page_title: Zuo Zongtang
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Zuo Zongtang / Legacy
context_page_description: Zuo Zongtang, Marquis Kejing, sometimes referred to as General Tso, was a Chinese statesman and military leader of the late Qing dynasty.
  Born in Xiangyin County, Hunan Province, Zuo sat for the imperial examination in his youth but obtained only a juren degree. He then spent his time studying agriculture, geography and military strategy. In 1851, he started his career in the Qing military by participating in the campaign against the Taiping Rebellion. In 1862, he was recommended by Zeng Guofan to serve as the provincial governor of Zhejiang Province. During his term, he coordinated Qing forces to attack the Taiping rebels with support from British and French forces. For this success, he was promoted to Viceroy of Min-Zhe. After capturing Hangzhou from the Taiping rebels in 1864, he was enfeoffed as a first class count. In 1866, as part of the Qing government's Self-Strengthening Movement, Zuo oversaw the construction of the Fuzhou Arsenal and naval academy. That same year, he was reassigned to serve as the Viceroy of Shaan-Gan, where he oversaw industrialisation in Gansu Province. In 1867, he was appointed as an Imperial Commissioner in charge of military affairs in Gansu.
context_section_description: Zuo was admired by many generals who came after him. During the Republican era, the Kuomintang general Bai Chongxi wanted to reconquer Xinjiang for the Nationalist government, in Zuo's style, and expelled Russian influence from the area. Zuo was also referred to by Kuomintang general Ma Zhongying (a descendant of a Salar noble) as one of his models, as Ma led the National Revolutionary Army's 36th Division to reconquer Xinjiang for the Nationalist government from the pro-Soviet governor Jin Shuren during the Kumul Rebellion.
  While Zuo is best known for his military acumen, he believed that the key to peace and stability lay in an educated, prosperous citizenry. He sometimes referred to himself by his art name, "peasant from Xiang", and was keenly interested in agriculture. He advocated the scientific reform of commercial agriculture both as a way to strengthen China's economic self-suffiency and also as a way to manage civilian populations by improving their standard of living and controlling the kinds of crops they grew. During the 12 years he spent in northwestern China, he undertook extensive agricultural research on different crops and methods. Comparing the benefits and indications of two ancient agricultural methods, the more established long field, crop rotation method (代田法) and the less common intensive, small-field method (區田法), Zuo believed that the latter method, cultivating small fields of densely-planted monocultures, was more suitable to the dry, extreme climate of the northwest region. To promote this method, he authored two pamphlets explaining the method which were then distributed freely to local farming communities. Zuo also recognised the threat of opium to the nation's stability and economic health and advocated replacing opium poppies with cotton as the major cash crop in Gansu and Shaanxi provinces. He authorised the large scale distribution of cotton seeds and published pamphlets on its cultivation and processing. In 1878, he also oversaw the establishment of a large weaving factory in present-day Mulan County, Gansu Province, with the aim of creating a new textile industry in the region and providing socially-acceptable employment to women.
  In addition to managing the peasantry by improving their economic circumstances, Zuo also believed that increasing access to traditional Chinese philosophy would help to pacify areas experiencing unrest and ultimately create a more contented and unified populace. To this end, Zuo set up an printing press in northwestern China which printed Chinese classics, as well as agricultural pamphlets. When Zuo first arrived in the region, a decade of constant warfare had virtually stopped all publishing in the region. Zuo prioritised reestablishing the printing industry a priority and thousands of copies of the publications he authorised were distributed in Ningxia, Qinghai, Gansu, Shaanxi and Xinjiang. Printing appears to have stopped when Zuo returned to Beijing, but the endeavour is credited with inspiring later printing presses.
caption: Portrait of Zuo Zongtang, by Piassetsky, 1875
exif: {"Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "44", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4583"}