money as the fundamental thing."[1] Nor were these empty platitudes. Tsêng bears a reputation in the land as having been singularly upright in financial matters. He was also careful not to permit petty graft on the part of his family. On one occasion when his second son was going from Changsha to his father's yamen in Anking (1863), Tsêng wrote warning him not to fly the commander-in-chief's flag and not to burden the officials along the way, who might otherwise feel constrained to spend time and money in his entertainment. Tsêng had no desire to place himself under obligations for courtesies rendered to a member of his family who was not travelling on public business, nor permit the use of his high rank for personal gain.[2]
This feeling of independence and honesty is shown in another way in letters home and to other officials, which in a land of circumlocution are at times almost blunt in their plain speaking, though always punctilious in courteous language. His memorials and letters to superior officials in the capital are perhaps more elegantly worded, but are seldom the wielding of an "empty pen." In the instances where his opinion and those of Li Hung-chang and Tso Tsung-tang were sought regarding the use of foreign soldiery, there is great contrast in the replies. While his associates produce the impression of trying not to commit themselves too much in either direction Tsêng writes plainly and frankly.[3] He had great contempt for the habit many officials had of falsification in their reports of victories or defeats, as shown in the affair where Wang Hsin and Tso Tsung-tang inserted a false report of victory into a dispatch to Peking in 1854.[4]
