Tseng Chung-ming (1 March 1896-22 March 1939), scholar and official who was a long-time associate of Wang Ching-wei (q.v.). He was killed at Hanoi in 1939 by assassins whose intended victim may well have been Wang. Born into a scholarly but impoverished family at Foochow, Tseng Chung-ming was brought up by his widowed mother and by his elder sister Tseng Hsing, who also was a widow. About 1900 Tseng Hsing accompanied her deceased husband's two younger brothers, Fang Sheng-t'ao and Fang Sheng-tung, and a younger sister, Fang Chün-ying, to Japan. They all later became members of the T'ungmeng-hui, and it was through their activities that the young Tseng Chung-ming became involved with the republican revolution and with some of its most prominent leaders. After the republic was established in 1912, Tseng Hsing and Fang Chun-ying, who had received government money to study in France, set out for Europe with Fang Chun-pi (a younger sister of Fang Chun-ying), Tseng Chung-ming, Wang Ching-wei (q.v.), and Ch'en Pi-chim (q.v.), Wang's new wife. The group settled at Paris and made ends meet by pooling the scholarship funds. Tseng Chungming enrolled at a secondary school, from which he went on to the University of Bordeaux and a B. Sc. degree. He then exchanged science for literature, and in 1921 he was awarded the degree of Docteur es Lettres by the University of Lyon. Throughout this period, he kept up his Chinese studies, working under Wang Ching-wei's direction whenever Wang was in France. And at some point, Tseng married Fang Chun-pi, who pursued a career as a painter while Tseng continued his studies. In 1921-24 Tseng served as chief secretary of the Sino-French University at Lyon, which had been organized as part of the work-study movement (see Li Shih-tseng). Early in 1925 he and his wife returned to China, where Tseng found work teaching French at Chung-shan (Sun Yat-sen) University at Canton. When the National Government was established at Canton in July 1925, Tseng was appointed a secretary in one of the new ministries. He evidently owed this appointment to Wang Ching-wei, and from this time on he followed Wang through all of his political and personal vicissitudes. In 1927 Tseng Chung-ming served as senior secretary in the Wuhan regime under Wang Ching-wei and as chief secretary of its central political council. In 1930 he again served under Wang, this time as secretary general of the socalled enlarged conference of the Kuomintang at Peiping (see Feng Yü-hsiang; Yen Hsi-shan). The next year, 1931, also saw anti-Chiang Kai-shek intrigues instigated by Wang, who joined T'ang Shao-yi, Sun Fo (qq.v.) and various members of the Kwangtung and Kwangsi military cliques in organizing a secessionist movement at Canton. The Japanese attack on Mukden in September 1931 served to unite the party, however, and Tseng followed Wang back into the fold. At the Fourth National Congress of the Kuomintang, Tseng was elected to alternate membership in the Central Executive Committee. Soon afterwards, he also became deputy secretary general of the Central Political Council.

Tseng Chung-ming assumed the post of administrative vice minister of railways, serving under Ku Meng-yü (q.v.), in 1932. He proved an able administrator, and it was under his direction that the Pukow ferry service was inaugurated at Nanking to provide a muchneeded connection between the Tientsin-Pukow and Nanking-Shanghai railways. In addition, the ministry extended the Lunghai line and completed the Canton-Hankow railway. In 1935 Tseng also served as vice minister of communications. In March 1936 Tseng Chung-ming resigned his posts to accompany Wang Ching-wei to France for treatment ofwounds which Wang had incurred when an attempt had been made on his life in 1935. When news of the Sian Incident of December 1936 (see Chiang Kai-shek; Chang Hsueh-liang) reached France, they hurriedly returned to China, where Wang resumed office as chairman of the Central Political Council, with Tseng as the council's deputy secretary general. With the outbreak of the Sino- Japanese war in July 1937, the National Government organized the Supreme National Defense Council. Tseng served on this body as senior secretary under Wang, its deputy chairman. When the National Government moved to Chungking in 1938, Tseng and Wang accompanied it. On 18 December 1938, however, Wang, Tseng, and Fang Chun-pi left Chungking for Hanoi, traveling by way of Kunming. On 28 December Wang issued his famous peace message, and he continued his efforts to secure peace with Japan. Possibly as a result of Wang's actions, in the early hours of the morning of 21 March 1939 assassins entered Wang's residence at Hanoi and shot and fatally wounded Tseng Chung-ming, as well as injuring Fang Chün-pi and three others. Tseng died the next day, 22 March 1939.

The assassination caused a sensation and much speculation in China, but the murderers were never apprehended. The most commonly held theory was that Wang was the target of the assassins and that Tseng was killed by mistake. A second explanation held that Tseng was killed as a warning to Wang to abandon his peace moves. Wang wrote a moving eulogy for his fallen colleague which appeared as the first article in Tseng Chung-ming hsien-sheng hsing-chuang [an account of the late Mr. Tseng Chung-ming], published in 1939.

Throughout his political career, Tseng Chungming was active as a writer and translator. His works in Chinese included a history of Chinese poetry and a volume entitled I-shu yü k'ohsüeh [art and science], which was published in 1930. His French translations of Chinese works ranged from a rendering of the T'ang-shih sanpai-shou [300 poems of the T'ang] to Kuomintang political tracts. After Tseng Chung-ming's death, Fang Chunpi and their children went to live in Nanking, where Fang continued to paint in the kuo-hua, or traditional, style. Typical of her production is Ch'iu-t'ing ch'en-k'o t'u [morning lesson in an autumnal courtyard], published in collotype facsimile in 1934, which depicts Wang Chingwei and his mother as they might have appeared when Wang was nine sui and accustomed to receiving instruction from his mother early in the day. After the War in the Pacific ended, Fang Chun-pi took up residence in the United States. A collection of reproductions of her paintings, Fang Chiln-pi kuo-hua chi, has been published.