Chapter 06: Reassessing Zeng Guofan — The Foremost Confucian General, Master of Civil and Military Arts

Zeng Guofan (1811–1872) was the most revered scholar-official of nineteenth-century China, yet he has been denounced by the Chinese Communist Party as a traitor and executioner. Liang Qichao, by contrast, praised him as a man who achieved the three immortal accomplishments of virtue, merit, and thought. Zeng Guofan was born in 1811 in Xiangxiang County, Hunan. At age 22 he passed the xiucai examination, at 23 became a juren, and at 27 passed the jinshi examination, ranking second nationwide by personal selection of the Daoguang Emperor. He served successively as Grand Secretary, Vice Minister of Rites, and Right Vice Minister of War.

1. Ten years of army building, crushing the ferocious and brutal Hong Xiuquan

By 1852, Hong Xiuquan’s Taiping forces had already entered Hunan. In 1853, under orders to assist in organizing local militias, Zeng Guofan returned to his hometown to raise local defense forces. Relying on fellow villagers, he formed a regional militia, integrated armed groups from various localities, and established the Xiang Army. He trained troops in Hengzhou and dispatched personnel to Guangdong to purchase Western firearms and artillery, while also organizing a naval force. After reorganization, the Xiang Army captured Yuezhou and Wuchang. The Xianfeng Emperor was greatly pleased and appointed Zeng acting Governor of Hubei. Zeng then led his troops in campaigns across Jiangxi and Anhui.

In 1854, Zeng Guofan led 240 warships and a combined land–naval force of 17,000 troops in an advance on Yuezhou. The campaign went poorly, and in April he was defeated by the Taiping forces at the Jinggang naval battle. In July, Zeng regrouped and counterattacked, capturing Yuezhou. In December, he took Tianjiazhen, killing tens of thousands of enemy soldiers and burning five thousand vessels, then advanced toward Jiujiang.

In February 1855, the Taiping forces launched a general assault on the Xiang Army’s naval camps at Hukou, burning more than one hundred warships. The Xiang Army suffered a severe setback. In rage and despair, Zeng Guofan attempted to ride into the enemy ranks to die in battle but was restrained by his subordinates. In September, he led his forces to recapture Hukou.

In 1857, Zeng’s father died, and he left the army to observe mourning rites. In 1858, the Xiang Army captured Jiujiang. In 1860, Zeng defeated the Taiping forces at Lake Tai. In 1861, the Xiang Army captured Anqing. In 1862, the Xiang Army laid siege to Nanjing. Hong Xiuquan ordered Taiping forces from various regions to converge, assembling 200,000 troops to fight the Xiang Army for more than forty days, but Nanjing did not fall.

In 1864, the Xiang Army regrouped and again besieged Nanjing. In July, Tianjing fell, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was destroyed, and the Qing dynasty’s greatest internal calamity was eliminated. In August, Zeng Guofan immediately demobilized and disbanded most of the Xiang Army. In 1868, Zeng was appointed Governor-General of Zhili.

2. Moral integrity and talent combined, wisdom and courage united, loyalty and righteous spirit

Zeng Guofan spent ten years enduring extreme hardship to build the Xiang Army, experiencing countless brutal battles and repeatedly defeating the ferocious Taiping forces with inferior numbers. This success rested entirely on his solid military competence and loyal moral character. In organizing local militias, he placed the selection of commanders first, requiring them to possess both virtue and talent, wisdom and courage, loyalty and righteous spirit, fearlessness in the face of death, indifference to fame and profit, and endurance of hardship. He prioritized selecting Confucian scholars as officers. Among the 179 Xiang Army commanders, 104 were of literati background—an extraordinary phenomenon in Chinese military history.

Zeng Guofan adopted a recruitment system in which soldiers were recruited from rural communities and required guarantors; anyone without a guarantor was rejected, thereby excluding vagrants and criminals. He insisted that commanders be personally selected, soldiers personally recruited, with layered recruitment and hierarchical control from general to private. Above the battalion level, no additional officials were appointed, and all units ultimately answered to Zeng Guofan alone. His method of command balanced benevolence and authority: “In bestowing favor, nothing surpasses benevolence; in exercising authority, nothing surpasses propriety.” He governed the army through moral principle.

Zeng Guofan held that military strength lay not in numbers but in quality. Elite troops were forged first through benevolence, propriety, loyalty, and trust, which sustained morale. He believed that fewer soldiers meant a stronger state, whereas excessive troops increased military expenditures and impoverished the nation. At the same time, elite forces were equipped with Western rifles, artillery, and ships.

Zeng Guofan’s military principles influenced generations of Chinese commanders. The Huai Army took the Xiang Army as its model. Huang Xing and Cai E revered him highly. Zhang Zhidong and Yuan Shikai adopted his methods in training the New Army. Republican-era military theorist Jiang Fangzhen praised Zeng Guofan as a military genius. Chiang Kai-shek declared his intention to emulate Zeng Wenzheng. Zeng Guofan’s maxim “to love the people is the first principle of governing the army” was passed down for generations, and he treated soldiers as his own children.

3. Upholding justice regardless of personal danger: resolving the Tianjin Missionary Incident and defusing crisis

On June 20, 1870, Tianjin residents were misled by rumors claiming that a French church was killing Chinese orphans. A mob clashed with the French consul and stormed the church, tearing down the French flag. Ten nuns were seized, stripped naked, raped, had their eyes gouged out and breasts cut off, were robbed, brutally murdered, and their bodies desecrated. Churches, the Wanghailou Church, orphanages, the French consulate, four Protestant churches run by British and American missionaries, one Spanish Catholic church, and one Russian Orthodox church were all burned. The mob murdered clergy and foreign visitors, including two priests, two French consular staff, two French nationals, three Russian nationals, two Belgians, one Italian, one Irishman, and more than thirty Chinese believers. The violence lasted three hours.

On June 24, 1870, warships from France, Britain, the United States, Germany, Italy, and others assembled near Tianjin. Envoys from seven countries lodged strong protests with the Qing court and issued ultimatums demanding punishment of perpetrators and compensation.

Cixi urgently dispatched Zeng Guofan to handle the Tianjin crisis. Zeng knew the situation was grave and that anti-foreign conservative forces at court were backing the riot. He found himself caught between foreign ultimatums and domestic agitation calling for war. Though ill, he accepted the mission, fully aware that the outcome was unpredictable, and wrote his will before departure.

After arriving in Tianjin, Zeng personally investigated the crime scenes and conducted detailed inspections of church cellars. He determined that the rumors were entirely false and reported the truth to Cixi: the churches had not abducted people, defiled women, gouged eyes, harvested organs, or used children for medicine. The disaster resulted from ignorant masses misled by rumors, whose accumulated suspicion and anger erupted into catastrophe.

Facing French demands, Zeng arrested more than eighty people and reported to Cixi that seven or eight should be executed and more than twenty punished. Cixi deemed the penalties too light and ordered harsher measures. Zeng negotiated again with the French and decided that eighteen ringleaders would be executed (later reduced to sixteen by Li Hongzhang), four given suspended sentences, and twenty-five exiled. The Tianjin prefect and county magistrate were dismissed and sent into exile. Compensation of 500,000 taels of silver was paid, and Chonghou was sent to France to formally apologize.

Zeng Guofan upheld justice without regard for personal safety, resolving the Tianjin Missionary Incident and averting a foreign invasion decades before the Boxer War. Yet he was attacked by xenophobic conservatives, branded a traitor, and had the plaques honoring him destroyed. His reputation was ruined. Suffering deep injustice, his health deteriorated, and he died in March 1872 while serving as Governor-General of Liangjiang.

4. Promoting Western affairs: prioritizing people over objects, learning Western wisdom before Western techniques

Zeng Guofan was a leading statesman of the late Qing. He believed that national strengthening required reform of governance, cultivation of talent, and placing people before material objects—learning Western thinking before Western techniques, and especially learning Western modes of reasoning. He understood that political success depended first on winning popular support. He stated: “National poverty is not the greatest danger; the greatest danger lies in the disintegration of people and armies.” He emphasized that effective governance begins with capable individuals and advocated clean administration, benevolent governance, and opposition to tyrannical policies that harm the people. In fiscal matters, he stressed agricultural primacy, steady management, integrity, gradual reform, and avoidance of quick results.

Zeng Guofan pioneered industrial modernization. In 1861, he established the Anqing Arsenal. In 1865, he strongly supported Li Hongzhang’s acquisition of the American-owned Qiji Iron Works in Shanghai and its merger with other facilities to form the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau. In 1867, he and Li Hongzhang relocated and expanded the bureau. In 1868, Zeng inspected the Jiangnan Shipyard and boarded the first steamship produced there. Later that year, he traveled to Beijing to meet Cixi and the Tongzhi Emperor.

Zeng Guofan actively promoted sending students abroad. In 1872, he led a memorial urging immediate implementation of overseas education, proposed establishing a Chinese Students Office in the United States, recommended Chen Lanbin and Yung Wing to manage it, and oversaw the establishment of a preparatory bureau in Shanghai.

5. Integrating Cheng–Zhu Neo-Confucianism and Lu–Wang Mind Philosophy

Throughout his life, Zeng Guofan adopted an inclusive approach toward both Cheng–Zhu rationalism and Lu–Wang mind philosophy, selecting their strengths and avoiding extremes. He also developed a theory of qi, holding that all things arise from vital force, which constitutes the fundamental substance of the universe.

In personal cultivation, Zeng leaned toward Wang Yangming’s emphasis on sincerity and inner moral awareness. He proposed that sages possess clear and abundant qi, while ordinary people possess turbid and thin qi. Though all beings originally receive the same primordial qi, humans receive it in fullness, enabling moral consciousness.

Since the Song and Ming dynasties, Confucian rationalism, mind philosophy, and qi theory all sought to elevate Confucianism metaphysically, competing with Buddhism and Daoism while borrowing their strengths. Ultimately, their shared limitation lay in the absence of a personal deity, leaving Confucianism confined largely to elite intellectual circles rather than popular religion.

6. Prolific writings, the Confucian heavens, and a heart as vast as the sea

Zeng Guofan wrote extensively throughout his life. His works include Collected Excerpts from the Classics and Histories, Qiujue Studio Essays, Reading Notes, memorials, poetry, diaries, letters, and family instructions, compiled as The Complete Works of Zeng Wenzheng.

He cultivated himself through sincerity, reverence, calmness, caution, and perseverance. He kept daily journals to examine his conduct. His health regimen emphasized regular sleep and meals, restraint of anger and desire, soaking feet before sleepE sleep, and walking after meals.

Zeng Guofan lived openly and uprightly: “Leaning on heaven, gazing over the sea of countless blossoms; high mountains and flowing waters—only the heart knows.” His “leaning on heaven” meant the Confucian moral cosmos; his “gazing over the sea” meant illuminating Chinese history with a heart as vast as the ocean.

7. The ‘Qiujue Studio’ and disciplined self-cultivation

Zeng Guofan prescribed twelve rules of self-cultivation, including reverence, meditation, early rising, focused reading, cautious speech, nurturing vital force, journaling, calligraphy, and nightly restraint.

His ancestral home, Fuhou Hall, embodied his principles of frugality, integrity, and discipline. He named his study “Qiujue Studio” (Seeking Imperfection), emphasizing self-restraint and continual self-correction. Throughout his life, Zeng Guofan achieved virtue, merit, and thought, approaching the ideal of sagehood and serving as a lasting model for humanity.

8. Courage, perseverance, and the three immortal accomplishments

Zuo Zongtang praised him for loyalty and discernment. Li Hongzhang lauded his public-mindedness beyond the ancients. Liang Qichao extolled his perseverance, moral resolve, and lifelong accumulation of merit, asserting that had Zeng lived longer, China might have been saved by his hand.

9. Selected sayings of Zeng Guofan

Govern the world with great virtue, not petty favors.
Those who achieve great deeds must possess both broad vision and meticulous execution.
A gentleman avoids contention over reputation, profit, and cleverness.
Reading useless books wastes the will.
Loyalty, integrity, and honesty are foundations of character.
Be cautious beforehand and free of regret afterward.
Cultivate calmness through restraint of speech, sight, and desire.
Benevolence surpasses reward; propriety surpasses punishment.
Contentment brings joy; greed brings worry.
Do one thing with full dedication—never chase novelty.