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Zeng Guofan

Dull and unbreakable

Zeng Guofan (Qing · 1811–1872) — Dull and unbreakable.

Reading peopleThe industrial ageDull and unbreakable

What actually happened?

In 1854, at Jinggang, the river force of the militia he had been ordered to raise met the rebels and was broken. His boats were scattered and his men ran. He went over the side into the river and was pulled out by his own staff. He was a civil official with no military training, humiliated in front of the province, and what he did afterwards is the whole of him: he stopped looking for a battle he could win. From then on the army dug before it fought, and the war became a matter of trenches, supply and time.

Solid camp, dull fight

On arriving anywhere the army camped before anything else — trench, wall, stockade — and cities were encircled and squeezed rather than stormed. It converted taking a city from an event full of accidents into a question of time and supply.

Anqing was held under siege for over a year and Tianjing for more than two. No single mistake could collapse either operation.

A method that does not need talent

The other side of a dull method is that it copies. Any commander with any unit could follow it and reach a passing grade, whereas a brilliant stroke depends on that person on that day. An army raised from nothing could be carried by it for that reason.

A process worth eighty that anyone can run beats one star worth a hundred. The first goes to thirty cities; the second leaves when he does.

Watchfulness when alone

Anybody keeps the rules while being watched. His answer to the unwatched stretch was not willpower but record: write the day down, wrong thoughts included, and the moment acquires a witness. Then he handed the record to friends, which is cheaper than resolve and works better.

Expenses nobody audits, code nobody reviews, a report nobody reads. Those three places describe a person more accurately than any appraisal.

Daily disciplines have to be checkable

I will become more disciplined cannot be executed. His twelve were actions you can tick tonight: rise early, sit in stillness, read one book at a time, keep the diary, note what was said over tea. Small enough to answer did it or did not.

Read more this year cannot be settled in December. Ten pages a day, three lines written after, settles itself every night.

Take in widely, employ carefully

A low bar at the door and a high one at the far end. He kept a large staff and then judged people on a real piece of work under real pressure — how they reported, and what they did with the part they could not do.

Li Hongzhang came up that way, from the staff to independent command. Ask where this is not finished; the clean answer is the one to promote.

How do I use it today?

Turn the goal you keep losing in week three into something you can tick tonight, then post this week's version where somebody else will read it. The grain size and the audience are doing the work; resolve was never the variable.

Deep read

Solid camp, dull fightA clumsy method that removes the uncertaintyThe win is ugly, and that is exactly why it repeatsWatched when nobody is watchingThe stretch of the day with no observerChanging yourself is the one item available every single dayTake in widely, employ carefullyJudge people inside real workOne real task shows what four rounds of interviews cannot

Read alongside

Marcus AureliusThe closest pair East and West: both wrote themselves down every day, and both used the writing to hold themselves in check at the top of their own power. Wang YangmingDoctrine and practice: Wang built the school of mind, Zeng spent a lifetime executing it. Reaching the insight against grinding it out daily. Li ShiminTwo ways to hold up a mirror. Li Shimin kept Wei Zheng in the room; Zeng Guofan used a journal nobody else read. Feng DaoZeng Guofan held an army and cut back his own wings to keep his name; Feng Dao had neither troops nor money and sought only to keep people alive. Ren ZhengfeiThe same method a hundred and thirty years apart: build the solid camp and fight the slow fight, no shortcuts, no clever moves, never be beatable before you try to win. Benjamin FranklinThe matched pair of the two hemispheres: both of ordinary natural ability, both forging themselves with a daily ledger — between them the evidence that character is an engineering problem rather than a gift. Brené BrownZeng turned self-reproach into a daily discipline; Brown would ask whether that sentence is pointing at the behaviour or at the man writing it. Ray DalioThe same instrument on two continents: thirty years of diaries and a decade of taped meetings, both aimed at self-deception. Atomic HabitsBoth accumulate by small daily acts: Zeng Guofan by a written daily examination of himself, Clear by design that removes the need for one.

Further

Wang Yangming Kazuo Inamori Ray Dalio Zhuge Liang The Analects Li Shimin Feng Dao Guo Ziyi Zhang Juzheng Miyamoto Musashi The Art of Worldly Wisdom Maria Konnikova Ren Zhengfei Marcus Aurelius Benjamin Franklin Hu Xueyan Atomic Habits

Lines to keep

Watchfulness when alone brings peace of mind.

Fight without haste: first make it stable, then look for change.

Principle without officialdom, order in the head and few big words.

Steady work that never breaks off beats a burst of courage.