In the 12th year of Daoguang (1832), he took the provincial examination and got a juror. In the 12th year of Daoguang (1833), when Lin Zexu was the governor of Jiangsu, he recognized Feng Guifen, whom he had never met before, and called him a "rare talent in a hundred years" and accepted him as a disciple. In the twenty years of Daoguang (1840), he took the exam of Gengzi and palace examination, won the Jinshi twice, and was edited by imperial academy. In the twenty-third year of Daoguang, he was appointed as the examiner of Shuntian Provincial Examination. In May of the 24th year of Daoguang (1844), Feng Guifen was the examiner after having obtained the provincial examination in Guangxi. He is the director of Yin Xi Academy in Jinling. In the twenty-fourth year of Daoguang, after having obtained the provincial examination in Guangxi, he won many places. In the 28th year of Daoguang (1848), Feng Guifen returned to Beijing.
In the third year of Xianfeng (1853), the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom established its capital in Nanjing, and he was sent to Suzhou near Nanjing to help organize troops against the Taiping Army. In the tenth year of Xianfeng (1860), the Taiping Army captured Suzhou. After the defeat, he went to Shanghai and continued to participate in Li Hongzhang's Xiang Army's campaign to suppress the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Later, he helped Li Hongzhang create the Huai Army with the experience of British and American weapons. During his tenure, he completed 40 representative works of political theory, Protest at School, and put forward that "China's ethics and morality are the original, supplemented by the skill of making the country rich and strong". His thought had a great influence on the Westernization School and was regarded as the forerunner by the bourgeois reformists. Yu Yue once praised him for "learning is omnipotent, but its meaning is contemporary useful learning" (Preface to the Hall of the Sages).
After the Qing army captured Su and Chang, in the first year of Tongzhi (1862), it urged Li Hongzhang to reduce the land tax in southern Jiangsu. Finally, the court agreed to reduce taxes by one third in Suzhou, Songjiang and Taicang and one tenth in Changzhou and Zhenjiang. Zhang Taiyan once attacked in the Book of Books. After moving to Mudu in his later years, he set up a local records bureau at home and compiled Suzhou local records into 153 volumes. He has given lectures in Yin Xi, Shanghai Dedication, Ziyang, Suzhou, Zhengyi College, etc., covering geography, mathematics, primary schools, water conservancy, farmland, etc., all around the river, military punishment, salt and iron at that time. In terms of learning, it is not a door-to-door dispute, but a calligraphy that can accept the influence of capitalism and advocate "western learning spreading to the east" and "controlling foreign tools". Calligraphy is sparse and simple in Europe, Henan and ICBC, and has unique border town characteristics. Feng Guifen died in Mudu apartment and was buried in Jikeling, Zhuwu, North Tianchi Mountain. Mudu now has the "second place". Suzhou gentry and ordinary people set up a shrine for him. After his death, in the ninth year of Guangxu reign (1883), Suzhou local records were published in Fu Zi.