Chapter 67 Friendship and Harmony Help Growth

In the process of a person's growth, if someone can guide him, then he will make great progress and it will be easier to grow rapidly.During the growth of Li Hongzhang, Zeng Guofan played a guiding role.When Li Hongzhang arrived in the capital, under the guidance of Zeng Guofan, he gradually opened up his vision of communication and made friends with many people with lofty ideals.The most important of these are Zeng Guofan's original group of friends and the ever-expanding Zengmen disciples.Li Hongzhang is free and easy, and he is more sociable than his teacher.Zeng Guofan was worried that he was not strict in choosing friends, so he kept trying to induce him.The Zengmen disciples and Jinshi of the same year are Li Hongzhang's most important interpersonal resources.

Among these people, Li Hongzhang and Shen Baozhen lived in the same family and had the most harmonious friendship.Shen Baozhen was born in the first year of Daoguang (1820), three years older than Li Hongzhang, but ranked behind Li Hongzhang in Jinshi and rank.After Shen Baozhen passed the Jinshi examination, he and Li Hongzhang were designated as Hanlin scholars. They served as Shujishi of Hanlin Academy for three years, and editors of Hanlin Academy for another three years.In 1853, Li Hongzhang returned to his hometown to run a regiment training, and Shen Baozhen served as the supervisory censor of Jiangnan Road in the second year.Two years later, Shen Baozhen was appointed as the prefect of Jiujiang, but at that time Jiujiang was not under the control of the Qing government and had been occupied by the Taiping Army. He could not take up his post, so he was left by Zeng Guofan in the camp of the Hunan Army to help take care of the camp and became Zeng Guofan's staff.

In 1856, Shen Baozhen became the prefect of Guangxin. Not long after he took office, he encountered an army of tens of thousands led by Yang Fuqing, the auxiliary king of the Taiping Army, who came to attack.At that time, there were only 400 defenders in the city, and they scattered like birds and beasts.Shen Baozhen was on business outside the city, and someone advised his wife Lin Puqing to go out of the city to take refuge temporarily, but she firmly refused, and wrote a blood letter to Rao Tingxuan, the guard of the Qing army in the neighboring county, asking for help.When Shen Baozhen galloped back from Hekou Town, fires broke out everywhere in the city, and the screen walls in the government office were also illuminated red. Lin Puqing stood outside with a sword, and said to her husband: Now is the time for you to serve the court and die for the country. If I die, I will not live. This well is my burial place.Later, thanks to Rao Tingxuan leading the rescuers in time, Guangxin City was able to be saved.

After this incident, Zeng Guofan admired Shen Baozhen even more. In 1862, he strongly recommended him, and was exceptionally promoted to governor of Jiangxi Province and became a great official in Xinjiang.From classmates, colleagues to colleagues, Li Hongzhang and Shen Baozhen communicated very frequently.When Li Hongzhang defected to Zeng Guofan at the end of 1858, he deliberately bypassed Guangxin and had a long talk with Shen Baozhen all night. Later, Li Hongzhang and Zeng Guofan had conflicts, and felt unsatisfactory in the Xiangjun shogunate, and wanted to go to Fuzhou, Shen Baozhen's hometown, to become a Taoist.After Shen Baozhen learned about it, he immediately wrote a letter to persuade Li Hongzhang not to take up the post, but to stay with Zeng Guofan and wait for the opportunity.

Soon, under the recommendation of Zeng Guofan, the two became governors almost at the same time. Li Hongzhang and Shen Baozhen served as governors of Jiangsu and Jiangxi respectively.In the subsequent domestic and foreign affairs, the two even echoed each other, promoting the modernization process of the late Qing Dynasty. Shen Baozhen also played a key role in maintaining the relationship between the two departments of Hunan and Huaihe, especially the relationship between Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang. Of course Li Hongzhang's close friends are not limited to Shen Baozhen, others such as Guo Songtao and Chen Ding have given him important help in starting his career.It can be said that during his short stay in the capital, under the guidance of Zeng Guofan, he made friends with a large number of people with lofty ideals, which was the interpersonal foundation of his later career.

Li Hongzhang joined Zeng Guofan's shogunate and gained a deeper understanding of Zeng Guofan's communication methods.Zeng Guofan got on his horse to kill the enemy, dismounted to give lectures, and the shogunate made offerings to the three sages, seven sages and ten famous Confucians.But these people are not pure nerds, but people with aspirations and learning with the world in mind, and they are Zeng Guofan's talent pool. After Li Hongzhang took charge of his own affairs, he completely imitated his teacher's method and became one with the local business gentry, expanding his power base, and at the same time reserved a large number of talents.

In this regard, Li Hongzhang benefited a lot. He once told the general Liu Bingzhang about Zeng Guofan's teaching grace: I have followed many teachers, and there is no one who is as good at teaching as this old man.He has instructions for everything, anytime, anywhere.In addition to military and political aspects, the knowledge of interpersonal relationships is also an important part.You can't do great things just by fighting alone.Making like-minded friends and enriching one's interpersonal resources is an important prerequisite for success, and it should be treated as an important task.