Among the many saints, Zeng Guofan is one who has no objection. He did make a great contribution. But the most important thing for a saint is his character. You can't be called a saint if you have done something detrimental to your conduct and made great contributions. Just like the big-name stars in the entertainment circle, although they are usually enthusiastic about public welfare, many big-name stars use the aura of public welfare as a fig leaf and do dirty things. If you lose your character, you shouldn't be chosen as a saint.
Saint is a rather vague term. We don't distinguish saints according to the norms of Hanshu, but only according to universal norms. Then the historical time of China is about 5,000 years, and the number of saints cannot be counted. For example, Du Fu, who fought bravely for the country and the people, is known as a poet, followed by Zhao Mengfu, a calligrapher with brilliant writing style, and also as a book saint. There is also Guan Yunchang, who beheaded Yan Liang in Longtan, escaped the ban in Xiangyang, and killed Pound. He has the title of warrior saint, and he also worships Guan Yu and Confucius in literature.
These are all cosmic saints, real saints. According to the standard of three distinctions in Hanshu, Liang Qichao thought that only Confucius, Wang Yangming and Zeng Guofan guaranteed it.
Confucius, a saint, has done great harm to future generations, especially his Confucianism, which has harmed future generations for thousands of years. Basically, Confucianism has already occupied a dominant position. Confucius began to travel around the world at the age of 55 because of the infighting in the court of Lu, which was also the gradual progress of his career as a saint. Confucius' favorite classic words, such as "revitalizing etiquette knowledge" and "loyalty, faithfulness and filial piety", were recorded and compiled into The Analects, which deeply influenced the concepts of later generations. Confucius is really an all-rounder, with both civil and military skills, tall and powerful, and his speech level is deep and wide, which is admirable.
Zeng Guofan is only half a saint? Who is Zeng Guofan? He is a famous thinker in modern times. He was one of the four important ministers of ZTE in the late Qing Dynasty. What people * * * know most about him is his Letter from Zeng Guofan. Among them, many true and philosophical sentences have become the norm for ordinary people to educate their children, and also the motto of some people's lives. Looking at a person's personality only from the classic works left behind is like getting to know someone with a fan filter, and the dirty and ugly places will be filtered out.
If you are an all-round master of Zeng Guofan's integrity, you will understand what the real Zeng Guofan looks like. Zeng Guofan seems to be morally honest, but the real Zeng Guofan is really shy. Compared with the contribution of Confucius and Wang Yangming's mind, Zeng Guofan's poor work did little harm to future generations, while Confucius's Confucian University asked that the culture and art of Wang Yangming's mind had been deeply spread.
On merit, Zeng Guofan is inferior to Confucius. On the other hand, how long it took Zeng Guofan to write a book also depends on the harm caused by the length of time. There is nothing higher than Confucius and other saints. Whether Zeng Guofan is a saint or not will last longer, depending on whether his bad work is harmful.
Many people think that Zeng Guofan's contribution is the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement in Zhangzi County, which contributed to the existence of Confucianism. One of Zeng Guofan's letters is world-famous. The records in the book show that Zeng Guofan is a man who can do anything for his brothers and honor his parents, and he is a perfect person in social morality.
In fact, it is too one-sided and decisive to distinguish a person's mental outlook according to the classic works of literati. For example, Haizi once wrote "Spring facing the sea is really beautiful". Who can understand that he would choose such a violent method of lying on the rails and waiting for death? It is too one-sided and harsh to judge whether a person has a lack of personality from the length of all his personal experiences and from a time range.
The realm of life of a saint and a gentleman is often favored because of his white moral level and innocence. To ensure the realm of saints' life, the most important thing is to be strict with self-cultivation, but how many people can stand the tedious work of being strict with self-cultivation? This is also the reason why there are many treacherous villains and few modest gentlemen and saints.
Theoretically, Zeng Guofan is a saint. If you don't look at what he did, the classic works he left behind really give people the feeling of being a saint. There is no doubt that their writing is rich and colorful. However, if we distinguish saints according to Liang Qichao's three immortals' norms, Zeng Guofan can only be called more than half a saint, which is ultimately immoral.