Empress Dowager Cixi often cleans up Prince Gong.

The first time was in 1865. Cai Shouqi, edited by imperial academy, wrote a paper pointing out that Prince Yixin was greedy for ink, arrogant, powerful and selfish, and said, "I foolishly thought that if the political king led himself at this time, he would return to the court and retire to the official residence. Please don't choose anyone to discuss politics. Only when you are more mature and become a psychological counselor can you preserve your reputation. Empress Dowager Cixi dismissed all her posts, including the deliberation king, on the grounds that Prince Gong did not respect the monarch.

The second time was in 1874, when Emperor Tongzhi started the plan to rebuild Yuanmingyuan, which was blocked by officials of the court such as Prince Gong. Emperor Tongzhi flew into a rage. With the support of Empress Dowager Cixi, he abolished the "hereditary" power of Prince Gong and reduced the title of prince to county king, which was equivalent to taking off his "iron hat king".

The third time was at 1884. After the outbreak of the Sino-French War, Empress Dowager Cixi took this opportunity to clean up Prince Gong again, and dismissed him from all his posts on the grounds that Prince Gong was "unwilling to follow the rules". The team members were Bao Yun, a university student in Wuyingdian, Li Hongzao, an official minister, Jing Lian, an official minister in Ministry of War, and Weng Tonghe, an official in Ministry of Industry.

After Empress Dowager Cixi cleaned up many times, Prince Gong changed from a smart king to a mediocre king, which is amazing.

It is puzzling that Empress Dowager Cixi held real power in the late Qing Dynasty, basically to the point where she could punish whoever she wanted. Even Prince Gong, who is in power in one's hand and government, can't escape from her palm. Why did she dare not touch Zeng Guofan?

1864, after the Zeng Guofan brothers captured Tianjing, the court ordered Zeng Guofan to find out the vault of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and report it to the headquarters for preparation. However, the gold, silver and jewels left by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom have already been looted by Zeng Guofan's brothers, leaving no trace. In order to explain to the court, Zeng Guofan made a report and said, "It's unheard of to take back the old nest without any goods. It's not my stupidity."

Empress Dowager Cixi was very angry, but she didn't do anything to Zeng Guofan.

1870, Ma Xinyi, governor of the two rivers, was accidentally killed by the assassin Wenxiang Zhang, who died of his injuries. This is the "Spurs Case", one of the four unsolved cases in the late Qing Dynasty. At that time, there were many discussions in the ruling and opposition parties, and many statements pointed the behind-the-scenes messengers at Zeng Guofan and Xiang Jun. Empress Dowager Cixi deliberately said to Zeng Guofan: "Isn't Ma Xinyi strange?" Zeng Guofan replied trembling: "This is very strange."

Empress Dowager Cixi kept silent and sent Zeng Guofan to hear the case. Obviously, Empress Dowager Cixi intends to minimize the case.

Empress Dowager Cixi dared not touch Zeng Guofan. The first reason, of course, is that he has A Xiang's army.

Since Zeng Guofan founded Xiang Army, he has been fighting Taiping Army 10 for more than 0 years, becoming the most powerful defender in Qing Dynasty. The Eight Banners Army, green camp and Mongolian cavalry, which had high hopes in the Qing Dynasty, were all defeated by the Taiping Army. Empress Dowager Cixi can only rely on Zeng Guofan's Xiang army to maintain her rule. Empress Dowager Cixi wanted to clean up Zeng Guofan, and the only result was the early demise of the Qing Dynasty.

Of the two evils, the Empress Dowager Cixi naturally didn't want to provoke Zeng Guofan easily.

Based on this, after Zeng Guofan's brother wiped out the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in 1864, Empress Dowager Cixi immediately took various measures to force Zeng Guofan to abolish the Xiang Army and transfer him from the Liangjiang area to become the governor of Zhili.

After that, most of Zeng Guofan's Xiang army has been abolished, and Zeng Guofan himself has been controlled in Zhili area. Can Empress Dowager Cixi still clean up Zeng Guofan at this time?

I can't. This is the second reason: Zeng Guofan's influence has spread all over the provinces, and it has formed a situation that the tail is too big to fail.

At that time, the eight viceroy and the fifteen viceroy of China were mostly Zeng Guofan's people or had close ties with Zeng Guofan. For example, the Governor of Liangjiang is Zeng Guofan's student Li Hongzhang, the Governor of Huguang is Li's brother, and the Governor of Yungui is Liu Yuezhao, a veteran of Xiang Army.

In addition, on the surface, the Governor of Gansu, Shaanxi Province was at odds with Zeng Guofan, but who knows if they sang for the court?

So Empress Dowager Cixi would rather tolerate Zeng Guofan's three points than disturb him.

References:

Draft of Qing history, etc.