Posts Categorized: Chapter 3

Feng’s Death and Legacy

Feng passed away in 1874, a high ranking Confucian official in Suzhou. While Feng achieved some success and influence in life, his work was largely overshadowed by his more famous patrons, Lin Zexu, Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang. But Feng’s defining moment may have come 24 years after his death, when, during a brief period… Read more »

Foreign Language Education

In his lifetime, Feng did see some early steps towards education and civil service reform. Feng quickly identified the need for Chinese students who could excel at foreign languages and began lobbying for the creation of institutes for the study of foreign languages and science. As Li Hongzhang argued to the Qing court, paraphrasing Feng,… Read more »

Li Hongzhang

With the aid of Li Hongzhang (1823-1901), Feng was finally able to take back his hometown of Suzhou from the Taiping Rebels. Li immediately made Feng his top advisor, and began promoting and enacting many of Feng’s ideas on self-strengthening from Dissenting Views from a Hut near Bin. In 1865, following Feng’s guidance, Li also had the… Read more »

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