Zeng Guofan: My success depends entirely on "stupidity"

Zeng Guofan was called the last "saint" in the late Qing Dynasty.

No matter his career, family or academic attainments, his life is extremely successful.

Except for several ups and downs when he was an official, his official career has been smooth and smooth, and his achievement of seven liters in ten years is extremely rare even in the current officialdom.

Later, relying on the meritorious military service to pacify the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, he was an absolute man of the hour, with many official positions and honors, such as Prince Taibao, a university student, the governor of the two rivers, and a first-class brave man.

In fact, Zeng Guofan is definitely not a "Fang Zhongyong" genius. It can be seen from many relevant historical documents that he is a bit slow and a very "stupid" person.

Zeng Guofan's "stupidity" is first reflected in his pursuit of fame.

He 14 years old began to take the county exam and took it seven times. It was not until the age of 23 that I was admitted to the scholar, which was the second from the bottom.

In the twelfth year of Daoguang, Zeng Guofan participated in the scientific research for the sixth time, but was told by the school at that time that "the arts and sciences were too shallow".

Suffering from such great humiliation, he gritted his teeth and worked hard. In the seventh exam after that, he finally got the position of scholar, and later he was successfully selected as a scholar and named Hanlin.

Compared with Zuo and Li Hongzhang of his contemporaries, Zuo is only one year younger than Zeng, but he is brilliant and famous as a "child prodigy". At the age of fourteen, he took the county exam and ranked first. Li Hongzhang is also a scholar at the age of seventeen.

Zeng Guofan was also a grumpy cynic in his early years. He was full of political ambitions, and he was bent on doing something vigorous in the depressed situation of domestic troubles and foreign invasion in the late Qing Dynasty. He is a typical "positive" style, and he can't play Tai Chi at all.

When Daoguang died, 20-year-old Xianfeng came to power.

He made bold moves, deposed his high-ranking post in North Korea and called him "begging for words".

Xianfeng just said that Zeng Guofan took it seriously.

First, he went to Shuzhong, Chen Yan, denouncing the unhealthy trend of officialdom at that time, throwing eggs at stones and putting himself on the opposite side of civil and military officials in the Qing Dynasty.

Then, he went to the "three ends of respecting morality and preventing abuse", pointing out that Emperor Xianfeng was shrewd in small things, confused in big things, headstrong and dishonest. The emperor was angry. In a rage, Zeng Guofan was severely punished and thanked several ministers close to him in the DPRK.

At that time, Zeng Guofan became the target of public criticism, shooting at the head, and he became the object of everyone's concentrated firepower and criticism.

And Zeng Guofan's tactics are not necessarily brilliant.

Zeng Guofan's greatest achievement in his life was the establishment of the "Xiang Army" and the annihilation of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the "Nian Army".

He changed from literature to martial arts and knew nothing about marching and fighting. He had to read all kinds of military books to get the truth.

Different from Zuo's outstanding military wisdom, Zeng Guofan is not good at "clever attack", but only "clumsy attack"

Before each battle, he will do extremely detailed research, calculate deployment, logistics and other links, and never fight unprepared.

When encountering something particularly difficult to overcome, he will race against time and never make a move until he drags the other person to exhaustion.

Explained from the modern psychological point of view, Zeng Guofan is a typical "sticky" character, slow-moving, rigid and inflexible.

Zeng Guofan finally learned his lesson when others were near middle age.

That is, from then on, he gradually changed from an "angry youth" who despises the emperor to a "wily" Confucian scholar who is very suitable for officialdom.

After Zeng Guofan established the "Xiang Army", he personally took the lead. On the surface, Xianfeng entrusted him with an important task, but in fact he was wary and refused to give him real power. He changed from a second-rate "Beijing official" to a nominal local "temporary" cadre, and was in an embarrassing situation.

He worked in Hunan and Jiangxi successively, breaking the local interlocking interest network and moving the "cheese" of officials in the two places, so he was extremely unpopular with local dignitaries.

This shows Zeng Guofan's inner pain at that time.

Coincided with his father's death, Zeng Guofan made a rare "outrageous move" in his life: he invited a letter, in which he showed his grievances and difficulties to Xianfeng, and left the army still in Jiangxi and went straight to his hometown in Hunan without waiting for Xianfeng's reply.

I wanted to get real power from the emperor, but I didn't expect this "sympathy card" to make Xianfeng do the same thing and relieve him of his military power. Zeng Guofan was completely heartbroken and had to study behind closed doors on the day of his father's death.

It was this year's mourning period that completely completed Zeng Guofan's "transformation".

After learning from a painful experience, he began to seek a way out from Huang Lao's research and began to calm down and think about his lifestyle in the first half of his life.

The stupid old man finally understood the wisdom of Laozi. His rigid and rigid character is that he can only overcome his own weaknesses. Once he leaves in a hurry, he is easy to get hurt sideways.

Later, when Xianfeng reactivated him, Zeng Guofan seemed to be a different person.

He became modest, low-key and peaceful, and he began to use the once despised "official culture" for himself, and gradually improved it, but the only difference was that he always maintained a high degree of sobriety and amazing self-control so as not to get himself into turbidity.

Zeng Guofan's success is based on ancient and stupid methods-"determination" and "cultivation".

In Zeng Guofan's letters, Zeng Guofan's family instructions and other works, the word "Chang" can be seen everywhere, which has always been a "tightening spell" hanging over Zeng's head.

After entering the DPRK as an official, he decided to be a perfect person and look like a "saint". He used "day courses" to supervise himself. He sleeps from morning till night, writes everything in his diary, always reflects and always wakes up.

Zeng's "constant" formula is also a stupid method to some extent, and even seems a bit ridiculous today.

He reads books, never reads other books until he finishes reading one. I didn't understand a word, nor did I read the next one.

On the road of seeking "constancy", Zeng Guofan can be said to have struggled with himself all his life.

In order to insist on completing the daily reading and writing tasks, he forced himself to go home and sit in the study in the middle of social activities.

He has been reading, writing and practicing calligraphy for decades, and even in the busiest time of military affairs, he insists on these habits every day.

Especially after he successfully quit smoking for many years, he has strengthened his unremitting path, because decades of smoking addiction have been overcome, what else can't be dealt with calmly?

At this point, Zeng Guofan tempered his determination to seek constancy with the rare spirit of "ascetic monk", which was particularly rare at that time and today.

"Be strict with yourself and be lenient with others." This sentence is well reflected in Zeng Guofan.

Zeng Guofan made extensive friends all his life, and his disciples came forth in large numbers. His students spread all over the world, occupying all the important local departments of the Qing Dynasty. There are 65,438+03 governors and 65,438+04 governors.

And his social method is a word "wide".

Throughout his life, he asked himself "not to talk big, not to seek false reputation" and to do things "rather for others than for me". Others deceived him with cleverness and falsehood, but he still treated him with tolerance.

He was strict with his son, daughter and nephew in terms of money, character and personality cultivation, but Zeng Guofan had no more requirements for his children in terms of seeking fame and profit.

He doesn't want his children to live in Wenda and have money at home. He just wants his children to "study hard and never be afraid of not having food."

In the face of poor distant relatives and neighbors, Zeng Guofan often educates his children to help them, give more support to his in-laws from poor families, and don't despise alienation. What's more, he asked his son to write more letters to his mother-in-law and visit him more often.

Friends were martyred, and Zeng Guofan supported his wife and children; Subordinates who die in the line of duty will never forget to send money to their families every year.

The most noteworthy thing is the half-life entanglement between him and Zuo.

In many materials about Zeng Zuo and his wife, they all mentioned the "scientific research complex" and "Chongqing Liang complex" that influenced Zuo's life.

Zuo became famous when he was young, and he was famous in Xiangxiang, but the road to scientific research was bumpy, just a small "juren"; Once brilliant, the official career was exceptionally smooth.

When they met, one was the governor's "master" and the other was already a second-class official of the imperial court.

Therefore, I looked at Zeng Guofan with colored glasses all my life, and I was very critical and cynical about him. I turned evil for good and was extremely harsh, but Zeng Guofan never fought back.

It is no exaggeration to say that Zuo later held a high position, not only because of his rare strategy and military talent, but also because he spared no effort to recommend him.

In front of Zeng Guofan who repaid evil with good, Zuo bowed his head after all.

"Open and peaceful, not arrogant and impetuous, it looks like an old teacher's ear." This is Fang Zongcheng's evaluation of Zeng Guofan in his later years, which outlines an ordinary portrait, but if you think about it carefully, "stupidity" is not a great wisdom. After all, elephants are invisible and flexible.