Along with other prominent figures such as Zuo Zongtang and Li Hongzhang of his time, Zeng set the scene for the Tongzhi Restoration, an attempt to arrest the decline of the Qing dynasty.

[3] Zeng was known for his strategic perception, administrative skill and noble personality on Confucian practice, but also for his ruthlessness in repressing rebellions.

When holding the office of Military Examiner (1851), he was compelled by the death of his mother to return to Hunan Province to carry out filial mourning, which is supposed to last three years.

By a special decree, Zeng was ordered to assist the provincial governor in raising a volunteer force, and, on his own initiative, he built a fleet of war junks and multiple arsenals, with which he attacked the rebels.

Following up these victories of his subordinates, Zeng recaptured Wuchang and Hanyang, near Hankou, and was rewarded for his success by being appointed vice-president of the Board of War.

In June 1860, he was appointed Viceroy of Liangjiang (covering Jiangxi, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces) and Imperial Commissioner, overseeing military affairs.

Like all true leaders of men, Zeng knew how to reward good service,[citation needed] and when occasion offered he appointed the former to the governorship of Zhejiang and the latter to that of Jiangsu.

At this time, the Qing imperial forces, assisted by the Ever Victorious Army, had checked the progress of the Taiping Rebellion, and Zeng was able to carry out a scheme which he had long formulated of besieging Tianjing, the rebel capital.

In July 1864, Tianjing fell into Zeng's hands, and he was rewarded with the noble peerage "First Class Marquis Yiyong" (一等毅勇侯) and the right to wear the double-eyed peacock's feather.

Zeng called Hakka females "big foot hillbilly witches" during the Taiping Rebellion after encountering them for the first time.

[10] Unlike his contemporaries, who had multiple wives or kept concubines, Zeng was officially married only once, to a woman of the Ouyang family when he was in his late teens.

His eldest son, Zeng Jize, who inherited his noble peerage "First Class Marquis Yiyong", went on to become a famous diplomat in the late Qing dynasty.

Much Chinese language historiography, including numerous biographies, has questioned what made him fight for an essentially foreign dynasty.