Chapter 14 Six blessings and seven fathers ruined the governor's enthusiasm

As soon as Zeng Guofan arrived at Qimen, he saw that the surrounding mountains were steep, and there was only one Guanma Avenue connecting Xiuning and Huizhou in the east and Jingdezhen in the west to the outside world.In addition, there is a small road that connects two small towns in the north: Dachiling and Dahongling; there is also a small river named Dagongshui.Dagongshui originates from Qimen, flows southward through Fuliang and Jingdezhen, and flows into Poyang Lake.The river is narrow, only small boats for two or three people can float, and cargo ships cannot enter.There are few people here and the land is barren. If the Guanma Avenue in the east-west direction is blocked and the connection with the outside is cut off, the county will be in a desperate situation.Zeng Guofan regretted that he should not hastily reported the decision to station in Qimen to the imperial court, but the matter had come to an end, so he had to stay temporarily.Not long after, the decree to grant Jiang the governor and appoint him as the imperial envoy to supervise the military affairs in the south of the Yangtze River arrived. Zeng Guofan felt that he had to be mature and prudent, and the decision could not be changed at will.But the staff members disagreed and advised him to leave Qimen and find another suitable place, but Zeng Guofan refused to listen.Because the horses were not available, the cavalry could not be built for the time being, so Li Hongzhang followed him to Qimen.He spent two days surveying the surrounding area of ​​Qimen, and said to Zeng Guofan: "Men, the terrain of Qimen is in danger. The military strategist said that it is a desperate place. It is better to choose another place as soon as possible, so as not to be trapped in the future." Seeing Zeng Guofan groaning silently, Li Hongzhang took advantage of the situation and said again, "According to my disciples' opinion, we can move our troops to Dongliu. This place is surrounded by rivers and mountains, and we can advance or retreat, attack or defend. The old camp is stationed in Dongliu, and there is nothing wrong with it."

Zeng Guofan still stroked his beard and remained silent.Li Hongzhang guessed that Zeng Guofan's mind had been activated, and he said more bluntly: "Teacher, if Changmao heard the news and besieged Qimen, only a few thousand people would be needed to block the way out, and we would be the turtles in the urn and be captured with nothing." Zeng Guofan's hand stroking his beard suddenly stopped, his eyes lit up, and he asked sharply: "Shaoquan, you hate Qimen so much, are you cowardly and afraid of death? If so, you can pack your bags and leave here. Please tell others, Anyone who is afraid of dying here can leave as soon as possible." After speaking, he stood up in a huff.Li Hongzhang had no choice but to withdraw embarrassingly.From then on, no one dared to mention the evacuation of Qimen.

Zeng Guofan changed the Qimen Chai's ancestral hall into the governor's office and began to handle Liangjiang government affairs.He reviewed the documents submitted by Jiangsu, Anhui, and Jiangxi provinces day and night, and assigned staff to secretly investigate the achievements of officials above the government road in the three provinces. To attack my shortcomings; all the halls belong to the same teachers and younger brothers, so that the bureaucrats and friends can practice and cultivate their names, and I will do my best." All prefectures, prefectures and counties are required to write this couplet on the pillars of the official hall, and always use it as a warning.He also published a piece of "Guan Yao Yu Yu" to officials at all levels, requiring them to strictly abide by it.He also drew up a notice with the title "Speaking to the Shimin in the South of the Yangtze River", carved it into a plate, printed it widely, and posted it in the market, streets and docks.There are six items in this notice: first, to prohibit the extravagant habits of officials and the people; Promise to report directly according to the facts; five is to show righteousness; six is ​​to prohibit organizing groups.The officials of the three provinces saw that the new governor who had been famous for a long time was really powerful and fearless, and the corruption in the officialdom was slightly restrained.

Zeng Guofan also imitated Wu Zetian's method in the past, setting up a wooden box at the gate of the yamen, called the impeachment box, and ordered two brave men to guard it all day long.All the soldiers and civilians are called on to write the impeachment letters of officials at all levels and put them in the box. The governor's office will strictly protect the impeachers.Zeng Guofan's move made officials in several counties near Qimen worried all day long.They have too many cheating affairs on weekdays, once they fall into the hands of the Governor who is known as "Zeng Shaved their heads", how dare they imagine the consequences!Qimen county magistrate Bao Renjie, who was born in Donna, claimed to be the thirty-fifth generation grandson of Bao Zheng, but his official was completely different from his ancestors.

These days, he saw that Zeng Guofan sent people to investigate the people's situation in the three streets and six alleys, and he was as anxious as ants on a hot pot, and he was in a state of panic all day long. That night, County Magistrate Bao put on a green cap and was going to find someone outside the north gate for advice.This man is over seventy years old, and he is called Shi Qipa.Shi Qidi started working in the county yamen at the age of 20, worked as an aide for more than a dozen county magistrates in his life, and worked in the yamen for 48 years.In the past two years, the old man lived in the county seat. Whenever the county magistrate had difficulties, he would bring a gift to ask for advice.The thickness of the gift depends on the difficulty of the matter.When Shi Qipa received the gift, he often thought about it for a while, and then came up with an idea. County magistrate Bao followed suit, and almost everything went smoothly.

County magistrate Bao took out a twenty taels of ingot from the cash drawer, carefully put it in his cuff, and locked the cash drawer carefully.As soon as the lock was locked, he thought that today's matter was too important, and one ingot might be too little, so he opened the lock again, took out another ingot of the same weight, looked at it carefully, put it in his cuff, and then went out.Shi Qipa was overjoyed to see the County Magistrate Bao presenting two ingots respectfully.After listening to the statement intently, he held a long chimney and leaned against the back of the chair like a stone sculpture and clay sculpture, and remained silent for a long time.County magistrate Bao waited patiently. About half an hour later, Shi Qipai came up with an idea.

The next night, Xiang Yong, who was guarding the impeachment box, sent a large stack of letters to Zeng Guofan's case.As in the past, he opened the top letter one by one, preparing to read each letter in person.Unexpectedly, after reading a few lines of this letter, I was horrified.This letter impeaches none other than himself.The letter said that when Zeng Guoquan took down Ji'an, he smuggled more than 20,000 taels of silver back to Heyetang to buy fields and build houses. It is said that this matter was instructed by Zeng Guofan.Beads of sweat appeared on Zeng Guofan's forehead.He knew in his heart that Yuan Pu had indeed transported a lot of money home, but it was not at his behest.However, as the eldest brother, as the coach, can Yuan Fu escape responsibility for this kind of thing?Zeng Guofan locked the letter into a bamboo box and continued to read.

The second letter of impeachment was that Mrs. Zou Jiu stole a wild man at home while her husband was out, and asked the government to send someone to catch the adulterer quickly, so as to rectify the custom.Zeng Guofan sneered after seeing it, and threw it aside. When he opened the third envelope, he was stunned again.The letter came back to him again. It is said that since he started the regiment training, he has fought in vain and fought for power. Most of the things he has done violate the laws of the country and are unreasonable. He cited the establishment of Lika in northern Jiangxi as an example.Zeng Guofan frowned and locked the letter into the bamboo box.

He hadn't bothered to read each letter carefully, and glanced at it briefly: half of the more than a dozen impeachment letters were about trivial matters such as petty theft in the countryside, fighting and adultery, and the other half were about Xiangyong who was stationed in Qimen. None of the illegal affairs of officials involved local officials.That night, Zeng Guofan was not interested. The dozen or so letters delivered the next day were almost all trivial matters.There were also seven or eight letters on the third day.The first letter made Zeng Guofan shudder.This letter told Zeng Guofan to have a private relationship with Chang Mao, and to make a secret agreement with Wei Jun, the commander of Chang Mao's left army, to wait for an opportunity to rebel;It is said that he once wrote a poem that "swallowed Yunmeng like mustard, and did not believe that Junshan is not flat". The "Junshan" here implies the imperial court.There is also a five-character poem "I think what it belongs to, there is one Liu Rong in the world; I can visit him in the future, and I will catch the crouching dragon in a thousand mountains". Since Liu Rong is Zhuge Liang, Zeng Guofan is undoubtedly the current Liu Xianzhu.

Zeng Guofan was so angry that he thought fiercely: Someone must be against me, taking the opportunity to frame me, and these people must be found out.Then I thought: how to check it?Didn't he call on others to impeach him?It’s okay to impeach others, but not yourself?If this matter becomes a big issue and it is reported to the imperial court, the emperor will send people to investigate. Once these right and wrong, true and false impeachment letters are made public, it will ruin the event instead!Zeng Guofan quickly took out the impeachment letters against him, his ninth brother, and Mandi two days ago from the bamboo box, and lit a fire.Thinking about this matter, it is the best policy to calm down quietly and quietly.A few days later, it happened that the Ningguo Mansion was in an emergency, so Zeng Guofan ordered Yong Ding to withdraw the paper on the pretext that the military situation was urgent and he had no time to read it.

Here, County Magistrate Bao felt very happy seeing that he had escaped the catastrophe, so he secretly gave Shi Qidie a piece of satin and told him not to let it out. The emergency letter from Ningguo Mansion was sent by Bao Chao.Just when Chen Yucheng sent troops to aid Anqing, Luo Dagang and Zhou Guoyu led 10,000 elite troops to attack Chizhou Mansion in a surprise attack and regained it in one fell swoop, disrupting Zeng Guofan's military deployment.Li Xiucheng led 100,000 people into northern Jiangxi and fought fiercely with Zuo Zongtang's Chu army in Fuliang and Jingdezhen.Li Shixian led 70,000 people to surround Ningguofu City.There were 10,000 people in Bao Chaoting's sub-battalion, but only 3,000 were stationed in the city, and the other 7,000 were stationed a hundred miles away from the city.On the one hand, Bao Chao sent soldiers and horses from outside the city to teach and help, and at the same time he had to write a letter of appeal to Zeng Guofan with his scribes. The scribe was ordered to draft the manuscript behind closed doors.Bao Chao was busy arranging soldiers in the city to strengthen the defense.After a while, Bao Chao hurried back to the yamen, shouting: "Has the request for help been issued?" The scribe replied respectfully: "Reporting to Admiral Bao, the request for help has not yet been written." When Bao Chao heard the fire, he scolded: "One hundred thousand long hairs are surrounded outside the city, and the fire has burned to the eyebrows and buttocks. What are you doing? It's been a long time since you wrote it!" The clerk hurriedly said: "Admiral Bao calm down, write it now, write it!" After finishing speaking, he sat by the copywriter and held his chin to conceive.Bao Chao got impatient, stepped forward and scolded: "You nerd, when are you still adjusting your writing? I'll write it for you." Bao Chao took the pen from the scribe's hand, drew a square frame on the paper, and then impatiently drew dozens of small circles outside the square frame. After seeing that he was still not satisfied, he wrote another circle inside the square frame. The word "Bao" was swaying, and then he put down his pen and shouted: "Someone is here, send the request for help to Mr. Zeng!" The scribe at the side thought it was funny, but he didn't dare to laugh out loud. Bao Chao's letter of request for help was sent to Qimen, which caused a roar of laughter from the governor's staff.Zeng Guofan also laughed, and then praised: "Bao Chunting is smart, this picture is vivid and concise, much better than words!" Urgently ordered Zhu Pinlong to take 3,000 people to Ningguo for rescue.As soon as Zhu Pinlong left, the prefect of Huizhou came to ask for help.Zeng Guofan didn't know who to transfer for a while.When he was in trouble, a man came in and said, "Huizhou is my territory, why don't you send me to rescue it?" Zeng Guofan was overjoyed when he saw it, and said in his heart, "I'm ashamed, how could I have forgotten him!"