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Zuo's career got an inauspicious start when as a young man he flunked the official court exams three times. All but giving up on public life, Zuo returned to his home by the River Hsiang in Hunan and resigned himself to a quiet life farming silkworms and tea.
When the Taiping Rebellion broke out in 1850, Zuo, then 38 years old, was hired as an adviser to the governor of Hunan. In 1860, Zuo was given command of a force of 5,000 volunteers, and in September of that year he drove the Taiping rebels out of Hunan and Guangxi provinces, into coastal Zhejiang. Zuo captured the large city of Shaoxing, and from there pushed south into Fujian and GuangdongGuangdong ( Traditional: , Simplified Chinese: , pinyin: Guangdong , Kwangtung in older transliteration and Kuang-tung in Wade-Giles), is a province on the south coast of the People's Republic of China. Together, Guangdong and neighboring Guangxi are call provinces, where the revolt had first begun. In August of 1864 Zuo dethroned the Taiping king, Hong TianguifuBorn to Hong Xiuquan and Lai-shi , Hong Tianguifu ( in pinyin: hong2 tian1 fu2 gui4) ( 1948 1964), also called Hong Tiangui and in Qing historical record, Hong Futian ( fu2 tian4), was the second and last king of the Heavenly Kingdom of Taiping. He is pop, and brought an end to the rebellion.
Zuo's successes would continue. He succeeded in putting down another uprising, the Nian Rebellion (捻軍起義) in 1868, and subsequently marched west, winning many victories against the Muslims of Chinese TurkestanXinjiang (; Pinyin: Xinjing; Postal Pinyin: Sinkiang; Wade-Giles: Hsin-chiang; literal meaning: "New Frontier") Uighur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China, sometimes known as Chinese Turkestan or Eastern Turkestan Turkestan also spelt Turk in the 1870s.
The Tso in General Tso is often mispronounced "Cho". This confusion arises because "Ts'" in Postal Pinyin is pronounced as "Ch". However, Tso here is being romanized in the Wade-Giles system and is pronounced somewhat like "Dzwaw" (rhymes with awe)