement was to raise a salary of100000 yuan for Zhang. Then he commanded the defenders in the city and blocked the Taiping Army's attack. So tens of thousands of Taiping troops besieged Changsha for more than 80 days, unable to capture it, so they had to cross the river in the middle of the night and go to Yueyang. Zhang can't help but sigh: even if Wolong is reincarnated, it's just that.
At the suggestion of Zuo et al, Zhang invited Zeng Guofan to Changsha again. Zuo and Zeng Guofan knew each other before. In the 19th year of Daoguang, Zeng Guofan went to Beijing to stay in Changsha. Under the introduction of Guo Songtao, Zuo visited Zeng Guofan. Everyone is in high spirits, and Zuo is also quite eloquent. At this time, Zeng Guofan was already a scholar, while Zuo was still a successful person. Originally wanted to ridicule him, so he smiled and said:
Ji zi claimed to be tall, but he was not in the DPRK, hiding in the mountains, and was at odds with others.
Left not the kui is zhuge liang's talent, immediately went to the head:
Warlords and ministers defend their country, but they can't fight when they advance, and they can't defend when they retreat. What is your economic history?
The left word has a couplet on it, and the left word is cleverly embedded in it. The second part embeds three characters of Zeng Guofan. A joke is a joke after all, but it can also be seen that they are equally talented.
Zeng Guofan's Left Movement played a key role in his later battlefield battles.
People who study history in later generations believe that during the same light-year period in Daoxian County, the Qing Empire was exhausted, so there were Taiping Army in the south and Nian Army in the north, and various places rose up one after another; In the coastal areas, the British and French allied forces were pressing hard and watched the building collapse. However, at this time, a large number of intellectuals who are not empty talk but can contribute to the country and the world came out from the south of Dongting Lake. The Qing empire can use their power to quell the rebellion and caress the emperor, which shows that the Qing empire has not dried up.
However, when I say this, many people will say that my ideas are too decadent. If you are not busy, history can't tolerate thought. In fact, although the intellectuals at this time were full of loyalty to the imperial court, in the depths of their ideology, the object of their loyalty had quietly changed, and this change was the rise of the concept of "China". In any era, people hope to be "peaceful dogs rather than people in troubled times", what's more, at this time, the country is getting worse day by day, and the traditional spirit of "being humble but not afraid to forget worries" has been awakened by the tide of the times. Needless to say, the consciousness of protecting the country and loving the people is expanding rapidly. Zeng Guofan said that since the Song Dynasty, the imperial court has been "hijacked" by the literati. I think this hijacking is good. Even if the emperor is stupid and confused, with this group of literati, the country can't go anywhere. The emperor of Ming dynasty did not go to court for decades, and the country was still in the hands of literati, which greatly changed the concept that "the country can't live without its owner for a day". Therefore, the luck of a * * * depends not on the emperor, but on the spirit of this * * * scholar-bureaucrat.
In the eighth year of Xianfeng, the emperor summoned Guo Songtao in hall of mental cultivation. The emperor first asked him if he had ever fought a war, and then asked him "how to deal with the overall situation of the world." When Guo Songtao cautiously replied that it was up to the general and the vassal Qi Xin to clean up the mess, the emperor asked: Where to start? At this time, Guo Songtao was only an academician in imperial academy, but the emperor didn't show "don't ask ordinary people to ask ghosts and gods", but really paid attention to the current situation. Such an emperor, no matter in what way, is not a fatuous and incompetent person. I think he is slightly better than the Emperor China who is praised by everyone.
When the emperor knew that Guo Songtao and Zuo were fellow villagers, both from Xiangyin, he asked Zuo what the talent was like. Why not come out and be an official? Zuo is still in Changsha at this time. In the second year of Xianfeng, he assisted Hunan Governor Luo in handling military affairs, but he was still just a "tout" and should not be a court official. But the emperor actually knew and remembered him, and even cared about his talent and the reason why he didn't come out to be an official. This further proves from one side that the emperor is not an inexperienced gangster as mentioned in history. Objectively speaking, he is at least a thirsty emperor.
When the emperor learned from Guo Songtao that Zuo was upright and upright, a hero among the people, and extremely bloody, as long as the emperor sincerely called, it was impossible not to be an official, and the emperor wanted to entrust him with an important task.
But at this time, the official document of Governor Huguang was played, which made the emperor give up this idea. Not only that, but also let the emperor fly into a rage. The incident originated from a "small matter" that happened in Changsha. In fact, it was not small, at least it caused a sensation at that time.
Guo Songtao said that Zuo was honest and frank, but in fact, he could put it another way, that is, he was a bad-tempered scholar-bureaucrat. The other side of frankness is bad temper. Zuo deliberately made mischief in Changsha because he looked down on a company commander named. Once, after reporting to Luo, he retreated to the door. Because he didn't say goodbye to the left, he called him back loudly. What did you call back for? He asked several questions on purpose, but Fan Xie couldn't answer them. Zuo took the opportunity to attack him and cursed: "Bastard, get out." After scolding, he kicked him, so they tore it up on the spot.
The left hand beat and scolded. The former has reasons to be beaten and cursed, while the latter also has reasons to be beaten and scolded. However, as a literati, especially Zuo's reputation at this time, and even "the simplicity of the emperor's heart", it is indeed out of line to do such a thing. This Fan Xie was born in Enshi, Hubei Province, and his son Zengxiang Fan was a great poet in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. The son is fine, but his father is not. When Fan Xie was the general of Yongzhou, his official voice was very bad. The main misdeeds were summarized in two words: greed and vertical. There are more than 2,000 soldiers in Yongzhou, and about 300 troops are stationed in the city. There are 160 people working in the company commander's office every day. Fan's cooks, boatmen, gardeners, pastry chefs and hairdressers are all soldiers, and their salaries are drawn from military expenses. Not only that, all daily silks and satins, house decoration, are also misappropriated from military expenses. Therefore, Fan's ostentation and extravagance are all due to corruption. This is his greedy side. Fan Zhijun is very strict. Anyone who violates military orders will be armed with clubs. Most of the subordinates are policemen at home, so they occasionally touch the family law and engage in military sticks. Jia Fan took action, and one thousand people were always late, violating his regulations and being scolded by dozens of sticks; A contractor in charge of the kitchen burns too much coal, and the stick is responsible for dozens; The soldier in charge of sedan chair affairs was scolded by dozens of sticks because the lamp in the sedan chair was in disrepair; Fan went to the grass-roots level to inspect, and a general manager who was in charge of entertaining was late for some reason, so he stripped his pants and beat him up on the boat. All these situations have been reflected in the province. Zuo tout, the "general manager" of a provincial military official, was very angry and immediately suggested Luo join. Since Xianfeng entered the curtain for four years, Luo has been obedient to Zuo Bai; According to Zuo's own words: "All plans start from scratch. All official documents are just promises and will never be checked. " So, Luo made up his mind. Before the matter was over, Mr. Zuo beat up the company commander and scolded him.
Fan couldn't swallow this evil spirit, so he told the official document of Governor Huguang about it, and let the official document refer to the book.
After reading this book, the emperor originally wanted to reuse the "Left" idea, but he was immediately driven away by this evil official image of not paying attention to court etiquette and arrogantly abusing court officials, and instructed the official to investigate and deal with it. If it is true, it can be executed on the spot. Fan happens to have an unusual relationship with this official document. When he joined Fan in Romania, the official document was also discounted as the prefect of Hunan. At the right moment, three things came together and became lively.
Official documents received approval at the same time, Hu Linyi also know about it. We know that Hu Linyi is good at being an official and cherishes talents, while Zuo and Hu Linyi are related-his wife and Zuo's son-in-law are both children of Tao Shu. After learning this, Hu Linyi immediately asked the official document not to investigate for the time being. At the same time, he immediately appealed to Guo Songtao, who gave Pan Zuyin a discount.
So a classic saying appeared in the memorial hall of Pan Zuyin: "The country can't live without Hunan for a day, and Hunan can't live without the Left." Emperor Xianfeng, who was eager to love talents, was also moved by these two words, so Zuo was spared.
This incident has also made Zuo's reputation bigger and bigger.
But Zuo can't stay in Changsha any longer. Zuo, who had been a pimp for eight years, left Changsha for Beijing. After learning this, Hu Linyi wrote to dissuade him and told him not to go to Beijing at this time. After all, it hasn't happened yet Zuo listened to his advice and went south to Zeng Guofan's army.
Of course, Zeng Guofan also knew about it. In the face of the support in Changsha in the past eight years, Zeng Guofan was very polite and talked with him for a long time every day.