/Wang Guodong
Many Internet authors are writing articles boasting about how powerful Zeng Guofan is, but they do not mention the embarrassment and helplessness of Zeng Guofan in the early days of establishing the Hunan Army. This just confirms the saying: The world only remembers the light when the great man succeeded, but not the hardships of the great man when he started his business. Take Zeng Guofan as an example. In his first battle after the creation of the Hunan Army, the entire army was wiped out, and there were no shorts left. Ashamed and angry, he jumped into the river twice to commit suicide, but was rescued by his subordinates in time. This led to the realization of Zeng Wenzheng's famous "failed and repeatedly fought" theory.
At the beginning of 1854, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's Western Expeditionary Army marched northward and invaded the territory of Hunan, directly threatening the rule of the Manchu and Qing Dynasty in Hunan. The court was shocked and hurriedly dispatched troops to encircle and suppress. It was under such circumstances that the Zeng Guofan Xiang Corps, who had had trouble with the Green Camp Army, was ordered to go to Yuezhou to stop the Western Expedition Army from marching northward and conduct the maiden battle after its founding.
Before and after the training of the founding group of Zeng Guofan, because he was dissatisfied with the incompetence of the green camp, he made many hostile remarks to the green camp generals and local governors, which offended many people. There was even a vicious incident of collective fighting between the Hunan Army Corps Yong and the Green Camp in public. For this reason, Zeng Guofan's Xiang Yong was unable to settle down in Changsha, so he could only move to Xiangtan for training. After receiving the order from the imperial court, Zeng Guofan was very excited, and he personally wrote and published "A Discussing Cantonese Bandits", which was about to wipe out the troubled officials and thieves like Hong Xiuquan. The officials in Hunan, big and small, and the elders from Xiangxiang also stared at Zeng Guofan with their eyes wide open, all wanting to see how beautiful Xiang Yong was.
In the first ten days of July 1854, Zeng Guofan led 17,000 Xiangyong waterways to advance, seeming to regain Yuezhou, which had been captured by Lin Shaozhang of Taiping Army. According to the military situation discovered by the scouts, the Taiping Army’s main force hoarded the city of Yuezhou. Titans Taqibu, Luo Zenan and others led the army to attack the military town of Xiangtan; Zeng Guofan personally led the navy to attack Jinggang, the outer barrier of Yuezhou, and the two armies succeeded. Together, take Yuezhou together. From the literal meaning, Zeng Guofan's strategic intentions are very good. He led the navy's main force to attack Jinggang, divided the Taiping army, and then joined with Lu Shi to attack Yuezhou. It's just that Zeng Guofan didn't expect that opponents Shi Xiangzhen and Zeng Tianyang would be so cunning that they would "lie about the military situation". The old, weak, sick and disabled all stayed in Yuezhou to bluff, and the main force of the elite stayed in a small place like Jinggang and waited for him.
On July 16, 1854, Zeng Guofan's navy commander Zhu Ruhang took advantage of the favorable wind and led more than a hundred warships into Jinggang. The navy led by Zeng Guofan went smoothly and quickly rushed to the front of the Taiping Army position, but they were waiting for countless guns and bows. Knowing that Zhu Ruhang could not retreat, he had to bite the bullet and fight. The Taiping army veteran Zeng Tianyang led the ambushed sampan team into the navy, and they killed anyone. The navy generals Chen Huilong, Sha Zhenbang, Zhu Ruhang and others died in battle. Xiang Yong was defeated. Originally, under such circumstances, Zeng Guofan ordered a retreat, which could still save some of his troops. But the master of science Zeng Guofan couldn't do such a dirty thing to abandon his subordinates, urging the rear team to rescue the former team, and the result was that the Xiangyong Navy was completely ruined. The flagship soldier couldn't do anything about it. Regardless of whether Mr. Zeng agreed with him or not, he ran away if he was a girl, and somehow saved Zeng Guofan's life.
Faced with the annihilation of the entire army, Zeng Guofan recalled his hard work in raising funds, recruiting warriors, and purchasing weapons, but he was vulnerable on the battlefield. Not to mention that he could not be explained to the court and the families of soldiers who died in the war. Even the saliva of those officials in Changsha City could drown him. Thinking of this, Zeng Guofan was embarrassed, and jumped into the river. The military commander Zhang Shoulin, who was by the side, had already seen that Zeng Guofan was wrong. He asked the soldiers to guard Zeng Guofan in advance. As soon as Zeng Guofan jumped off the river, these soldiers who were familiar with water immediately went into the water for search and rescue and dragged Zeng Guofan who had drunk a few sips of dirty water. Got on the boat. Dashuai Zeng got on the boat, but his thoughts were still in the river, so he jumped off again when his soldiers were not prepared. Reluctantly, exhausted Zhang Shoulin and others had to accompany Dashuai Zeng for the next time.
Zeng Guofan is determined to die, and Zhang Shoulin, as an aide, can hardly persuade each other. It turned out that Taqibu and Luo Zenan, who attacked Xiangtan, faced the Taiping army chief Lin Shaozhang and fought bloody battles. Not only did they regain the city of Xiangtan, they also suffered heavy losses to the Taiping Army. With this good letter, Zeng Guofan had a reason for not dying, and rushed to Xiangtan to meet with his subordinates in a mood that might even be indescribable to him. Z1z
Zeng Guofan was defeated and the entire army was annihilated. It is impossible for the court not to hold accountable. The good Hunan officials have already added to the fact that Zeng Guofan lost his teacher.The report went up (Hunan governor Luo Bingzhang went to Xiangtan to inspect, passing by Zeng Guofan's camp, he didn't bother to go in and say a greeting). In the face of the imperial court’s dismissal and retention, and the penalty decision of Dai's crime and meritorious service, Zeng Guofan considered repeatedly and presented a memorial to defend himself. The content of this memorial is not stated, anyway, there is a word in it that made Emperor Xianfeng very useful, that is, "failed repeatedly." The minister Zeng Guofan won the battle without falsehood, but if the minister is not discouraged, the minister will definitely spare his life and fight the Cantonese bandits to the end. It was with this courage and determination to refuse to admit defeat, Zeng Guofan stubbornly led the Hunan Army to create a miracle in the world's military history, replacing the regular army with militias and suppressing the vigorous Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement.
