"Feeding a bunch of spring means to support two poor bones". The specific meaning is that feeding a bunch of spring means that a person must be full of vitality, and supporting two poor bones means that a person must have backbone.

This is a couplet written by Zeng Guofan when he was 48 years old to encourage himself. No matter what situation you are in, be as full of vitality as spring and work hard. No matter what hardships you encounter, you maintain your integrity.

This couplet comes from Zeng Guofan's "The Third Jue of Perseverance". The original text is: "Discussing current affairs for a while, I said that we should stand up and support with all our strength. I can't sleep at midnight, because I wrote a couplet that says : 'Feeding a bunch of spring means supporting two poor bones', using self-policy."

Extended information:

Zeng Guofan's military thought has influenced several generations. Not to mention that his contemporary Hunan and Huai generals took Zeng Guofan as a model, but later bourgeois military strategists such as Huang Xing and Cai E also highly praised Zeng Guofan's military strategy. Zhang Zhidong, Yuan Shikai, etc. adopted Western methods after the Sino-Japanese War When organizing and training the new army, many of Zeng Guofan's military methods were adopted.

In his "On National Defense", Jiang Fangzhen, a military strategist of the Republic of China, praised Zeng Guofan as "a military genius" in modern history, and also said that all military leaders should imitate Zeng Guofan.