I am looking for an article about Zeng Guofan of about 1,500 words, preferably written by myself.
The "wronged" Zeng Guofan
When Zeng Guofan was studying in Hengyang when he was about 20 years old, he studied under Wang Jue'an. There is a classmate named Yang Furui in the same dormitory, who is a well-known local rich kid. Yang Furui relied on his family's power and was usually very arrogant. He also made things difficult for Zeng Guofan, who was obviously better than him academically.
One day, Zeng Guofan was sitting in front of the window, reading "Zuo Zhuan" aloud in the light outside the window. He was concentrating on reading when he suddenly heard someone shouting: "Zeng Guofan, you block all the light from the window. Why am I reading? Why don't you move away quickly?" Zeng Guofan stopped and looked sideways, seeing Yang Furui opposite his bed. At this time, Yang Furui was not actually studying, and his bed was on the other side of the window, so the light was not blocked at all. Zeng Guofan was very angry and wanted to argue with him, but he suppressed his anger, moved the stool to his bed, and started reading again.
At night, Zeng Guofan continued to study under the lamp, and Yang Furui shouted to him again: "If you don't study during the day, work hard at night, and you have to divide your time to show off to others! You study now, How can we sleep?" After hearing this, Zeng Guofan raised his head and smiled at him, and started reading silently.
Soon after, Zeng Guofan passed the exam, and his classmates congratulated him one after another. However, Yang Furui became furious and shouted at Zeng Guofan: "The feng shui in this room was mine, and you took it away as soon as you came. "The students on the side were very disgusted and asked him: "Didn't you decide the position of Zeng Guofan's bookcase? Why do you want to bite back now?" Yang Furui still said arrogantly: "It was him who took away my Feng Shui." After blaming Yang Furui, Zeng Guofan persuaded everyone not to argue with him over such a trivial matter. Everyone immediately admired Zeng Guofan.
A person cannot bear even a little grievance when he is in the world. It is naturally not easy to succeed. Zeng Guofan later had a successful career and became a talented general in the late Qing Dynasty. This cannot be said to have nothing to do with his forbearance, which was first revealed when he was young.
Why Zeng Guofan was able to achieve great achievements
Zhang Taiyan once said: "Zeng Guofan, if he is praised, he is a saint, if he is deceived, he is the culprit." Since the Opium War, China's modern political situation has fallen into The constant turmoil caused the evaluation of Zeng Guofan to be constantly repeated. Zeng Guofan suppressed the Taiping Rebellion and saved the fate of the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, court officials and landlord intellectuals during the Tongguang period praised him as "the first famous minister of the ZTE". At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the revolutionaries wanted to overthrow the Manchu Qing Dynasty and "drive out the Tartars and restore China." At this time, everyone discovered that the Taiping Rebellion was an uprising with Han people as the main body. Zeng Guofan helped the Manchu Qing government suppress the Han uprising. So Zeng Guofan was labeled a "traitor". In the future, the Communist Party will lead the peasants to make revolution, the so-called "agrarian revolution", so our view of history is very clear: all peasant uprisings in history are good, and all suppression of peasant uprisings are bad. . Zeng Guofan suppressed the largest peasant uprising in history. This crime was obviously the biggest. Therefore, he was labeled as the most cruel and vicious representative and executioner of the landlord class, and was completely denied. This is the image of Zeng Guofan in the textbooks that we are all familiar with. All of the above are actually described from the perspective of their respective political stances, and are bound to be limited and one-sided.
After the reform and opening up, minds began to be liberated, including the evaluation of some historical figures, which gradually became more comprehensive and objective. At this time, people discovered that Zeng Guofan's role in Chinese history was very complicated, and he could not be dismissed simply by labeling him as "a certain class." From a cultural perspective, he embodies the most essence of traditional Chinese culture. He is the last idol of traditional Chinese culture. From a military perspective, he initiated China's military modernization. From an economic point of view, Zeng Guofan was the initiator of the Westernization Movement. He actually opened the curtain of modern economic changes. His idea of "learning from the wisdom of the foreigners to control the foreigners" was quite open and progressive. From the perspective of family education, dealing with people, and moral cultivation, Zeng Guofan can provide profound enlightenment to the impetuous contemporary Chinese.
We are now far away from Zeng Guofan's era, and we can look at Zeng Guofan calmly. When Mao Zedong was young, he once said: "I am better than my neighbors, and I only obey Zeng Wenzheng." He also said that there are two kinds of people in Chinese history, one is a person who works, and the other is a person who preaches. Zeng Guofan is a person who works and preaches. person.
Mao Zedong believed that only two people in Chinese history could achieve such a state, one was Zeng Guofan and the other was Fan Zhongyan in the Northern Song Dynasty. This evaluation is very high. Here, Mao Zedong obviously regarded Zeng Guofan as a successful leader. I think this is a very important perspective for interpreting Zeng Guofan today. Interpreting Zeng Guofan from this perspective should bring us more gains. Of course, there is a phenomenon that is worth noting in today's society, which is that Zeng Guofan is regarded as a synonym for officialdom. In my opinion, this is another kind of stereotype of Zeng Guofan, a new distortion of Zeng Guofan's image, and is not serious. of.
People interpret Zeng Guofan with different needs. Everyone has their own needs, so everyone has an image of Zeng Guofan in their mind. This is the characteristic of reading history, everyone takes what they need. An important reason why people are very interested in "Zeng Guofan's Family Letter" is that Zeng Guofan was indeed very successful in terms of children's education. The descendants of the Zeng family basically follow Zeng Guofan's family motto, which is "Mortal people want their descendants to be high officials, but I don't want to be high officials, but they want to be gentlemen who study and understand reason", and take studying as their pursuit. Zeng Guofan's eldest son Zeng Jize was an official because he inherited his title, and he was very accomplished. His second son Zeng Jihong was a mathematician and did not enter politics. By the third generation, they basically no longer serve as officials. The Zeng family has been passed down to the sixth generation since Zeng Guofan. Many of the Zeng family's descendants are now overseas, basically in the fields of education, medical care, and technology. Among Zeng's descendants, there are more than 240 academicians, engineers, and professors, and they still follow his family motto until now. This kind of family education is not something ordinary people can achieve.
What exactly depends on the prosperity and decline of a family? He made it very clear. It does not depend on how big an official you are, or how much money you make, but on the construction of family tradition and family ethics. Zeng Guofan once said: "The way to build a family is nothing more than diligence and frugality inside and outside, harmony between brothers, and modesty and prudent children. Losing a family is exactly the opposite." Such a family will surely prosper. In turn, it will definitely lead to ruin. So the principle is actually very simple and simple. Zeng Guofan also summarized many things that are easy to remember, such as his "Eight Books" of the Qi family. These things are indeed worth thinking about today.
Chinese people have a deep sense of mission to pass on the family lineage and extend family fortunes. A person's life is always limited, but the meaning of Chinese life is transcended in the continuation of family blood. This is the psychological characteristic of the Chinese people. Zeng Guofan's family motto is the family's greatest spiritual wealth. The family inheritance that many of us pay attention to is often the inheritance of wealth on the material level, but what is truly lasting and lasting is the inheritance of wealth on the spiritual level. Material things will always perish, but spiritual things can be spread infinitely and have unlimited influence.
In fact, from the perspective of life and work, Zeng Guofan did not put forward any new ideas. His family mottos are nothing more than some classic Confucian ideas. Be humble, be cautious, be diligent and thrifty, and cannot Luxury, don't be arrogant, etc. But he will keep telling you, and more importantly, he will do whatever he knows. This is what he said himself, this is what he did, and he was successful because of this. He is an example in himself, so his words will naturally have weight and will naturally be easily accepted by everyone.
Zeng Guofan was indeed sincere when he wrote letters to his family. In his theory, this is called "word of mouth". Zeng Guofan had a "five principles": "body awareness, heart awareness, eye awareness, hand awareness, and mouth awareness". Among them, "oral awareness" means repeated admonitions and constant admonitions. He has such a mentality of being kind to others. Therefore, it is easy for family members to accept his education.
In addition, the truth in Zeng Guofan’s family motto is actually not difficult to start with. If you want to be diligent, just get up early and do it. To be frugal, just start by not spending too much at home. Develop some rules that can be implemented, and everyone in the family can work together to implement them.
Moreover, Zeng Guofan spread this sense of responsibility to the family to everyone. He said: "The long-lasting prosperity of any family does not rely on temporary official titles, but on long-term family rules. It does not rely on the sudden rise of one or two people, but on the maintenance of the masses." The long-lasting prosperity of a family does not rely on temporary success. Official position depends on long-term family rules. It does not depend on the outbreak of one or two people, but on everyone's maintenance.
He asked everyone to work together to maintain the family. In the end, everyone realized how much impact my behavior had on the family. We must work together to do this. If the family has a sense of pride and responsibility for the family, they will Willing to consciously do what Zeng Guofan asks. This is why so many years after Zeng Guofan's death, the Zeng family still follows his family motto. A kind of family motto will only really work if it becomes a conscious behavior shared by family members.
Some people regard Zeng Guofan as a synonym for officialdom, but this is actually a huge misunderstanding. No leader can succeed simply by relying on Machiavellian tactics. Relying on power and tactics can lead to temporary success, but it cannot succeed in the long run. The core of Zeng Guofan's leadership is not tactics, but ideas, and his "clumsy sincerity" in implementing his ideas. "Clumsy" means to do it step by step, and "sincerity" means to do it sincerely. If you know something, do it. Zeng Guofan has a belief that "only the most sincerity in the world can defeat the most hypocrisy in the world; only the most clumsy in the world can defeat the most cleverness in the world." This is the core sentence to understand his leadership. "Fake" and "smart" are just small cleverness, while "sincerity" and "clumsy" are great wisdom. That's the truth.
Zeng Guofan’s leadership is not completely without the element of machination. As an official, he must also compromise with reality and must be square on the inside and round on the outside. But in general, it is based on adhering to morality as the foundation of motivation, simplicity as the foundation of employing people, sincerity as the foundation of controlling generals, patience as the foundation of governing the heart, tolerance as the foundation of life, and the overall situation as the foundation of decision-making. , take diligence as the foundation for managing things, and use force as the foundation for self-cultivation. The core of his leadership is the concept of "loyalty and loyalty" and the sense of mission of "sacrifice one's life to defend the law."
There are actually three realms for people to do things. The first realm is career, and doing things is a requirement of the profession. It is to serve as a soldier to feed the people. Such people will not really devote themselves to doing things; the second realm is career. With a sense of professionalism, people will be willing to dedicate, pay, and endure pain; the third level is philosophy and belief. Belief is non-negotiable and does not come at any cost. Belief can make people devote 100% or even 200% of their energy, and it can make people burn themselves for faith.
Zeng Guofan achieved the second and third levels. His belief, his ambition, his cultivation, his character, his perseverance, his mind and his strong sense of salvation, as well as the strong charisma formed by his persistence in putting his ideas into practice, are his The key factor that can achieve great things. These contents are far beyond what can be covered by a single strategy. From Zeng Guofan, we can feel the depth and depth of leadership in Chinese history and culture.