140 years ago today, on September 5, 1885 (July 27, 1885, the lunar calendar), Zuo Zongtang died of illness in Fuzhou. Zuo Zongtang statue On September 5, 1885, Zuo Zongtang died of illness in Fuzhou. Zuo Zongtang (November 10, 1812-September 5, 1885) was a native of Xiangyin, Hunan. Mid-term at the age of 20. When he has little ambition, he often thinks that "I don't have half an acre, but I worry about the world; After reading thousands of volumes, God made friends with the ancients." Zuo Zongtang experienced two Opium Wars, the Taiping Rebellion Movement, the Westernization Movement, the Border Crisis and the Sino-French War in his life. This was the historical period when China's semi-colonial and semi-feudal society began to take shape and further deepened. The main activities of his life are as follows: 1. Suppression of the Taiping Rebellion, the Western Nian Army and the Northwest Hui Uprising. 2. Handle foreign affairs. Although the fundamental purpose of Zuo Zongtang's Westernization was to maintain the rule of the landlord class, his focus was on resisting foreign aggression. This is consistent with Li Hongzhang's stance of blindly coaxing foreigners and compromising and surrendering. At the same time, he praised the Western capitalist management method of "listening to business and collecting taxes", and put forward the proposition that "competing with the people for benefits is better than teaching the people to promote benefits in order to gain benefits", demonstrating his ideological awareness of developing the national economy. 3. From 1875 to 1878, troops were sent to Xinjiang to defeat the Aqubai invading army supported by Britain and Russia, and recovered all parts of the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains except Ili. In 1880, in order to support Zeng Jize in Russia's negotiations to recover Ili, Zuo Zongtang passed out of the country at the age of 69 and vowed to fight Tsarist Russia to the death. His spirit and actions were extremely touching. During the Sino-French War, whether they were supervising Zhejiang's military affairs or Fujian's military affairs, they all vigorously fought against aggression. 4. Zuo Zongtang is an outstanding politician. During his five years in Xinjiang, Zuo Zongtang not only proposed that provinces and prefectures and counties must be established in Xinjiang to abolish the military government system, but also attached great importance to rectifying officials and developing production while commanding the military. Such as: building water conservancy, building castles, clearing farmland, clearing acres of land, correcting taxes, unifying currency, improving sericulture, building separate schools, afforestation, etc. Zuo has made important contributions to consolidating the northwest border defense, building Xinjiang, and the further development of a multi-ethnic country that is conducive to the reunification of our country. A poem praised by posterity: "The generals have not yet returned from the expedition. The children of Huxiang are all over the mountains, planting new willows for three thousand miles, winning the spring breeze and crossing Yuguan."