Chapter 30 The fifth chapter is "Tingjing" by Cai Shengyi of the shogunate. "Ru Madam" and "Same Scholars".Five hundred taels of silver to wash injustice case

With Chen Chunyan's careful care, Zeng Guofan's diet and daily life have improved a lot, his mental state has improved, and his ringworm disease has also gradually improved. He can sleep peacefully for two hours every night, and take a short nap at noon, and he looks radiant all day long.Zeng Guofan did not expect that Chunyan would help him so much, and his heart was full of gratitude to her.He often gave her some money and asked her to send it back to her hometown in Xianning to subsidize her mother and brother-in-law.In my spare time, I also tell her some stories about the previous dynasty and trivial things that happened around me. Chunyan loves to listen.In the past, she only knew that he was the majestic commander-in-chief of the Hunan Army. Zeng shaved his head without batting an eyelid. After getting along with him for a long time, Chunyan gradually saw that Zeng Guofan also had a delicate and considerate side, especially when he was considerate of small details. Neither can women.She had a lot of love for Zeng Guofan from respect, and she hoped to give birth to a man and a half woman as soon as possible, which would not only please Zeng Guofan, but also enable herself to gain a foothold in this prominent family.

Anqing City has been the largest town in Anhui Province since ancient times. It has convenient water and land transportation, rich products and developed humanities.Yao Nai, Zeng Guofan's most revered literati, was born in Tongcheng County, not far from Anqing.The Tongcheng School of Literature once influenced the whole country, and it also had a profound influence on Zeng Guofan.In the past ten or twenty years, the Tongcheng school of literature has been declining day by day, and Zeng Guofan is saddened by this.Well, now that there is a relatively stable provincial capital and a large piece of land that belongs to his own governance, the governor of Liangjiang has the obligation and the strength to rescue the Tongcheng literary school from decline.In order to express this wish to the literati and scholars, he specially ordered to hold a grand burial ceremony for Fang Dongshu, Dai Junheng, Su Houzi and other famous Tongcheng scholars who died due to the war and were not buried.On the day of the burial, he personally led all his staff to participate, and wrote epitaphs for them, praising their moral articles.This move made all the literati feel grateful.Not only to save the Tongcheng school of literature, but Zeng Guofan also wanted to save the entire Liangjiang society and officials, and use Liangjiang as a base to create a good atmosphere and promote it to the whole country, so as to realize his highest ideal, to be a person like Zhou Gong and Confucius, Govern the entire country into a society with honest customs, upright people, peace in the world, and prosperity of civilization.Zeng Guofan knew that the realization of this ideal could not be achieved by himself alone. Hundreds of like-minded people must do it together. Only in this way can the whole world be in harmony, the heaven and the earth should be in harmony with it, creating an atmosphere and creating an atmosphere of unity. kind of situation.

For this reason, on the one hand, he made a statement to the imperial court, please select a group of officials from the six departments with excellent character and learning, and new scholars to come to Anqing. Recruit talents.I heard that the Governor-General of Liangjiang, who has made great achievements, is thirsty for talents and loves talents like his life. In just a few months, from the capital, from the localities, and even from remote remote places, literati and warriors with various purposes have poured in. Came to Anqing.When the martial arts come, Zeng Guofan will either be assessed in person, or he will be sent to the barracks immediately after being tested by the generals. Those who are capable will immediately become the chief post, and the general will serve as brave men.No matter how busy the literati came to vote, Zeng Guofan would meet and chat with them in person.Weighing the weight of the visitor while observing the words and expressions.Most of these people were sent to the three provinces and counties, and the more outstanding ones were kept by their side, and after a period of edification and cultivation, they were reused.Even for those who have no skills or those who don't like them, Zeng Guofan encouraged them and sent them back.

Zeng Guofan personally made sixteen points of exhortation.Among them, there are four admonitions for prefectures and counties, which are top-level Taoist government and bottom-level miscellaneous affairs, and so on: governing the government with integrity, clarifying criminal laws to clear up lawsuits, emphasizing farming to improve livelihoods, and advocating thrift and simplicity to cultivate virtue.Admonish battalion officials four things, go up to the generals, go down to the sentries, and so on, prohibit harassment to calm the people, quit smoking and gambling to scare the lazy, train diligently to ward off bandits, and promote honesty and thrift to convince the masses.There are four things to exhort the committee members to have no vacancies, and all the existing staff fall into this category: practice hard work to fulfill their duties, respect frugality to maintain integrity, be diligent in learning to broaden their talents, and guard against arrogance and laziness to uphold customs.There are four points to exhort gentlemen, squires from this province and tourists from other provinces fall into this category: protect the foolish and cowardly to protect the hometown, respect frugality to serve the public, prohibit big words to be pragmatic, and expand talents and knowledge for future use.A detailed description of more than 100 words is given under each article.Zeng Guofan ordered people to write on four large wooden boards, one foot high and four feet wide, and insert them on both sides of the gate of the governor's office.For a while, all the people in Anqing's mansion came to watch, and they all said that the governor from Hunan was an upright official and handled affairs well.The officials and committee members sent to various places were afraid at the beginning and did not dare to be presumptuous. After a long time, they were close to Mo Zhe, and they became gangsters.Only the aides who stayed around, firstly, there were many people with good morals, and secondly, they were under the strict supervision of Zeng Guofan, so they couldn't mess around.The shogunate of the Governor of Liangjiang was full of people and talents at that time.

There are two dinners in the morning and evening every day, and Zeng Guofan often eats with his staff.At the banquet, there was little talk about state affairs and military affairs, and most of them talked about academic articles, anecdotes of unofficial history, and even street gossip.This morning, Zeng Guofan and his staff had breakfast together in the restaurant of Liangjiang governor's yamen, talking and laughing. "Ten years ago, my mentor was just a servant who was famous all over the world. In the past ten years, my mentor established the Hunan Army and restored the famous city. The disciples didn't know it, and neither did the scholars in the world. How could my mentor build such great martial arts?" asked the questioner. It is Yu Yue, a talented scholar in Deqing, Zhejiang.In the twenty-seventh year of Daoguang, Yu Yue participated in the re-examination of the general examination, and Zeng Guofan was the minister of examination papers.The title of the poem is "Light Smoke, Rain, Falling Blossoms in the Sky", and the first sentence of Yu Yue's test post is "Flowers fall and spring is still there".

Zeng Guofan appreciated it after reading it, and praised: "Singing the falling flowers without decaying and sassy, ​​is similar to 'changing the flying to return to the wind dance, and it has fallen into half-face makeup'. There is no limit to what will happen in the future." So he put Yu Yueba first.In order to repay Zeng Guofan's kindness, Yu Yue named his collection of poems and essays "Chun Zai Tang Ji".As soon as Zeng Guofan arrived in Anqing, he abandoned his official position and came to join him. "Yinfu is asking! Let me tell you, I have a secret, I will pass it on to you today, you must not teach it to others lightly." Zeng Guofan smiled, put down his chopsticks, and everyone laughed.Yu Yue said: "Teacher, please teach, and the disciples will never leak it."

"Outsiders don't know that I have a military book, which was passed down to me by a profound immortal master. With it, I can lead troops to fight, and let the literati take command." The staff members were very surprised when they first heard Zeng Guofan’s lecture about the book of war given by the immortal master. Many people immediately thought of the legend that Guiguzi passed the book to Su Qin, and the old man Yishang gave the book to Zhang Liang. Some people thought of "Water Margin" In the story of the Nine Heavens Xuannv sending a book to Song Jiang, everyone was skeptical and listened attentively to the following.

"This military book is called "Standing Classics." Zeng Guofan picked up a small soup bowl and drank it slowly. ""Tingjing"?" Someone in the staff whispered.Some were whispering to each other, quietly commenting: "What a strange title." "Never heard of it." "There are twenty-four scriptures in "Ting Jing", and I will tell you the first one first." Zeng Guofan put down the small soup bowl, made a five-finger comb with his right hand, and slowly combed the long beard on his chest, and said slowly, " There was an old man in Heye Pond. One day, a distinguished guest came to his house. The old man asked his son to buy wine and vegetables on Jiangshi Street to entertain the guests. The son picked up a load of empty baskets and went out. He didn’t come back until the sun was west. The old man was in a hurry and went out by himself Looking for it. I met my son on a paddy field and Tiancheng on a hill in the middle of the road."

Zeng Guofan stopped here and took another small bowl to drink soup.Everyone listened with pointed ears, not knowing what the old man's son's shopping had to do with "holding out". "Unexpectedly, my son was standing there with a load of things, and there was a load-carryer standing opposite him. The two of you looked at me and I looked at you, but they didn't move. The old man was very anxious when he saw it. He scolded his son with a face: "You are useless, the house is waiting for your food and drink, and everyone is jumping up. But you are standing here as if you are dead. What are you going to do?" The son said aggrievedly:' He won't let me go.' The old man said to the man, "Brother, go down to the field and let him come over!" The man said angrily, "You're so biased! Why didn't you ask him to go down the field and let me go first?" said the old man : "Brother, you are tall and others are short, you can go to the field, but he cannot; besides, you are groceries, he is food, your goods can be soaked in water, but his goods cannot be soaked in water." The man became more and more angry:' You look down on my goods! He is small and I am big, the more he wants to let me, I can’t let him.” The old man was also angry: “Come on, come on! Only I will go to the field.” The old man took off his shoes and socks, stood in the paddy field, He carried the man's burden with his hands. Only then did he send the man away, and he and his son came back with the burden. This is the first article in the "Tingjing".

Zeng Guofan closed his mouth with a smile, and everyone seemed to understand after hearing it.Yu Yue said: "Teacher, what you said just now is only one of the "Tingjing", there are twenty-three more?" "I will only talk about this one today, and I will tell you slowly later." Zeng Guofan sat upright and stopped talking.Everyone continued to bow their heads to eat, and while chewing their food, they were also chewing on the meaning of this scripture.Wu Rulun, a 22-year-old Tongcheng talent, first listened to "Ting Jing" with the mood of listening to legendary stories, but now he feels boring. Everyone said: "Everyone noticed, brother Lianqing's hair has turned green."

Although Zhang Yuzhao is only thirty-nine years old, his hair is gray. He is dissatisfied with his premature aging, so he dyed it specially yesterday.So everyone's eyes turned to Zhang Yuzhao who was eating, which made Zhang Yuzhao very embarrassed. "Lu Zhan dyed his beard and hair to flatter his concubine." Wu Rulun playfully recited two lines of poems by He Changyu from the Southern Dynasty to ridicule him. "I don't have any concubine!" Zhang Yuzhao laughed loudly, glanced at Li Shanlan who was opposite, and said, "I think Uncle Ren is more than ten years older than me and has black hair, undyed, I'm sorry for him!" Everyone laughed.After laughing, Zeng Guofan said: "When Zhifu mentioned the concubine, I remembered something. A few days ago, someone told me that 'Mrs. Ru' was wrong. I couldn't remember it after thinking about it for a few days. What can you do if you think about it?" next sentence." "Yes!" As soon as Zeng Guofan finished speaking, Wu Rulun shouted anxiously. "Speak quickly!" Everyone urged. "Same Jinshi!" Wu Rulun blurted out. "That's right!" someone shouted. When Zeng Guofan heard this, his face changed.Yu Yue saw it, and cursed secretly: "This reckless Wu Zhifu is showing off his cleverness, and now he has caused a big disaster." He lowered his face, raised his chopsticks, pointed at Wu Rulun and said, "What are you talking about!" At this time, Wu Rulun realized that he had made a slip of the tongue, his face was flushed and he was embarrassed. "Zhifu, you helped me solve a big problem." Zeng Guofan quickly returned to normal, with a sincere smile on his face, "Work hard in the future, Tongcheng has a rising star like you with quick thinking, and the revitalization of the Tongcheng School of Literature is very promising. hope." After hearing this sentence, Wu Rulun and all the staff present were all moved.Wu Rulun thought to himself: If I met someone like Huang Zu today, I might lose my head unintentionally! " "Lord Zhongtang, you keep talking about the Tongcheng School of Literature. I remember receiving a letter from Wu Nanping the day before yesterday." The speaker was a twenty-six-year-old young man named Li Shuchang, a Gongsheng student in Guizhou. barracks.Zeng Guofan saw Li Shuchang's extraordinary style, especially his good writing of ancient prose, and he liked it very much, so he stayed in the shogunate.Li Shuchang and Wu Nanping were close friends in writing. "What did Nanping say in the letter?" Zeng Guofan had always valued Wu Nanping's literary talent. Wu Nanping is lazy and rarely writes letters, this letter must be something important. "He said he wants to file a lawsuit with Zhongtang, first ask me to send you a letter." Li Shuchang's words attracted everyone's attention, and they all stopped their chopsticks and listened carefully. "What does he want to sue with me?" Zeng Guofan was puzzled. "It's the Preface to Ouyang Sheng's Collected Works." Li Shuchang replied. Two years ago, Ouyang Zhaoxiong compiled the articles of his son Ouyang Xun who died young, and carved a collection as a souvenir.Ouyang Xun once asked Zeng Guofan for advice, so Ouyang Zhaoxiong asked his old friend to write a preface.Zeng Guofan was still in Jianchang at that time, so he agreed. "What did this article offend him?" Zeng Guofan found it interesting and asked with a smile. "Wu Nanping said that he was very dissatisfied with Zhongtang's inclusion of him as the successor of the Tongcheng School of Literature in Hunan without his permission. He said that firstly, there was no Tongcheng School of Literature, and secondly, that he never liked Yao Nai. He was indignant that he insisted on classifying him as the Yao Nai sect, and he also said that if the Yao family is the sect and Tongcheng is the sect, then the heart of the sect is not guaranteed." "Hahaha!" Zeng Guofan laughed loudly. He remembered that when Xianfeng returned to Hunan in the second year, he heard Ouyang Zhaoxiong talk about the "Four Monsters of Yuezhou" in Yuezhou City. He was really a "weird Wu Juren"! "That's why I said anything. Chun Zhai, you write him a letter and tell him what someone Zeng said. It has been decided that Wu Juren's name has been included in the case of the successor of the Tongcheng School of Literature. He wants to talk to him. If I file a lawsuit, no one will accept it. It’s better to do what the rich people in Heyetang do, and bribe me with five hundred taels of silver, and I’ll write another article to clear up this wrong case for him. " When Li Shuchang was still saying "Nanping is a poor scholar" solemnly, the staff in the hall had already burst into laughter. "My lord, there are two scholars who want to pay their respects." Jing Qi came in and said. "Okay! Tell them to wait a moment, I'll come after I change my clothes." Zeng Guofan got up, glanced around, and said politely, "Everyone eat slowly, I'm sorry."