I work with people in my life, and I resist at every turn
Perhaps because he was born in a merchant family, Guo Songtao showed an extroverted personality in his early years, and became friends and colleagues with Zeng Guofan, Liu Rong, Zuo Zongtang, Li Hongzhang and others, and their children became friends and became closer. It is conceivable that Guo Songtao has a wide range of friends.
But Guo Songtao himself also said that "I work with people in my life, and I often resist it." Guo Songtao is obviously a "nerd", just as Li Zhen commented that Chao Cuo "can be described as not good at seeking a living, and it cannot be said that he is not good at seeking the country", and only after suffering a loss did he find Liu Xihong's villain face.
In the third year of retirement, when he learned that Liu Xihong ** Li Hongzhang, Guo Songtao was so angry that he gritted his teeth and wrote in his diary:
The words of the contemplation are outrageous. The villain is unscrupulous, and he is extremely bold and shameless. What I have seen in my life, but Li Xiangtong and Liu Xihong have both, and Liu Xihong's ferocity is beyond Li Xianghong's reach.
In 1859, Emperor Xianfeng appointed Guo Songtao to Shandong to investigate the concealment of ** taxes, and Seng Lingqin sent his henchman Li Xiangdi to accompany him. Li Xiangdi was secretly monitoring him and reporting to Monk Lingqin at any time. Guo was defenseless until he was **. As a result, Guo Songtao "wasted two months of searching for money", "endured hardships and endured cold, and made a dream come true".
And Liu Xihong is more hateful than Li Xiangdi, and he is the most hateful person in Guo Songtao's life. Guo Songtao also said fiercely in his diary: Liu Xihong is "the yin and yang of heaven and earth should not grow out of the pregnant." The so-called flow of talents in troubled times is extremely corrupt, and there are such characters." "Liu Xihong, the owl and the jackal. In his autobiography, written a year before his death, he was still not relieved:
Liu Xihong is a thief and a thief, very (ruthless), and extremely poor. I asked myself why I have treated Liu Xihong for more than ten years, and I really shouldn't be subjected to this tragic report. And just a lifetime, standing up to treat others, how can there be so many people who can endure betraying each other.
It is incredible that old friends like Guo Songtao and Zuo Zongtang (with his brother Zuo Zongzhi are still sons and daughters) will also turn their faces. There are different opinions on this grievance, and most commentators say that Zuo Zongtang is too self-willed, and even say that he chooses people with good backgrounds to bully, and also says that Guo Songtao is kind to Zuo Zongtang, but Zuo Zongtang is sparse and impeached Guo Songtao and is ungrateful.
Zuo Zongtang ** "Favorite History" WeChat***
I won't intervene here, but they are different from Guo Songtao and Liu Xihong. After retiring, they exchanged letters, visited each other, and got by on face. In 1885, Zuo Zongtang died of illness in Fuzhou, and Guo Songtao wrote a couplet when he heard the news:
The world must be talented, and the world must be talented;I am not responsible, I am not responsible.
This couplet is full of resentment. Calm down a little and think about the friendship in the past, Guo Songtao rewrote a couplet:
He was born from Xu Wu Township, compared his achievements, expanded the land, and swept away 10,000 miles
Friendship rather forget the lonely and angry son, ride the car and wear a hat, meet as before, and die and live for 50 years.
Empty stationery and whirlwind
"Adaptation" is the mantra of the people, and Guo Songtao also reacted to this when he returned to Shanghai from London. He wrote in his diary:
Since the end of the day, from Zhejiang, Suzhou in the east, from Jinling in the west, to Yangzhou in the north, not far hundreds of miles, one after another, several generations of the day, the heart is very bitter. The event should be inspected to the backlog. There is no day to return, especially tired. It was very cold, wind and rain, and London had not experienced such severe cold for three years.
The first is that he is busier than being a diplomat abroad, and the second is that the climate seems to be more extreme and changeable than that of Western Europe, which makes him "unaccustomed to the water and soil". In the diary entries that followed, such complaints were common. As early as the beginning of his retreat, he wrote:
I should be closed to the door to recuperate, do not hand over personnel, but also because of the envoy to the sea, the villagers are too much, so in the relatives and friends to ask, a case of thanks, to show the lack of our villagers and the circumstance.
He had such an idea, but he couldn't do it at all, but he was warm-hearted and hospitable. Almost every day, he had to exchange letters with many people, receive visits or go abroad, often had lunch and dinner, and even invited several people to "have breakfast" records. Sometimes nine letters are sent a day, "the reward should be more than ten generations", feasting guests for five consecutive days, and more holidays. Contrary to the idea of "inadequacy and circumstance", he deliberately wanted to show that the people in his hometown actually welcomed him.
After all, he was a former official, rich and still had some power, old relatives and friends, new friends, acquaintances, etc., all asked for help. At most, it is to ask for funding and recommendation of officials, as well as for poems (preface), for the name of the county chronicle, for recommendation for a certain official, etc., all kinds of things. Because there were too many seekers to satisfy him, he wrote in his diary, "For several years, there have been many seekers, and I have not been able to respond." choose the one who can't be helped", satisfying the request for help of twenty people.
He is not unprincipled help. One day, he met a friend, "talking about Geng Pingye's bad political deeds in Qiyang", saying that Geng Pingye was his guarantee. When he heard this, he immediately said, "If Geng Jun is a person, he is really not straight and praised." In the diary, it's more of a bitterness:
Since the beginning of the meeting, to the three drums have not stopped. I thought that the suffering between heaven and earth was beyond the ...... of those who didIt is really pointless to have this trouble at home.
As a scholar, Guo Songtao not only sighed bitterly, but also thought from the perspective of Chinese and foreign cultures. He wrote:
Such a small reward, the reciprocal correspondence is enough to wear away the years and dissipate energy. China's virtual stationery and troubles are endless, and then they know the simplicity of outsiders, and regard such vain Xi as a world away.
China's "human culture" is indeed worth considering.
One day, after a long conversation with two visitors, I sent them out. met the other two people at the door, Guo Songtao was old and dazzled, he didn't see it clearly, he thought it was a passerby, and he didn't care. The two people thought that Guo Songtao was avoiding it for some reason, and left with interest. Guo Songtao mentioned it to his family by chance later, only to know that it was an acquaintance, and hurriedly sent someone to chase them, but they were far away, and he felt "quite ashamed and unable to do anything about it".
When he learned that Wu Ke's biological mother was mourned, and "there was no one who could support his relatives and friends", he took the initiative to "give 10,000 yuan". He believes: "Wealth and nobility return to their hometowns, relatives and friends gather for help, and there is no time to give, which is also the permanence of the world." The provincial capital is like a sea of 10,000 people, and the city is better than the countryside. ”
He also wrote in his diary: "....After the first conversation, I did my best for a day. If you want to go to the countryside for a while, you can't spare it. The reward of Middle-earth should be so troublesome, and it is a pity to sit on the day, and it is a pity to ......However, this kind of work for people, although a little tired, is also happy. ”