the hope of having better coöperation among the members at home, he placed the direction of household affairs under Kuo-hwang, telling him that the elders had established good family customs which he must perpetuate for later generations.[1] Such literal assumption of the elder brother's right to control was not at all acceptable to the junior members. On a number of occasions Tsêng and his brothers were involved in misunderstandings and even quarrels, due in some measure to his plain speaking. In the case of Tsêng Kuo-ch'üan these strained relations were so frequent that one suspects that they never could understand each other.
While the younger man was a student in his brother's house at Peking in 1841, a quarrel arose which was finally settled only when the father wrote to Kuo-ch'üan calling him back to his duty.[2] The following year Kuo-ch'üan insisted on returning to Hunan, and after reaching home he addressed a letter to his brother complaining of his severity, to which Tsêng replied, pointing out at length the duties of an elder brother and showing why he was severe towards his juniors.[3] In 1844 Kuo-fan complains that while his instructions and advice are followed by people all around him, the brothers alone refuse to profit by them.[4] When Tsêng was in Changsha in 1854, he had a violent disagreement with Kuo-hwang, who had arrived at the camp and added greatly to the difficulties of that humiliating period. Tsêng wrote home that hereafter none of the brothers were to come to the camp but must remain at home and attend to their duties there.[5] It was probably this letter that caused Kuo-ch'üan to feel that his elder brother had blocked his way to advancement. In
