Zeng Guofan

Zeng Guofan was born on November 26, 1811, in Xiangxiang, Hunan, in an area that now belongs to Shuangfeng County. His first name was Zicheng; his courtesy name was Bohan, his style name Disheng, and his childhood name Kuanyi.⁠[1][2][3][4]

A 2022 report in the Xiaoxiang Morning Herald and a piece of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection website republished by Sanxiang Fengji both name the Baiyutang house in Heye Town as his birthplace; the latter places it at the foot of Mount Gaomei in Tianping Village, Heye Town, Shuangfeng County.⁠[5][3]

Accounts of the family’s means differ. Encyclopædia BritannicaEncyclopædia BritannicaEncyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopedia first published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768; the name also refers to its publisher, Chicago-based Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (which presents itself as The Britannica Group). The print edition ended in 2012, and the company’s main businesses since then have been the online encyclopedia Britannica.com, digital education products for schools and libraries, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries.Open the full entry says that he was born into a prosperous family dominated by his grandfather, Zeng Yuping, a farmer with social ambitions; the Encyclopedia of World Biography says that he came from a poor peasant family. The piece republished by Sanxiang Fengji calls the grandfather Zeng Xinggang and says that he loved idle pleasure in his youth and was mocked by his elders as a frivolous young man who would ruin the family; he then came to his senses, devoted himself to farming and the clearing of land, and laid down an eight-character household rule (shu shu yu zhu, zao sao kao bao) that begins with books, vegetables, fish and pigs and goes on to early rising and sweeping.⁠[1][2][3]

The piece republished by Sanxiang Fengji says that his father, Zeng Linshu, was widely known for his filial piety, sat the examination 17 times and became a licentiate (xiucai) only at 43, and set up a private school, the Lijianzhai, beside Baiyutang, where Zeng Guofan studied until he was past ten. Britannica also says that the father succeeded only at his 17th attempt. The Xiaoxiang Morning Herald report says that Zeng Guofan entered a private school at the age of six.⁠[3][1][5]

Sources differ on the year in which he passed the lowest examination. The Encyclopedia of World Biography says that he passed his first official examination in 1832, a year after his father; Britannica says that he passed the prefectural examination in 1833, one year after his father. The Xiaoxiang Morning Herald report says that he sat the examination seven times before he became a xiucai.⁠[2][1][5]

Britannica says that he passed the provincial examination in 1834. The Xiaoxiang Morning Herald report says that after becoming a xiucai he went on to study at the Yuelu Academy and elsewhere.⁠[1][5]

Britannica says that he failed the metropolitan examination in Beijing in 1835 and finally passed it in 1838.⁠[1]

An article in the Beijing Evening News in 2025 (reprinted the same year by Wenzhai Bao) says that he passed the jinshi examination at 27, placing 42nd in the third class of the palace examination, so that his examiner, the Grand Councillor Muzhang’a, could support him with confidence. The Encyclopedia of World Biography says that in 1838, the year of his jinshi degree, he also became a member of the Hanlin Academy; an excerpt from Ju Hai’s book published by The Beijing News in 2025 says that he became a jinshi and entered the Hanlin Academy at 27, while the Sanxiang Fengji piece says that he became a jinshi and entered the Hanlin Academy at 28, and the Xiaoxiang Morning Herald also says that he was admitted to the Hanlin Academy at 28.⁠[6][2][7][3][5]

The Beijing Evening News article says that he reached Beijing in the early spring of 1840 (the twentieth year of the Daoguang reign), aged 29; he stayed for a month at the Changjun guild hall in Chunshu Hutong and then moved to the Qianfo shrine on Nanheng Street in the outer city, far from the Hanlin Academy. After the Hanlin graduation examination he was made a compiler (jiantao) of the Hanlin Academy, of the junior seventh rank. Britannica says that he then served continuously in the capital for more than 13 years and remained devoted to interpreting the Confucian classics.⁠[6][1]

The article says that, seeing colleagues absorbed in social calls, pleasure and side income, he wrote in self-examination (in translation) that he was already thirty, dull in talent and drained of energy, and asked how he could still achieve anything; he resolved to build a solid foundation of learning. His Hanlin colleague Li Jiyun reminded him to make reverence (zhujing) his priority, saying that it would cure all ills; he admitted to Tang Jian of Shanhua, then chamberlain of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices, that he was quick to anger, and Tang advised him to study the Complete Works of Master Zhu closely in search of the investigation of things; Woren urged him to keep a diary as a means of constant self-criticism. The article adds that he did not fully adopt the School of Mind but, guided by Tang Jian and Woren, gradually turned to the study of moral principles.⁠[6]

An article by Huang Shouyu in Wencui Bao, republished by New Hunan in 2023, says that Tang Jian came to Beijing in 1840, aged 63, as chamberlain of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices; on the fourteenth day of the seventh lunar month of 1841 Zeng Guofan called on him, and Tang taught him the books of the Cheng–Zhu school, methods of study and the essentials of self-cultivation, recommended Woren’s practice of keeping a diary, and warned him that the first thing was to guard against self-deception; Zeng said that this was as clear as a veil being lifted from his eyes. The article describes the two as teacher and student from then on.⁠[8]

The Beijing Evening News article says that after his family joined him he moved with them to Shengjiang Hutong outside the Xuanwu Gate, where social obligations grew, and that Tang Jian and Woren both urged him to move away quickly. Two years after entering the Hanlin Academy he became, in addition, an assistant compiler of the Historiography Institute, and a year later a collator of the Wenyuange imperial library; he began to keep scholarly notes in the manner of Gu Yanwu and Wang Niansun and at night, by lamplight, went through the writings of the late-Ming and early-Qing thinker Wang Fuzhi. The article adds that his father wrote (in translation) that the previous year’s loans and interest had all been repaid, but Zeng worried that his father was hiding the true state of the debts; his proposal to give 400 taels of silver to relatives caused a quarrel among his brothers; and in his fourth year in Beijing he was still struggling with the family’s debts.⁠[6]

The Beijing Evening News article says that in the spring of 1844 he moved from outside the Xuanwu Gate into Nian’er Hutong inside the Qian Gate, in the inner city; in a letter home he regretted (in translation) that his age had no men of the calibre of Han Yu and Wang Anshi with whom to test his ideas. Duties as proctor of the Hanlin graduation examination, the palace examination and provincial examinations then left him feeling that he had no time to read, and he withdrew for a time to the Lüzu temple; when the lung illness that had troubled him returned, he moved to the Baoguo Temple in the south of the city to recover, and there established a master–disciple relationship with Li HongzhangLi HongzhangLi Hongzhang (1823–1901) was a Chinese statesman, military commander and diplomat of the late Qing dynasty, the founder and commander of the Huai Army and one of the principal promoters of the Self-Strengthening Movement. From 1870 he served for many years as governor-general of Zhili and superintendent of trade for the northern ports, sponsored modern enterprises such as the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company, the Kaiping mines, railways, telegraphs and the Beiyang Fleet, and signed treaties including the Treaty of Shimonoseki and the Boxer Protocol for the Qing government; judgments of him, in his lifetime and since, have been sharply divided.Open the full entry, the son of a friend, who had come to visit him. Britannica’s article on Li Hongzhang says that Li began his official career in Beijing in 1844 under Zeng’s guidance and that Zeng became his mentor.⁠[6][9]

The article says that he was appointed a diarist of the daily lectures and, ten days later, an attendant of the Wenyuange; in his sixth year in Beijing, at 35, he was promoted to sub-reader of the Hanlin Academy, rising from the junior seventh to the junior fourth rank. He wrote (in translation) that provincial officials were constantly hampered, while posts in the capital were honourable, clean and secure, and preferred to stay in Beijing.⁠[6]

The Beijing Evening News article says that in 1847, aged 37, he was already sub-chancellor of the Grand Secretariat with the rank of vice minister of rites, an official of the second rank, and that he wrote (in translation) that, on this unexpected promotion, he looked at himself and felt deeply ashamed and uneasy. The Palace Museum’s entry says that he served as sub-chancellor of the Grand Secretariat and by the end of the Daoguang reign had risen to vice minister. The Beijing Evening News article adds that he recommended to his brothers his own habit of reading ten pages a day and keeping a diary for self-examination, hoping that they would follow it, and urged them to choose friends carefully, seeking not mutual flattery but friends who would point out their faults.⁠[6][4]

The Encyclopedia of World Biography says that in 1849 he became junior vice president of the Board of Ceremonies (vice minister of rites) and served as acting vice president of several other boards. The boards named differ: Britannica says that he later served as vice president of the Boards of Defense, Works, Justice and Finance; the Sanxiang Fengji piece says that he was vice minister of rites and acting vice minister of war, works, justice and civil office. Britannica adds that he found his routine work boring and wanted to help the people more substantially.⁠[2][1][3]

A 2015 report by Voice of Hunan says that in 1849 (the twenty-ninth year of the Daoguang reign), while vice minister of rites in Beijing, he wrote to his younger brother that he would never leave money to his descendants. The Beijing Evening News article says that in 1849, already an official of the second rank, he insisted on taking nothing beyond his salary and his integrity allowance, used his savings to help relatives and clansmen instead of storing them for his sons’ needs, and said that since the age of 30 he had regarded getting rich through office as shameful and leaving the gains of office to his descendants as disgraceful.⁠[10][6]

Britannica says that in 1850, 1851 and early 1852 he repeatedly criticised the emperor’s behaviour, the government’s financial policy and the court’s treatment of an outspoken official. The Beijing Evening News article says that when the newly enthroned Xianfeng emperor invited comment, he submitted a memorial in response to the edict criticising abuses in officialdom; the emperor, though displeased, wrote that it was frank, clearly argued, to the point and well worth adopting.⁠[1][6]

The article by Huang Shouyu republished by New Hunan says that on the eighteenth day of the third lunar month of 1851 (the first year of the Xianfeng reign) the emperor summoned Tang Jian, then teaching at the Jinling Academy in Nanjing, to the capital, and that Tang arrived on the nineteenth day of the fifth month; the number of audiences is given as 11 in Tang’s family account of his life and as 15 in the epitaph that Zeng Guofan wrote for him. The article says that when the emperor pressed him to name men of ability, Tang named Zeng Guofan, judging that his learning exceeded his practical talent but that he knew how to choose men and draw on the ideas of many, so that he could be trusted with hard tasks; Tang advised that he be given real power without division, saying that he was steady, fought on after every defeat, and should not be replaced at the first setback or impeachment; many officials at court criticised Tang’s words as improper.⁠[8]

The Encyclopedia of World Biography says that in 1852 he was ordered to Jiangxi to conduct the provincial examination, learned on the way south that his mother had died, and was granted leave to return home for the customary three years of mourning. Britannica also says that his mother died in 1852 and that he asked to observe the mourning period at home.⁠[2][1]

Britannica says that the Taiping rebels, who had taken up arms in 1850, had reached the Yangtze valley by 1852 and seriously threatened the survival of the Qing dynasty; the religious and political upheaval cost some 20,000,000 lives and was the greatest threat the Qing had ever faced. The Encyclopedia of World Biography says that in 1852 the Taipings besieged Changsha, the capital of Hunan, and withdrew after resistance by local militia. Because the imperial troops were corrupt and weak, the government encouraged the scholar-gentry to organise local militias.⁠[1][2]

The Palace Museum’s entry says that when the Taipings entered Hunan he was appointed assistant commissioner for militia. The excerpt of Ju Hai’s book in The Beijing News says that he was ordered to organise militia from 1852; Britannica’s history of China says that he organised the “Hunan Braves” in 1852, later called the Hunan Army.⁠[4][7][11]

The Encyclopedia of World Biography says that in January 1853 the emperor ordered him to recruit and drill the Hunan militia; at first he felt that, being in mourning, he could not accept, but agreed after persuasion from the emperor and from friends, and vowed to himself that he would neither covet wealth nor fear death. Britannica says that he joined the local defence forces in Hunan early in 1853 and gradually took on more responsibility for suppressing the rebellion.⁠[2][1]

Britannica says that he established a local militia in Hunan and merged the units formed by several scholars of his home district into a regional army, paid and equipped from voluntary contributions and local funds and loyal to Zeng and his officers; Zuo ZongtangZuo ZongtangZuo Zongtang (1812–1885) was a statesman and military commander of the late Qing dynasty. Holding only the provincial degree, he joined the staff of the governor of Hunan, raised the Chu Army against the Taiping Rebellion and served as governor of Zhejiang and governor-general of Fujian and Zhejiang, of Shaanxi and Gansu and of Liangjiang, rising to grand secretary and grand councillor; from 1875 he directed the campaign in Xinjiang that defeated Yakub Beg, after which Xinjiang was made a province.Open the full entry and Li Hongzhang first served on his staff and later organised their own regional armies under his general direction.⁠[1]

The Encyclopedia of World Biography says that the army, known as the Xiang Army, was built on personal loyalty: having seen Qing regulars refuse to fight for commanders who were strangers to them, he required each unit commander to recruit his own soldiers, preferably from his own region, and when a commander was removed his unit was disbanded and a new commander raised a new one, which gave rise to the saying that the army belongs to the general. The encyclopedia judges that this inadvertently set a pattern of personal armies that contributed to the warlordism of the 20th century. It adds that he refused to commit his troops until he judged them adequately trained, despite repeated entreaties from officials and from the emperor.⁠[2]

The Encyclopedia of World Biography says that the Xiang Army was meant to be financed by the imperial treasury, but imperial revenues fell short and he had to rely on contributions from a lukewarm local gentry; since his rank lay outside the regular provincial bureaucracy he could not command provincial revenues, and the army was kept supplied by staunch friends of high provincial rank and by his own persistent pleas. The excerpt of Ju Hai’s book in The Beijing News says that he founded the Xiang Army in Hunan at the age of 43; that it consisted of recruited militia rather than regular troops; that he felt himself (in translation) to be a lodger hanging in mid-air; and that he came to see that an army could not be run without the post of governor or governor-general.⁠[2][7]

The Encyclopedia of World Biography says that in 1854 his forces were defeated in two battles and he was so discouraged that he attempted suicide; a subsequent victory encouraged him, and his forces halted the Taiping drive in Hunan. The excerpt of Ju Hai’s book in The Beijing News says that at 44, defeated at Jinggang, he jumped into the river to kill himself, and that after a further defeat at Jiujiang he threw himself into the lake a second time; the book says that he twice attempted suicide and thought of taking his own life more often still.⁠[2][7]

The Encyclopedia of World Biography says that in 1856 a bloodbath in Nanjing eliminated most of the capable Taiping leaders, which helped him; despite calls for help from other areas he concentrated on recapturing the Taiping capital at Nanjing, and his army had to fight its way down the Yangtze against stiff opposition.⁠[2]

An article by Shinian Kanchai in the Xinhua Daily Telegraph, reprinted by Wenzhai Bao in 2016, says that his father, Zeng Linshu, died in Xiangxiang on the same day of the year as Zeng himself would die fifteen years later, while Zeng was leading troops against the Taipings. The Sanxiang Fengji piece says that the Siyunguan study was built in 1857, while he was in mourning.⁠[12][3]

The Wenzhai Bao article says that his brother Zeng Guohua, who had been adopted by an uncle and was sixth in the clan’s order of birth, was killed in 1858 at the Battle of Sanhe by the troops of the Taiping general Chen Yucheng. The excerpt of Ju Hai’s book in The Beijing News quotes a later passage in which Zeng wrote (in translation) that in the nine years since the wuwu year (1858) he had become quite different from the man he had been before forty, taking the ability to stand and to reach as his substance and blaming neither heaven nor others as his practice; the book calls the wuwu year his “mid-life change.”⁠[12][7]

The Palace Museum’s entry says that in 1860 (the tenth year of the Xianfeng reign) he became governor-general of Liangjiang and imperial commissioner in charge of military affairs south of the Yangtze; the Encyclopedia of World Biography says that after 1860 he held the governor-generalship, the highest provincial civil rank, together with the post of imperial commissioner, which at last allowed him to keep his army adequately funded. Britannica says that beginning in 1860 the government appointed these new military leaders governors-general and governors of the provinces their troops occupied.⁠[4][2][1]

The excerpt of Ju Hai’s book in The Beijing News says that on the day he received word of his appointment as acting governor-general he consulted the oracle about a decision, drawing the hexagram Jie changing to Shi, and could not sleep that night; the governor-general of Liangjiang ruled Jiangsu, Anhui and Jiangxi, a post described as the most important in the southeast and second only to the governor-generalship of Zhili, the first of the eight. The book says that at 50, besieged at Qimen with little hope of escape, he hung a sword in his tent, ready to kill himself at any moment. The Sanxiang Fengji piece says that after his appointment as governor-general in 1860 he was stationed at Qimen, directing the military affairs of four provinces, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and Jiangxi; two county magistrates sent him three precious works of calligraphy and painting, which he returned, an episode known as the “three treasures of Qimen.”⁠[7][3]

Britannica’s article on Li Hongzhang says that when Zeng, as governor-general of Liangjiang in 1860, was organising irregular forces against the Taipings, Li later joined his staff. The Encyclopedia of World Biography says that in 1860–1861 he created three military areas to answer calls for help and protect his main effort: Li Hongzhang in Jiangsu, Zuo Zongtang in Zhejiang, and he himself in Anhui.⁠[9][2]

Britannica’s history of China says that in October 1861 the Hunan Army captured Anqing, the capital of Anhui, after which the Taiping cause was doomed; its article on Zeng says that his armies took the rebels’ supply areas along the upper Yangtze.⁠[11][1]

The Palace Museum’s entry says that he set up the Inner Arsenal at Anqing to make modern firearms; the Sanxiang Fengji piece also lists the founding of the Anqing arsenal among the steps by which he promoted the Westernisation (Self-Strengthening) movement.⁠[4][3]

The article by Huang Shouyu republished by New Hunan says that Tang Jian died on the eighteenth day of the first lunar month of 1861 (the eleventh year of the Xianfeng reign), aged 84; Zeng Guofan drafted his valedictory memorial, and when Tang was buried at Ningxiang on the twenty-fifth day of the third month of that year, Zeng wrote his epitaph.⁠[8]

The Encyclopedia of World Biography says that Li Hongzhang recruited a new army by Zeng’s methods of personal loyalty; this force, the Huai Army, was stationed at Shanghai in 1862 and over about two years cleared most of Jiangsu of Taipings, as Zuo Zongtang did in Zhejiang, while Zeng’s own army, under his younger brother Zeng Guoquan, besieged Nanjing. The Palace Museum’s entry says that he advocated borrowing foreign troops to help suppress the rebels and sent Li Hongzhang with an army to Shanghai. Britannica’s article on the Taiping Rebellion says that by 1862 he had managed to surround Nanjing.⁠[2][4][13]

The article by Shinian Kanchai reprinted by Wenzhai Bao says that his brother Zeng Guobao (also called Zhengan) died of illness in 1862 (the first year of the Tongzhi reign) in the camp besieging the Taiping capital.⁠[12]

In his memoir My Life in China and America, published in 1909, Yung WingYung WingYung Wing (1828–1912) was a Chinese educator and diplomat of the late Qing period who graduated from Yale University in 1854 and is described as the first Chinese student to graduate from an American university. He proposed and led the Chinese Educational Mission, which brought 120 Chinese boys to study in the United States from 1872 to 1881, served as the Qing associate minister to the United States, Spain and Peru, and wrote the memoir My Life in China and America (1909).Open the full entry wrote that in 1863 he received letters from Anqing from Zeng Guofan’s secretary Chang Shi Kwei and from the mathematician and astronomer Li Sien Lan inviting him there, and that a third letter in July stated that Zeng wanted him to give up trade and enter the state service. He reached Anqing in September 1863. He recalled that at their first meeting Zeng asked how long he had been abroad, whether he would like to command troops, his age and whether he was married; at the second meeting Zeng asked what was best to do for China now, and Yung proposed a “mother” machine shop that could make other machinery; Zeng said that the subject was “quite beyond my knowledge” and referred it to his advisers.⁠[14]

Yung Wing wrote that Zeng then authorised him to go abroad and buy the machinery, the plant to stand at Kow Chang Meu, about four miles northwest of Shanghai, which later became the Jiangnan Arsenal (Yung’s “Kiang Nan Arsenal”); he was given the fifth official rank, and the purchase money of 68,000 taels was paid half by the Shanghai taotai and half by the Guangdong treasurer; in October 1863 he met the engineer John Haskins in Shanghai, travelled by way of Hong Kong, the Isthmus of Suez and London, reached New York in the early spring of 1864, and had the Putnam Machine Co. of Fitchburg, MassachusettsMassachusettsMassachusetts (officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts) is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States; its capital and largest city is Boston. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on February 6, 1788, the sixth state to do so. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 7,029,917.Open the full entry, fill the order. Britannica also says that with Zeng’s support Rong Hong (Yung Wing), a graduate of Yale UniversityYale UniversityYale University is a research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Its predecessor, the Collegiate School, received a charter in 1701. Trustees chose New Haven in 1716; the institution became Yale College in 1718 and Yale University in 1887. Yale provides undergraduate, graduate and professional education and has 14 undergraduate residential colleges. As of October 2026, its president was Maurie McInnis, who took office in July 2024. In 2026, Yale expanded aid for incoming undergraduates and celebrated its 325th anniversary.Open the full entry, established an ironworks in Shanghai that later became the Jiangnan Arsenal.⁠[14][1]

The Encyclopedia of World Biography says that Nanjing, the Taiping capital, fell on July 19, 1864; Britannica says that his armies captured Nanjing in 1864, the climax of his career; the Palace Museum’s entry says that in 1864 (the third year of the Tongzhi reign) his younger brother Zeng Guoquan took the city. Britannica’s article on Li Hongzhang says that the immediate commander of the campaign against Nanjing was Zeng’s brother, and that Li disregarded orders to assist in the final assault because he felt that jealousies might arise. Britannica’s article on the Taiping Rebellion says that Zeng was amazed when, after the capture, almost 100,000 Taiping followers preferred death to capture.⁠[2][1][4][9][13]

An article by Hu Yuan in the China Reading Weekly in 2011 says that he received Zeng Guoquan’s report of the capture of the Taiping capital on July 21, 1864, and judges that beyond joy he felt above all an inner fear; six days later an edict of the Empress Dowager Cixi praised him and gave him the title of Grand Guardian of the Heir Apparent, the rank of marquis of the first class and the double-eyed peacock feather. The Sanxiang Fengji piece says that he was made First-Class Marquis Yiyong, the first man of letters in the Qing dynasty to receive a military marquisate.⁠[15][3]

Hu Yuan’s article says that Zeng made some promises to the captured Taiping general Li Xiucheng; that Zeng Guoquan’s report did not match Li’s confession, putting the garrison at 100,000 when there were only some 10,000 defenders, saying that the young Heavenly King had burned himself to death when Li said that he had escaped from Nanjing, and saying nothing of the treasury that Li described as holding countless gold and silver; and that Zeng nevertheless forwarded his brother’s report to the court, had Li Xiucheng secretly executed and removed everything unfavourable to himself from the confession. The article adds that Zuo Zongtang sent a secret memorial saying that Hong Tianguifu had escaped and been received into the prefectural city of Huzhou; Zeng argued that he was probably dead, Zuo accused him of deceiving the throne, and their friendship of more than ten years came to an end; the court then rebuked Zeng for letting the young king escape and pressed him to report the true contents of the Taiping treasury.⁠[15]

Hu Yuan’s article says that, faced with the court’s suspicion, he asked to reduce his troops; the Ji battalions of the Xiang Army numbered 25,000 men on August 21, 1864, and only 2,000 by March 1865; nine days after his memorial he stopped the Guangdong likin revenue, which since 1862 had supplied 1.2 million taels of silver to the troops besieging Nanjing alone; and he asked that Zeng Guoquan be relieved of office and sent home, which the Empress Dowager also approved quickly. The Encyclopedia of World Biography says that he disbanded the Xiang Army at the end of the rebellion because his troops were war-weary and because power based on the army could be seen as a threat to the dynasty; Britannica’s history of China says that the Hunan Army was gradually disbanded after Nanjing was retaken, while the Huai Army became a strong basis for Li Hongzhang’s political manoeuvres.⁠[15][2][11]

The Encyclopedia of World Biography says that as governor-general his main task was to restore peace to the war-ravaged region and to promote the revival of learning in South China; he established five official printing offices to reprint the classics and histories and restored the official examinations at Nanjing. Britannica says that in 1864–1865 he set up official printing offices in Nanjing and four other cities to reprint the Chinese classics and historical works, and restored the examination system at Nanjing, which had lapsed during the Taiping years.⁠[2][1]

The Sanxiang Fengji piece and the Xiaoxiang Morning Herald report both say that in 1864, when his 16-year-old son Zeng Jihong went to Changsha for the provincial examination, he wrote to him (in translation) not to have dealings with the prefectural and county officials before the examination and on no account to pass notes to anyone; the Sanxiang Fengji piece says that Zeng Jihong failed that examination and never used his father’s name to pull strings.⁠[3][5]

The Encyclopedia of World Biography says that in 1865 he and Li Hongzhang founded an arsenal at Shanghai; the Sanxiang Fengji piece calls the Jiangnan General Arsenal China’s first modern factory. Yung Wing wrote that when he returned to Shanghai the machinery had arrived a month earlier, and that he went to report in person at Chu Chow, Zeng’s headquarters for the campaign against the Nian, travelling three days by Grand Canal boat and mule cart and staying three days.⁠[2][3][14]

Yung Wing wrote that Zeng “complimented me highly for what I had done” and made his commission the subject of a special memorial, which said that “Yung Wing is a foreign educated Chinese” who “was utterly oblivious to difficulties and dangers that lay in his way”; Zeng recommended him for the expectancy of a subprefecture in Jiangsu, and in October 1865 he became a full mandarin of the fifth rank.⁠[14]

Britannica says that between May 1865 and October 1866 he again took military command to quell the Nian Rebellion in northern China, and after a year of indecisive fighting resigned and recommended his protégé Li Hongzhang as his successor; the Encyclopedia of World Biography says that he was ordered in June 1865 to command the fight against the Nian and relied on Li Hongzhang’s Huai Army, admitting that this contradicted his own teaching on personal recruitment and justifying it because Li was his longtime pupil and friend; after a year of unsuccessful campaigning he recommended Li as his successor and returned to his post as governor-general, and Li ended the Nian Rebellion in 1868.⁠[1][2]

Britannica’s history of China says that he replaced General Senggelinqin in command and pursued a policy of detaching the masters of the earth-walled communities from their men and employing the men as his own troops; Li Hongzhang, who succeeded him in 1866, used lines of encirclement along the Huang He and the Grand Canal and destroyed the revolt in 1868. Hu Yuan’s article says that after Senggelinqin was surrounded and killed by the Nian, Zeng left Jiangning (Nanjing) for the north on June 18, 1865; the Huai Army was the strongest of the forces fighting the Nian; the court recalled Zeng Guoquan as governor of Hubei and had him raise 15,000 Hunan troops; on July 25 of that year (1866) Zeng agreed with Liu Mingchuan on a plan to defend the river lines; on September 24 the Nian suddenly attacked the river defences in Henan; and he later asked to remain with the army without office, a chance that Beijing in the end did not give him.⁠[11][15]

The excerpt of Ju Hai’s book in The Beijing News says that at 56, campaigning in the north against the Nian, he was caught in a storm on the river and nearly drowned.⁠[7]

Hu Yuan’s article says that on his return as governor-general he reorganised the leadership of Liangjiang at every level, appointing trusted men of the Xiang group whom he judged able to get things done and not greedy for money; at one interview a candidate said that the problem of subordinates deceiving their superiors was a false question, Zeng put him in charge of building ships and cannon, and a few days later the man absconded with the funds, leaving Zeng sitting alone and muttering words that mean “Men cannot bear to deceive me? Men cannot bear to deceive me!” The article says that his adviser Zhao Liewen proposed making an example of the corrupt Ding Richang, but Ding was close to Zeng’s favourite pupil Li Hongzhang and kept Li’s army well supplied, so Zeng found himself unable to act; it adds that, although not greedy himself, he accepted “tribute” from subordinates and pooled it for official entertainment and for tribute to his own superiors, never putting any of it in his own pocket.⁠[15]

Yung Wing wrote that in 1867, after ending the Nian rebellion with Li Hongzhang’s co-operation (in Yung’s account), Zeng toured Shanghai and went through the arsenal “with undisguised interest,” seeing machinery and how it worked for the first time; Yung persuaded him to add a mechanical school to the arsenal so that Chinese youths could learn theory and practice and China could dispense with foreign engineers. The Encyclopedia of World Biography says that in 1868 the arsenal sponsored the building of the first Chinese steamship. Britannica says that he later helped to found the Fuzhou Shipyard and that on his recommendation the government introduced education for students overseas.⁠[14][2][1]

The Palace Museum’s entry says that in 1868 (the seventh year of the Tongzhi reign) he was transferred to the governor-generalship of Zhili; the Encyclopedia of World Biography also says that he was governor-general of Zhili from 1868. The excerpt of Ju Hai’s book in The Beijing News says that he was transferred at 58 to the Zhili post, known as the first of the eight governor-generalships and leader of the provincial officials, at a time when Tianjin had become the main treaty port north of the Yangtze; the book says that many scholars think the transfer reflected the court’s worry that he was growing too strong in the south. Britannica says that he served twice as governor-general of Jiangnan and Jiangxi and once as governor of Zhili, and never had an opportunity to work at the capital again after 1864.⁠[4][2][7][1]

Britannica says that on June 21, 1870, an outburst of anti-foreign violence took place in Tianjin: rumours had spread that French Sisters of Charity were kidnapping and mutilating Chinese children; that day the French consul, Henri Fontanier, fired into a crowd of local leaders, missing the district magistrate but killing his servant, and a mob then killed and mutilated the consul and about 20 others, most of them French. Paris and Rome demanded harsh punishment, European warships were sent to Tianjin and Chinese troops were put on alert; war was avoided after 16 Chinese were executed under pressure from the Western powers and a mission was sent to deliver China’s apologies to France. Britannica judges that the incident nearly led to international war and marked the end of the “cooperative policy” between China and the treaty powers.⁠[16]

The Encyclopedia of World Biography says that he was called on to investigate the case and, aware of China’s military weakness, pressed for a policy of justice and conciliation, which incurred the wrath of the masses and the war party; the case was nearly settled when, old and ill, he was transferred back to Nanjing, and Li Hongzhang, who had been ordered to bring his army to Tianjin in support, succeeded him in Zhili. Britannica’s history of China says that in the negotiations Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang succeeded in refusing the French demand that three Chinese officials be executed, though several others were put to death; afterwards Zeng was denounced for his “infirm” stand, and Prince Gong’s political influence began to wane. The Palace Museum’s entry says that in handling the Tianjin case he fawned on foreigners and harmed his own people, and was condemned by public opinion.⁠[2][11][4]

Hu Yuan’s article says that on July 2, 1870, at his office in Baoding he wrote his second will, in which he described foreigners as fierce by nature and said that he had no good plan; the article says that he was then entering his sixtieth year, his liver disease was growing worse and he had lost the sight of his right eye entirely. France, Britain, the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry and others protested and moved troops in threat; after reaching Tianjin he issued a proclamation to the people of Tianjin, released suspects and defended the foreigners’ conduct in China in a memorial; he insisted on finding 20 men to pay with their lives for Fontanier and the 20 foreigners killed, of whom, the article says, only seven or eight confessed. In his memorial he wrote (in translation) that with China’s present strength it was out of the question to start a war, and that the only course was to bend in order to preserve the whole. The article adds that Robert Hart, Inspector General of the Chinese Maritime Customs, judged him indecisive, overrated and of no more than mediocre ability.⁠[15]

The excerpt of Ju Hai’s book in The Beijing News says that at 60, drawn into the negotiations over the Tianjin case and feeling old, weak and near his end, he wrote a will. In his memoir Yung Wing wrote that the case was handled by four imperial commissioners, Zeng, Mow Chung Hsi, an official named Liu and Ting Yih Chang, governor of Jiangsu, and that he was summoned by telegram by Ting Yih Chang to act as interpreter but reached Tianjin only in time to witness the last proceedings; he also wrote that Chung Hou, whom he calls viceroy of the metropolitan province, was degraded and banished over the affair, which was settled by an indemnity, the rebuilding of the Catholic and Protestant churches, a new Catholic hospital and an official apology.⁠[7][14]

The Palace Museum’s entry says that after the Tianjin affair he returned to Liangjiang. Yung Wing wrote that Ting Yih Chang informed him that Zeng and the other commissioners had unanimously decided to sign a joint memorial to the government asking for the adoption of his four proposals, with Zeng’s name heading the list, and that it went to Beijing by pony express; in the winter of 1870, back at Nanjing, Zeng received the imperial rescript sanctioning the memorial and invited Yung to Nanjing, where they settled the main points: a preparatory school, the number of students, the funding and the length of study.⁠[4][14]

The Encyclopedia of World Biography says that in August 1871 he and Li Hongzhang jointly established a programme to send Chinese boys to study in the United States. Yung Wing wrote that the plan was to send 120 students in four annual groups of 30, aged 12 to 15, of respectable parentage or with respectable guardians, after a medical examination and an examination in Chinese, their parents signing a waiver for a term of 15 years; in the summer of 1871 the preparatory school opened in Shanghai, with Liu Kai Sing as superintendent.⁠[2][14]

The excerpt of Ju Hai’s book in The Beijing News says that on the night of the seventeenth day of the first lunar month of 1871 (the tenth year of the Tongzhi reign) he composed a couplet whose second line spoke (in translation) of seeking life in the midst of death and finding joy at the extreme of plainness, only one year and seventeen days before his death.⁠[7]

Britannica’s history of China says that three years after the Meiji Restoration of 1868 a commercial treaty was signed between China and Japan and ratified in 1873, and that it was reciprocal; the establishment of these new Sino-Japanese relations was supported by Li Hongzhang and Zeng Guofan, who advocated positive diplomacy toward Japan.⁠[11]

Hu Yuan’s article says that on February 27, 1872, he urged the throne to put the study-abroad plan into effect quickly, proposing an office for Chinese students in the United States and a bureau in Shanghai for the boys going abroad; the article regards the sending of students as his last official act. Britannica and the Encyclopedia of World Biography both give his death as March 12, 1872, in Nanjing; the latter says that he died shortly before the first students sailed.⁠[15][1][2]

Shinian Kanchai’s article says that he died on the fourth day of the second lunar month of the eleventh year of the Tongzhi reign in the study of his yamen in Nanjing; the Gregorian date printed in the article is March 20, 1872. The article says that that morning he bowed before his father’s spirit tablet and had his son Zeng Jize help him on a walk, warning him on the way that waging war was a sinful business and hoping that no later Zeng would lead troops in war; then his feet went numb, he was helped back to his study, and he died after sitting upright for about three quarters of an hour. The Changsha Evening News group’s app says that he was taken ill and died on the afternoon of the fourth day of the second month of 1872 (the eleventh year of the Tongzhi reign) while walking in the western garden of the governor-general’s office in Nanjing; Hu Yuan’s article says that on the afternoon of March 12, 1872, his feet suddenly went numb, Zeng Jize helped him into his study, and he died after sitting upright for about three quarters of an hour.⁠[12][17][15]

In his 1909 memoir Yung Wing gives Zeng’s death as occurring at Nanjing in the winter of 1871, at the age of seventy-one, writes that had he lived a year longer he would have seen the first group of thirty students leave for the United States, and says that before his death Zeng wished his successor and protégé, Li Hongzhang, to carry on the mission.⁠[14]

Britannica says that he received the posthumous title Wenzheng, the highest given to civil officials of the Qing dynasty. The Sanxiang Fengji piece says that his offices culminated in the governor-generalships of Liangjiang and Zhili and the post of Grand Secretary of the Wuying Hall.⁠[1][3]

Shinian Kanchai’s article says that his will called for a simple funeral and forbade his descendants to accept condolence money, allowing only offerings; under Qing rules the court granted 3,000 taels of silver on the death of an official of governor-general rank, while the funeral of a man of his standing cost at least ten or twenty thousand taels. Zeng Guohuang went to Nanjing to help his nephews Zeng Jize and Zeng Jihong with the funeral, while Zeng Guoquan stayed in Hunan to receive the coffin and choose a burial site and took the main decisions; in letters to his nephews Zeng Guoquan held that money from people who were not the closest friends should be firmly declined, but that condolence money from Li Hongzhang, Li Hanzhang and Huang Yisheng, the commander of the Yangtze naval force, all of whom owed their careers to Zeng Guofan, might be accepted at discretion. The article says that Zeng Jize and Zeng Jihong nevertheless followed the will and took nothing, that the funeral nearly exhausted the family’s savings, and that a few years later Zeng Jihong had to borrow money for medical treatment; Zuo Zongtang, who had often differed with Zeng Guofan in life, wrote in a letter that, having seen Zeng Jihong’s distress during the previous year in Beijing, he had raised money for his medicine and for the costs of laying out, coffin and returning the remains to the home district.⁠[12]

An article by Chen Xianshu and Liang Xiaojin published by New Hunan in 2019 says that on the twenty-fourth day of the fourth lunar month of 1872 (the eleventh year of the Tongzhi reign) Zeng Jize and his brother, following their father’s wish that he be returned to Hunan, escorted the coffin by water from Nanjing; the boat reached Shuilu Island at Changsha on the seventeenth day of the fifth month, and on the twentieth the coffin was placed in the Zengzi temple in the city; because of the heat Zeng Guoquan decided on a shallow temporary burial at Jinpenling outside the south gate of Changsha, and the funeral procession took place on the fourteenth day of the sixth month. The Changsha Evening News group’s app says that Jinpenling lies in today’s Nanjiao Park and that the family was not satisfied with the hurriedly chosen site.⁠[18][17]

The article by Chen Xianshu and Liang Xiaojin says that on the ninth day of the second lunar month of 1873 Zeng Jize and Zeng Guoquan inspected a site at Wulongchong in Xiyang, Xiangxiang, and the next day one at Wengongshan, and were satisfied with neither; on the thirteenth day of the sixth month of that year Zeng Jize and Liu Bogu chose a site at Zizhulin on Mount Tongliang, which Zeng Guoquan opposed; on the first day of the second month of 1874 Guo Songtao travelled from Changsha to Xiangxiang to survey sites and criticised the geomancy of Zizhulin, and on the twenty-fifth Zeng Jize had a pit dug there, found the soil and rock loose and gave it up. Guo Songtao then surveyed Pingtang, Zeng Guohuang and Zeng Guoquan went there with Zeng Jize and his brother, and all agreed on Mount Fulong behind the Tongxi Temple; the article says that Zeng Jize professed not to believe in geomancy and that the main concern was whether the ground was dry enough to hold the remains.⁠[18]

The article says that on the sixth day of the tenth lunar month of 1874 (the thirteenth year of the Tongzhi reign) Shen Qingquan fixed the orientation of the grave behind the Tongxi Temple on Mount Fulong, and the next day Zeng Guofan’s coffin was moved onto a boat; on the third day of the eleventh month the coffin of his wife, Lady Ouyang, was carried out and placed beside his; on the fourth the two coffins were carried up the mountain, with the abbot of the Wenzheng shrine and the abbot of the Fulong temple leading monks in offerings and chanting; and early on the fifth day the burial was completed. The Changsha Evening News group’s app says that the tomb lies behind the Tongxi Temple on Mount Fulong in what is now Pingtang Subdistrict, Yuelu District, Changsha, 15 km southwest of the city, covering 300 square metres, with a semicircular mound cast from lime-earth mixed with gravel and glutinous rice mortar and faced with granite; it says that Lady Ouyang died in the year in which the new tomb was built and that Zeng Jize buried his parents together there.⁠[18][17]

His wife was Lady Ouyang. A 2015 report by Voice of Hunan says that he and Lady Ouyang had two sons and five daughters; the Sanxiang Fengji piece says that he had three sons and six daughters, that the eldest son and the fifth daughter died young, that his second son Zeng Jize and youngest son Zeng Jihong grew up, and that his youngest daughter was Zeng Jifen. The Voice of Hunan report adds that when the youngest daughter married, Lady Ouyang lost a gold ear spoon, the only valuable item in her dowry, and regretted it for days, unable to eat or sleep.⁠[10][3]

Shinian Kanchai’s article reprinted by Wenzhai Bao names his younger brothers, in order, as Zeng Guohuang (fourth in the clan’s order of birth), Zeng Guohua (sixth, adopted by an uncle), Zeng Guoquan (ninth, hence known as the “Ninth Marshal”) and Zeng Guobao (also called Zhengan); the Sanxiang Fengji piece says that in his letters he often addressed Brother Cheng, Brother Wen, Brother Yuan and Brother Ji. The Voice of Hunan report says that, in Tang Haoming’s account, when his ninth brother, living in Zeng’s household, sulked and refused to eat at the same table as his sister-in-law and nephews, Zeng carried his own meals to his brother’s room and ate with him for several months, until the brother apologised to them both.⁠[12][3][10]

His son Zeng Jize was a diplomat. Britannica says that he served as minister to Britain and France and in February 1881 concluded a treaty at Saint Petersburg that was more favourable than the treaty of 1879 but still conceded the Russians many privileges in East Turkistan; the Wenzhai Bao article and the Voice of Hunan report both say that he recovered Ili in negotiations with Russia. The Sanxiang Fengji piece says that Zeng Guofan engaged two men of the Jiangnan Arsenal, known in Chinese as Shi Diwensen and Fu Lanya, to teach his two sons English, that the name board of Fuhoutang was written by Zeng Guofan, and that the couplet beside it, on keeping the family’s pure fragrance and renewing its virtue daily, was written by Zeng Jize.⁠[19][11][12][10][3]

His youngest son, Zeng Jihong, was skilled in mathematics. The Voice of Hunan report and the Sanxiang Fengji piece both call him a mathematician, the former saying that he calculated pi to 100 decimal places; a 2014 article in the Guangming Daily calls him Zeng Guofan’s second son and says that he failed the examinations repeatedly and died young, at only 33. The Sanxiang Fengji piece says that his wife, Guo Yun, became mistress of Fuhoutang after the deaths of her father-in-law Zeng Guofan, her mother-in-law Lady Ouyang, her husband Zeng Jihong and her brother-in-law Zeng Jize, and drew up a set of daily rules for the Fuhoutang household requiring every descendant, male or female, to learn a trade and to keep an account book; the Guangming Daily article calls Zeng Baosun’s grandmother, Madame Guo, the Old Lady of Yifang.⁠[10][3][20]

His granddaughter Zeng Guangshan was a poet of the Qing period. His grandson Zeng Guangjun passed the jinshi examination in 1889 (the fifteenth year of the Guangxu reign); the Sanxiang Fengji piece says that he was the family’s second jinshi and entered the Hanlin Academy at 23.⁠[10][3][20]

His great-granddaughter Zeng Baosun, a granddaughter of Zeng Jihong and daughter of Zeng Guangjun, was born in Beijing in 1893. The 2014 Guangming Daily article says that she left Shanghai for England in mid-March 1912 and in 1916 graduated with honours as a Bachelor of Science of the University of London, which the article calls the first science degree earned by a Chinese woman; in 1918 she founded the Yifang Girls’ School in Changsha and served as its principal for 32 years; she never married, went to Hong Kong in 1949 and to Taiwan in 1951, and died in Taiwan in 1978. A 2018 article of the Hunan Provincial Archives Bureau says that the Yifang school was founded in 1918 by Zeng Guofan’s great-grandchildren Zeng Baosun and her younger brother Zeng Yuenong, that Zeng Baosun named it after the studio name of her grandmother, and that it stood in the Hao Garden behind the Zeng Wenzheng shrine; in 1996 a new campus opened and the school was renamed Changsha Tin Ka Ping Experimental Middle School. The Guangming Daily article calls Zeng Yuenong her cousin in one passage and her brother in another.⁠[20][21]

The Sanxiang Fengji piece says that before the abolition of the imperial examinations the family produced more than twenty holders of the xiucai, juren and jinshi degrees and Hanlin academicians, and that more than 200 of Zeng’s descendants achieved distinction; the Xiaoxiang Morning Herald report says that eight generations of his descendants produced 240 outstanding people. The Xiaoxiang Morning Herald report also says that Zeng Chuangang, husband of Tang Qunying, was a younger cousin of Zeng Guofan on his father’s side; that Wang Tingjun, husband of Qiu Jin, was the son of one of his cousins; that Ge Xinfan, an uncle of Ge Jianhao, was a son-in-law of Zeng Guohuang; and that a younger brother of Cai Hesen’s maternal grandfather was married to one of Zeng Guofan’s nieces.⁠[3][5]

An article by Liu Huan-yen in Business Today, republished by United Daily News online on November 12, 2025, says that Brandon TsengBrandon TsengBrandon Tseng is an American entrepreneur and former Navy SEAL who co-founded the defense technology company Shield AI with his brother Ryan Tseng and others in 2015 and serves as its president.Open the full entry, president and co-founder of Shield AI, is a direct descendant of Zeng Guofan, by blood in the fifth generation; in it he said that his grandfather had to address Zeng Guofan as great-grandfather. The article quotes him as saying that his father was born in Taipei and that his grandfather fought the Japanese in the Chinese army in the Second World War, later joined Chiang Kai-shek’s government, came to Taiwan and served as a diplomat of the Republic of China in South America for about 25 years, in Chile, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Venezuela and El Salvador, and after retiring in South America moved to TexasTexasTexas is a U.S. state in the south-central United States, with its capital at Austin and its largest city Houston. It was admitted to the Union on December 29, 1845, as the 28th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 29,145,505 residents.Open the full entry in the United States to live with Tseng’s aunt; it also says that he co-founded Shield AI in 2015 with his elder brother Ryan TsengRyan TsengRyan Tseng is an American entrepreneur who co-founded the defense technology company Shield AI with his brother Brandon Tseng and others in 2015 and led it as chief executive for many years; he is now its president and chief strategy officer. He earlier founded WiPower, a wireless charging company acquired by Qualcomm.Open the full entry and the engineer Andrew Reiter. An interview by Kuo Tsai-hua in Business Next on April 10, 2026, describes him as a descendant of the Qing general Zeng Guofan.⁠[22][23]

The Sanxiang Fengji piece says that he laid down for his family eight foundations: in reading the ancient books, philology; in writing poetry and prose, tone; in serving parents, pleasing them; in caring for health, little anger; in conduct, no false words; at home, not rising late; in office, not taking money; in war, not disturbing the people. He also taught three sources of good fortune: filial piety, diligence and forbearance. Wang Zijin’s article on Guangming Online says that Mao Zedong copied Zeng’s eight foundations into his student notebook of lecture notes.⁠[3][24]

The Voice of Hunan report says that he left nearly 1,500 letters to his family, written over more than 30 years from the twentieth year of the Daoguang reign to the tenth of the Tongzhi reign; Tang Haoming, in the report, sums up his family teaching in three points, the first being (in translation) that while most people hope their sons will become high officials, he did not want that, only that they be gentlemen who read and understand reason, and says that he required his daughters and daughters-in-law to make a pair of shoes each month and to cook. The Sanxiang Fengji piece says that the Family Letters of Zeng Wenzheng were compiled in 1879 (the fifth year of the Guangxu reign) and edited and printed by Li Hanzhang and Li Hongzhang; that while in office his clothes were mostly sewn by his family, and a blue satin jacket made for his 30th birthday was worn only on festivals and still looked new when he lay dying; and that the Mao Zedong memorabilia museum at Shaoshan holds four volumes of the Family Letters that Mao read, each signed on the cover with his name Yongzhi as part of his collection.⁠[10][3]

The Sanxiang Fengji piece says that in scholarship he held that moral philosophy, evidential research and literary composition should be given equal weight. Wang Zijin’s article says that he compiled the anthology Jingshi baijia zachao (Miscellany of Classics, Histories and Philosophers) and wrote an essay on portraits of sages and worthies listing 32 figures from King Wen, the Duke of Zhou, Confucius and Mencius to Gu Yanwu, Qin Huitian, Yao Nai and Wang Niansun.⁠[3][24]

The couplet on the door of Baiyutang, his birthplace, speaks of making diligence and thrift the foundation of the home and ranking farming with filial and fraternal duty. The Xiaoxiang Morning Herald says that Fuhoutang, in Futuo Village, Heye Town, Shuangfeng County, is a mansion covering more than 60 mu with 108 rooms, begun in 1865 and built for Zeng Guofan by his brother Zeng Guohuang, and known locally as the “chancellor’s mansion”; Zeng wrote that the buildings should not be ornate and that many bamboos and cypresses should be planted and plenty of vegetable garden kept. The Sanxiang Fengji piece says that two of his brothers built it together, on more than 40,000 square metres of land with about 10,000 square metres of buildings, at a cost of 7,000 strings of cash, which so dismayed Zeng that he felt he could not face people, although the piece notes that the sum was less than a quarter of his integrity allowance for one year; the main hall is called the Hall of the Eight Foundations, and there are three libraries, the Gongji, Puji and Fangji, and the Siyunguan. The Xiaoxiang Morning Herald says that at their peak the four libraries of the house held 300,000 volumes, making them the largest surviving group of private libraries in China.⁠[5][3]

The Changsha Evening News group’s app says that in the Republican era the Zeng family bought 20 mu of good farmland and engaged a family named Zhou to guard the tomb, until the first years after 1949; in the 1950s most of the movable materials of the tomb and the Tongxi Temple were removed as “Four Olds,” during the Cultural Revolution the stone horses, lions and other statues were smashed or toppled, and Red Guards tried but failed to open the grave; in 1989 robbers blasted their way into the tomb with explosives and fled when villagers, police and heritage staff arrived, after which the breach was sealed with steel and cement, and in 1992 a dedicated heritage protection body was set up. The tomb became a protected site of Wangcheng County and Changsha city in 1993, of Hunan province in 1996 and of the nation in 2013; protection and building work has continued without a break since 1998, and the spirit-way stele, composed by Li Hongzhang and written by Huang Ziyuan, which descendants of the Zhou family had hidden under their house, broken in two, has come to light again. The article by Chen Xianshu and Liang Xiaojin also says that the tomb became a Hunan provincial protected site in 1996 and a national one in 2013.⁠[17][18]

Britannica says that his historical role has been controversial since the 1920s: conservatives, including leaders of the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang), praised him as a symbol of Confucianism and a model of moral cultivation, while revolutionaries, including several founders of the Nationalist Party and most communist leaders, strongly criticised him for nationalist reasons; Britannica judges that he was essentially a Confucian who was not dogmatically conservative in policy, and says that since the 1990s he has received greater praise in mainland China. The Encyclopedia of World Biography calls him a model Confucian official and judges that his upright character made him a rallying point for the officials, scholars and soldiers who supported the dynasty.⁠[1][2]

Wang Zijin’s article on Guangming Online says that in a letter of June 25, 1915, Mao Zedong quoted one of Zeng’s family letters and called its words golden; in a letter of September 6, 1915, to Xiao Zisheng he praised Zeng’s anthology of classics, histories and philosophers; and in a letter of August 23, 1917, to Li Jinxi he wrote (in translation) that among modern men he admired Zeng Wenzheng alone, judging that Zeng’s suppression of the Taiping rising had been complete and flawless. The article adds that Yang Changji encouraged the young Mao with the examples of Zeng Guofan and Liang QichaoLiang QichaoLiang Qichao (1873–1929) was a thinker, politician, journalist and scholar of the late Qing and early Republic, a disciple of Kang Youwei and a participant in the Hundred Days’ Reform of 1898. After the reform failed he spent 14 years in exile in Japan, where he ran the journals Qingyi Bao and Xinmin Congbao; returning in 1912, he helped to found the Progressive Party, served the Beijing government as minister of justice and minister of finance, and in 1915–1916 opposed Yuan Shikai’s attempt to make himself emperor. After leaving politics at the end of 1917 he devoted himself to writing and teaching, was a tutor at the Tsinghua Academy of Chinese Learning and director of the Beijing Library, and left the collected works known as the Yinbingshi heji.Open the full entry, that Cai Hesen held that Hu Linyi fell short of Zeng because he did not teach, and that Xie Juezai copied three couplets recorded in Zeng’s diary into his own diary in February 1922.⁠[24]

The Voice of Hunan report says that Chiang Kai-shek kept a set of the Complete Works of Zeng Wenzheng on his desk for years and revised an annotated edition of the military sayings of Zeng and Hu Linyi; that Liang Qichao wrote (in translation) that Zeng was a great man such as had been seen only once or twice since the beginning of history, not merely in modern times; and that Tang Haoming, president of the Hunan Writers’ Association, who has studied Zeng for more than 30 years, calls him the last representative of traditional Chinese culture. In his memoir Yung Wing called him “China’s great benefactor” and wrote that as a statesman, a patriot and a man he “towered above his contemporaries.” The article by Shinian Kanchai reprinted by Wenzhai Bao says that his integrity allowance came to nearly 20,000 taels a year, most of which he gave to others, and that contemporaries called him the most incorruptible governor-general in more than two centuries of the Qing; Britannica’s article on Li Hongzhang also notes the reputation for financial disinterest that Zeng enjoyed.⁠[10][14][12][9]

Hu Yuan in the China Reading Weekly writes that in his last eight years Zeng was inwardly torn for eight years, and concludes that he never abandoned his sincere struggle for the state yet in the end was denied the name of patriot.⁠[15]