Chapter 12 Abandoning the mentor in anger

Li Hongzhang's dream of serving as the envoy of salt transportation between Huaihe and Huaihe Rivers did not come true. In order to save Anqing, the Taiping Army launched a massive pincer offensive against the Hunan Army upstream.This offensive really hit Zeng Guofan's vitals.Because the main force of Zeng Guofan's Hunan Army was assembled in Anqing and its surrounding areas at that time, the defense of Hubei centered on Wuhan was very empty.However, Hubei is the strategic base of the Hunan Army, and Wuhan is especially fundamental to the overall situation.The Taiping army took Hubei together, directed the war to the enemy's rear, avoided the main force of the enemy, attacked its weak, and rescued it when attacked. It could not only break the siege of Anqing, but also annihilate the main force of the Hunan army.This strategy of the Taiping Army made Zeng Guofan terrified. He immediately adopted a contingency strategy and decided not to withdraw the troops from Anhui to aid Hubei.He bet all the so-called spinning the world on Anqing Weidian.When the Taiping Army of the Southern Expedition to the West passed through southern Anhui, they once captured Ningguo, Huizhou and other places, and encircled Qimen, causing Zeng Guofan, who was trapped in Qimen, to be in turbulent waves every day.

At this time, in addition to incurring the Taiping Army's ring attack, Zeng Guofan also encountered two thorny problems of Beishangqin King and Qimen internal strife.In 1856, the British and French allied forces launched a war of aggression against China, the Second Opium War.In September 1860, the British and French allied forces captured Tianjin and approached Beijing.On the way to Rehe, Emperor Xianfeng ordered Zeng Guofan, who was stationed alone in Qimen, to send the elite Bao Chao of the Hunan Army to the north to rescue.After receiving the order, Zeng Guofan was in a dilemma and hesitated.Because King Beishangqin has no shirkable responsibility and no excuse, but he also wants to leave Bao Chao's troops to fight against the Taiping Army; if he does not go north to protect the Lord, he will be condemned as a sinner in the world.But this time is the critical moment to suppress the Taiping army. Once the elite are removed, it will have a great impact on the battle situation. Moreover, it is at a time when Huizhou is lost and Qimen is in danger.Zeng Guofan was so anxious that he couldn't sleep for several nights, so he asked each of his subordinates to propose a plan. As a result, almost all of them advocated going north to serve the king, but only Li Hongzhang resisted all opinions and did not agree to transfer troops to go north.Li Hongzhang believed that the Anglo-French coalition forces were already under the city of Beijing, and it was only a matter of time to break into the city. It was meaningless to send troops north to defend the capital; It was the rebel Taiping Army.

Li Hongzhang saw this earlier than the Qing government, and his vision was indeed extraordinary.He further explained that the suppression of the Taiping Army by the Hunan Army was a matter of concern to the safety of the world, and that they should follow the order of the troops to rush northward to help and wait and see the changes in the situation.After careful weighing, I thought that what Li said was indeed reasonable, so I adopted this proposal.He went to the imperial court to express his willingness to go north, but he pointed out that Bao Chao was not familiar with the place where he was born. Therefore, he asked the imperial court to send one person between Hu Linyi and himself to Beijing to protect the base. In fact, he was delaying time, because it would take about a month to go back and forth. time.Sure enough, as expected, he soon received an order that the peace agreement was completed and the North Aid was not needed.This incident made Zeng Guofan pay more attention to Li Hongzhang.Although Li Hongzhang treated Zeng Guofan as a teacher, he was a very assertive person after all, and often had conflicts because of his stubborn opinions. Li Hongzhang wanted to leave Zeng Guofan several times.In 1860, when Zeng Guofan was promoted to the governor of Liangjiang and decided to move the camp to Qimen, Anhui, Li Hongzhang believed that the terrain of Qimen was like a bottom, and there was no room for advancement or retreat. From a strategic point of view, it was very dangerous to move the camp here.Under the attack of the Taiping Army, there were indeed constant dangers, and Li Hongzhang and others repeatedly asked to move to another place.But Zeng Guofan insisted on his own opinion, and even said to Li Hongzhang and others: If you are timid, you can go away.

Soon, the conflict between the two sides resurfaced due to the Li Yuandu incident and became more acute, which eventually caused Li Hongzhang to leave in anger.Li Yuandu (zi Ciqing) was Zeng Guofan's hard-working and long-time general. Zeng Guofan had strong support from Li Yuandu during the difficult years after his defeat in Jinggang, Jiujiang and Zhangshu Town.Zeng Guofan claimed to have an unswerving friendship with Li Yuandu.Li Yuandu was good at literature but didn't know soldiers. He was promoted to Huiningchi Taiguangdao only because of Zeng Guofan's personal recommendation, and led the troops to garrison Huizhou.When the Taiping Army Li Shixian's department came to attack, Li Yuandu violated Zeng Guofan's order to defend himself, and went out of the city to take up the battle. He collapsed at the first touch, and Huizhou changed hands.Li Yuandu wandered around the border of Zhejiang and Jiangxi, and did not return for a long time. Although he returned to Qimen, he left privately soon.Zeng Guofan was full of remorse and decided to impeach him in order to enforce military discipline.Zeng Guofan's move was understandable, but the civil and military counselors opposed him, accusing him of being ungrateful.Li Hongzhang led a group of people to fight, claiming that the fruit must be impeached, and his disciples did not dare to draft.Zeng Guofan said: I belong to the manuscript.Li Hongzhang said: If this is the case, the disciple will also leave, and he cannot stay to serve.Zeng Guofan said angrily: "It's up to you."On October 25th, Zeng Guofan wrote in his diary: Because of the defeat in Huizhou, he hated Ciqing deeply, and saw that many colleagues were ignorant, unreasonable, depressed and injustice, so he couldn't do anything.Judging from the original manuscript of Zeng Guofan's handwritten diary, Zeng Guofan circled the word "Shaoquan" between Er and Youjian. His original intention may be to write that Shaoquan was unreasonable and unreasonable.In fact, Zeng Guofan's criticism of Li Hongzhang hit the nail on the head.Li Hongzhang resigned angrily and left Qimen, intending to return to his elder brother's home in Nanchang, in view of the rejection of his opinion and the extremely dangerous situation in Qimen.