Zuo Zongtang and Zeng Guofan were both famous ministers of the late Qing Dynasty. The friendship between them was once closer than that of brothers. However, they later completely fell out. Why? They were Hunanese, their characters were respected by scholars, but their personalities were very different. Zeng Guofan obviously had a better temper. He was always good at recruiting talents and promoted quite a number of people; Zuo Zongtang failed several imperial examinations, but Zeng Guofan saw his talent and hired him as an official advisor. Later, he gave Zuo Zongtang the power to lead troops and trusted him a lot. Zuo Zongtang's personality hated evil like an enemy. He spoke very directly. To put it nicely, he was decisive. But to put it badly, he was easily excited, sensitive and a bit poisonous. Many of his criticisms were "directed at the matter rather than the person". However, some criticisms about Zeng Guofan were passed on to Zeng Guofan by some intentional people. Of course, Zeng Guofan thought that Zuo Zongtang was ungrateful. During the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom campaign, Zeng Guofan reported to the Emperor that Hong Xiuquan's son had died in the palace; but based on justice, Zuo Zongtang submitted another memorial saying that what Zeng Guofan said was not true and Hong Xiuquan's son had escaped. Perhaps Zuo Zongtang told the truth, but the meaning behind his truth was: Zeng Guofan deceived the Emperor! Therefore, they broke up! Zuo Zongtang still thought until his death that Zeng Guofan was 70-80% wrong for their breakup and cursed Zeng Guofan when he met people. This was Zuo Zongtang's nature. Anyway, he was straightforward. However, from Zeng Guofan's point of view, of course, he was very unhappy. Zuo Zongtang was promoted by him, but showed no gratitude at all! Until their deaths, the knot in their hearts was not untied. There was nothing wrong with Zuo Zongtang's character. The problem lay in his personality. Zeng Guofan's character might not be as upright as Zuo Zongtang's, but he had fewer problems with his personality. Therefore, Zeng Guofan had a group of disciples helping him, and his influence gradually increased. On the other hand, Zuo Zongtang was always a lonely fighter due to too many enemies, which made it difficult for him to gain trust and hard for him to advance further.