Think: Starbucks doesn't sell coffee.

If you think Louis Vuitton sells women's handbags, Giordano sells casual clothes, Esprit sells mid-range fashion, Starbucks sells coffee, and Peking University sells academics. That would be wrong.

Zeng Guofan, the most respected Neo-Confucianism master in modern China, when he organized the Hunan Army to sweep the Taiping Army, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was like the water that broke the dike, and soon cleaned up the southeast half of the wall. The reform of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is not only to overthrow the Qing Dynasty, but also to destroy Chinese traditional culture and Confucian ethics. When Zeng Guofan founded the Hunan Army, there was no land without size and no trickle-down source of rates. "if you don't work hard, you can't get it. If you don't work hard, you can't fight." The Qing government mobilized almost all its regular troops to suppress the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in order to suppress the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom uprising. The Qing government ordered the local officials and gentry in the northern and southern provinces to hold group training to win the support of the Han landlords and gentry and asked them to organize regimental training by virtue of their feudal forces in their hometown to suppress the Taiping army. At the beginning of 1853, Emperor Xianfeng appointed 43 regiment ministers in Hunan, Anhui, Jiangsu and other provinces.)

In the face of competition, Boss Zeng did not play the banner of supporting the Qing government, but at a higher level packaged the war against the Taiping Army as a war to protect the cultural traditions inherent in China for thousands of years. Elevate this war to a battle to defend cultural identity. "(Taiping Army) farmers cannot earn their own taxes, saying that the fields are all the fields of God; merchants cannot take interest from Jia, saying that goods are the goods of God; scholars cannot recite the scriptures of Confucius, but not Jesus, the Book of the New Testament. To cite the rules of Chinese poetry books on etiquette and righteousness and human relations for thousands of years, once the floor is swept away, it is not only the change of the Qing Dynasty, but also the strange change of the famous religion since it was founded. I, Confucius and Mencius, cried bitterly in Jiuquan. How could those who read and read sit and watch without thinking about what to do? "the promotion, at least at that time, made the Hunan army in an invincible position in spirit. Not only holding such a banner, Zeng Guofan directly took the Confucian traditional culture as the spiritual pillar of the Hunan Army. He attached great importance to the ideological quality of the army and would rather use scholars than ruffians. The Hunan Army represents the lively Han landlord class and is the embodiment and defender of Chinese traditional culture, which is endowed with strong vitality. Mobilize the support of intellectuals and landlords and finally break the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. So that the Chinese traditional culture continued for half a century, but also so that the Qing Dynasty can continue. (in fact, Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang, like Hong Xiuquan, tried to find a way to change Chinese tradition and find a reform to save the country.)

Louis Vuitton is the largest, most profitable and most profitable luxury brand in the world, with turnover almost double that of Pr ada, which ranks second and Gucci, which ranks third. The handbag maker, which started as a manufacturer of ship suitcases since Napoleon III, is no longer selling women's handbags, but a "Style, Sta-tus, unfulfilled dreams" (style, fashion, social status, unfulfilled dream). A LV handbag costs at least one to two times or more than other brands of handbags. But women are proud of having a LV handbag, Louis Vuitton makes his buyers feel that buying a LV handbag is as if your status is the same as the price you pay, much higher than other people / brands, and only LV handbags can make you feel like the aristocracy of your dreams.

Starbucks does not sell coffee, it is a taste of life, Giordano sells a leisure culture, Esprit sells the taste of middle-class life, and Peking University sells hopes and dreams.

The strategy of the brand is often higher than the actual function of the product, and so is Zeng Guofan. His life-and-death struggle with Hong Xiuquan worked hard for the Qing Dynasty, but in fact he packaged his actions with a cultural war. As a result, he survived a great upheaval in Chinese culture.