He would not lightly accept favors nor was he willing to ingratiate himself with important men, even as he was careful not to put them under obligations to himself or encourage their attempts to win his favor. Such grace when granted seemed simply bait to ensnare the applicant, and if promotion should come it would leave the man with a burden that could not be discharged even by repaying tenfold the help he had received.[1]
Furthermore, he set his face against the universal practice of using official position as a means for private enrichment. In 1849 he wrote home: "Ever since I was thirty I have held that it is a disgraceful thing to use official position to gain wealth; a shameful, abominable thing to make the official purse a source of profit to leave to one's descendants. I have therefore in my mind sworn an oath never to use public office as a means of securing a fortune. ..."[2] A few years later when he held a position where he might easily have secured large amounts by well-recognised means of corruption, and his brother Kuo-hwang had drawn on him for 200 taels, he wrote a letter remonstrating with him. "When I was in Peking," he wrote, "I used to send money home, sometimes two hundred taels a year. Since I have led soldiers it was with great difficulty that I sent one hundred and fifty taels in the winter of 1854. In the third moon of this year Kuo-hwang drew for use two hundred taels at Li's home in Changsha. This amount I really cannot send again. Those who lead soldiers cannot escape making some gains. I am unable to prevent people from taking something, but I try not to take any [profit] myself and thus encourage the growth of the practice."[3] So earnest was he on this point that he included it among his eight fundamentals of life: "In holding office regard not loving
