Glorifying Family Fame

At about 200 years ago, Xiangxiang, a city in Hunan province, witnessed the birth of Zeng Guofan(1811-1872), who is both hated and loved by his later generations. As an adult, Zeng, like other traditional scholars, had to follow the traditional way to take the imperial examination in order to secure a position in the government. He suffered a lot before he succeeded in passing the provincial examination in the reign of Emperor Daoguang(1838), and ranked the third in the imperial examination. Later Emperor Daoguang promoted him to the second place, taking charge of the general affairs in the imperial academy. Since then, he was on the way up to his official career. Through nine years of hard struggle as a government official, he was promoted to be the highest imperial scholar as well as the minister in charge of Rites. Afterwards he was transferred to serve successively in the Ministry of War, of Punishments and of Civil Appointment. He initiated the Westernization Movement and established military industries, such as Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, Mawei Ship-building Bureau in Fujian province. Meanwhile, he took an active participation in urging the Qing Government to send young students to study abroad, which was the first time for the Chinese government to adopt such a policy.His most admirable virtue is that as one of the highest officials of the late Qing Period, he wrote, in his short life, thousands of diaries as well as letters to his family members, instructing and educating his brothers and their sons and daughters to help, as much as they can, their needy neighbors. As a result, his fine family tradition and family motto was handed down in succession for generations. On the other hand, he worked as a civil official to organize the Xiang Army by recruiting peasants. He employed his troops to suppress the peasant uprisings in his time more bloodily than any other general in his day. What's more, he took the side of the foreigners andbullied his country fellows in dealing with the Tianjing Church Case, which invited the curses of the whole nation and people called him "Killer Zeng", "Traitor", "Headsman". And this is the very reason why people should respect him as well as hate him.I have no intention to give a full account of the praises and curses Zeng Guofan received from academic circles and the common people. However, impressed by his ways and instructions in guiding his family members, his inheritance and enhancement of the Chinese traditional culture of family ethics, and his enlightenment on the construction of modern family ethics and morals, I write this dissertation in fulfillment of my doctorate degree and in the hope of benefiting the advancement of the social civilization.The research on Zeng Guofan's family ethic ideas should be started by inquiring the long-standing and rich Chinese traditional culture of family ethics, by studying the "origin "and "nature" of which, we can draw this conclusion: the Chinese civilization maintains a distinct continuity from "the Pre-axis Period" to "the Axis Period", that is, China marched into the civilized society without breaking off completely with the long-preserved primitive patriarchal clan system, or rather , the patriarchal clan system has not been toppled, and hence there is a natural derivation of the Chinese traditional culture of family ethics, which is made extremely profound by the structure and function of the system. This rich Chinese traditional culture, to a certain extent, must be inherited, developed and handed down to the later generations by numerous great figures in the long river of history. Thus it is quite necessary to set one's eyes on these outstanding historical figures in order to grasp the spirit of this traditional culture. If we probe into the process from its origin, evolution, development and prosperity to its gradual decline, we can draw a very natural conclusion that Zeng's deep understanding and peculiar way of handing down the Chinese traditional culture was attributed to his unique life experience and his endowm...