Zeng Guofan's ace direct line troops only fight to make a fortune. Will they burn, kill and loot every time they conquer a place?

The Hunan Army was the most powerful force in the late Qing Dynasty. Even Li Hongzhang's Huai Army and Zuo Zongtang's Chu Army were established with the support of Zeng Guofan, and The team is still divided from the Hunan Army, which shows how strong the Hunan Army is. At its peak, the Hunan Army had more than 300,000 troops. More importantly, such an extremely powerful and large army did not directly belong to the Qing court. They were extremely loyal to their founder and commander Zeng Guofan. , even if Zeng Guofan raised his arms, they would all respond.

In fact, Zeng Guofan's Hunan Army adopted the "binding" method in Qi Jiguang's "New Book of Jixiao" and "Records of Military Training" by the famous military strategist Qi Jiguang of the Ming Dynasty. Each battalion has 500 people and ten teams. The teams have many lengths; the eight teams are sentry, and the sentry has a sentry commander, who is under the command of the sentry officer; the four sentry posts are the camp, under the jurisdiction of the battalion officer; the rest are personal soldiers, directly under the jurisdiction of the battalion officer. In peacetime operations, battalions are the basic unit. However, this was only Zeng Guofan's original idea. As the war progressed, many battalions were disrupted. Some battalions disappeared, and some battalions had as many as thousands of people. The most famous one is Bao Chao's "Tingzi Camp", which had as many as 15,000 people at its peak.

But what I want to talk about here is not the most famous "Tingziying" in the Hunan Army, but a group that although the number of people is not as large as that of the "Tingziying", it is superior in terms of performance and combat effectiveness. The true ace direct lineage that was stronger than "Tingziying" was the "Jiziying" that was feared by people at the time. First of all, "Ji Ziying" is an absolute direct descendant. Why? Because the commander of the "Ji Ziying" is Zeng Guofan's younger brother Zeng Guoquan, no one can match this relationship alone. At least Zeng Guofan will give the best equipment supplies to Zeng Guoquan first.

But that’s all, because Zeng Guoquan is a very arrogant person by nature. Many times, he does not want Zeng Guofan to help him deliberately; at least in terms of personnel recruitment, Zeng Guoquan never asks Zeng Guofan for help. He recruited all the extraordinary people by himself. Of course, Zeng Guoquan's recruitment of people was different from other people. Zeng Guoquan specifically went to those extremely vicious places to recruit desperadoes, ordinary bandits and bandits, but he still looked down on them. He only wanted those knives. The ruthless bandit licking blood from his tip, why? Because such people don't care about their lives when fighting. This is the saying that those who are aggressive are afraid of being stunned, and those who are stunned are afraid of losing their lives. This is the truth.

Some people may say that Zeng Guoquan specially recruits such people, so he will not be troubled by his superiors? What a joke, first of all, Zeng Guofan is standing above Zeng Guoquan, who dares to cause trouble for him? Secondly, it was the time to employ people. Even if Zeng Guoquan used those people whose crimes should be punished by the nine tribes, as long as they could fight and win the war, no one would come back to take care of him. In other words, maybe the court wanted it more, because every time Zeng Guoquan recruited people, the place was peaceful and peaceful, because all the bandits and bandits that were a headache at the beginning were taken away, and they died on the battlefield without all the approval documents from above. .

The combat effectiveness of an army composed of a group of desperadoes is certainly much stronger than that of an ordinary army; however, this also tests the commander's personal ability, because it is extremely difficult to control this group of desperadoes. Yes, you want them to be afraid, to admire them, and to make them feel that it is right to sacrifice their lives for you; and Zeng Guoquan satisfied them all. First of all, Zeng Guoquan is a "madman" personally. He takes the lead in every battle. A commander can do this. In this way, he can naturally win the respect of his subordinates.

Secondly, Zeng Guoquan was also extremely bloodthirsty. When he attacked Anqing, he killed more than 20,000 prisoners alone, not to mention other things. There were basically no prisoners under the command of "Ji Ziying"; in the end, Zeng Guoquan returned They were promised that every time they captured a city, they would have a three-day holiday, allowing the soldiers to burn, kill, loot, and commit adultery and commit all kinds of evil. Because of this, the "Ji Ziying" was able to take risks regardless of their own safety when attacking the city. This characteristic was particularly obvious when they captured Tianjing; when they attacked Tianjing, Zeng Guoquan had only more than 20,000 people under his command (and " "Zhenziying"), but dared to surround Tianjing, the capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

Zeng Guofan asked him to retreat, but he refused; Zeng Guofan wanted to send Li Hongzhang and others to lead the army to help him, but he did not want it; he dug deep trenches outside Tianjing City, built extensive fortifications, and combined with the navy , launched an all-out attack and relied on 20,000 troops to repel the Taiping Military Aid Department, which claimed to have 200,000 troops. After several hard battles to seize all the strategic strongholds outside Tianjing City and completely surround Tianjing City, Zeng Guoquan's confidant and outlaw Li Chendian lit 30,000 kilograms of gunpowder buried under the Tianjing city wall. Tianjing was painstakingly built by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The capital city fell.

After the city was broken, it was very characteristic of Zeng Guoquan to burn, kill, loot, and plunder. Of course, the entire Tianjing was handed over to more than 20,000 people under his command, and Zeng Guoquan personally led his confidants to arrive. The "Treasury" moved away all the wealth that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had looted over the years. According to folklore, Zeng Guoquan's Jiziying Hunan Army plundered a sea of ??gold and silver and a mountain of wealth. For a time, hundreds of boats on the Yangtze River loaded with these treasures sailed to Hunan. The whole Tianjing was like a hell on earth; in the end, in order to clear up the hidden crime of stolen goods, Zeng Guoquan even set fire to the house, turning the Tianjing city into a sea of ????flames.

After the capture of Tianjing, Zeng Guofan immediately requested that Zeng Guoquan be released and returned to his hometown on the grounds that Zeng Guoquan was seriously ill, and "Ji Ziying" was also broken into parts by various means. Can't find it; why? Because the Qing court's treasury deficit was extremely serious, it was waiting to use the "treasury" of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to make up for it. But now the treasures have become Zeng Guoquan's personal property. What kind of crime is this? Moreover, in the past, the imperial court still expected Zeng Guoquan to fight, so it did not pursue the case. But now the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has been destroyed, and it is time to settle accounts in the autumn.

Zeng Guofan removed Zeng Guoquan’s military status and official position, and he became a civilian. The court could not punish him. Moreover, Zeng Guofan was at the peak of his life at this time, with an army of more than 300,000 people. The court really wanted to attack Zeng Guoquan. , I am afraid that the entire Hunan Army would not agree; but it is not so easy for the court to give up. Later, the court promoted Zeng Guofan to the governor of Zhili, and then appointed Ma Xinyi as the governor of Liangjiang in order to investigate the matter; but they did not expect that Liangjiang was dignified. The governor was actually assassinated, which was known as the "Horse Assassination Case" in history, and more importantly, the matter ended up being unresolved. It can be seen that in this game, Zeng Guofan was slightly better; and Zeng Guoquan was later used again. However, "Ji Ziying" has become a taboo, and there is no trace of it anymore.