Teng Tzu-hui (c.1893-), early leader of the Communist movement in Fukien. He served as a political and liaison officer during the Sino-Japanese war and the war with the Nationalists. In 1949-52 he dominated the party's Central-South bureau. He then became director of the Central Committee's rural work department, and he held such posts at Peking as deputy director of the State Council. Little is known about Teng Tzu-hui's family background or early years. Available sources state that he was born into a merchant family in Lungyen, Fukien; that he studied for a year in Japan after graduation from an army middle school about 1916; and that in 1925 he joined the Kuomintang and entered the Whampoa Military Academy. Teng's political career began when he joined the Chinese Communist party about 1926. He was assigned to work in his native province. By about 1928 he and such other Communists as Chang Ting-ch'eng had established a base in western Fukien with headquarters at Lungyen. He continued to work in this area for three more years, establishing a soviet government which encompassed eight hsien, with himself as its chairman. During this period, he and his associates established contact with MaoTse-tungand ChuTeh (qq.v.), whose guerrilla forces were carving out a territorial base in southeastern Kiangsi. When the central soviet government was established at Juichin in November 1931, Teng became a member of its executive council and director of its finance department.

Teng Tzu-hui did not take part in the Long March of 1934-35. He remained behind in Kiangsi to continue guerrilla activities. By early 1935 Nationalist military pressure had forced the Communist guerrillas to retreat from Kiangsi into Fukien. In February 1935 Teng's group was intercepted by Nationalist forces near Ch'angting. Ch'ü Ch'iu-pai (q.v.) and several others were captured, but Teng managed to escape. He later joined forces with Chang Ting-ch'eng, and they established a new Communist base in Fukien. Chang served as chairman of the Fukien soviet government, with Teng as vice chairman and director of the finance department and with T'an Chen-lin (q.v.) as vice chairman and director of the military department. In October 1936 the Communist guerrilla troops in Fukien were divided into two columns, with Teng Tzu-hui directing the 1st column.

When the Sino-Japanese war began in July 1937, the Communists in southwest Fukien renamed their forces the Anti-Japanese People's Volunteers and made informal arrangements with the Nationalist authorities in the province to suspend domestic hostilities. When the New Fourth Army was established in January 1938 to organize the scattered guerrilla troops in central and east China for anti-Japanese operations, Yeh T'ing (q.v.) designated Teng Tzu-hui's forces the 2nd column of the New Fourth Army. Some of these troops were moved to southern Anhwei and southern Kiangsu. After the so-called New Fourth Army Incident of January 1941 (see Yeh T'ing; HsiangYing), the remnants of the army were reorganized. Ch'en Yi became acting commander, with Liu Shao-ch'i (q.v.) as political commissar and Teng Tzu-hui as deputy director of the political department. The New Fourth Army was expanded gradually to include seven regular divisions, and Teng continued to serve as a senior political officer of these forces during the remaining years of the Sino-Japanese War. His achievements during this period were recognized at the Seventh National Congress of the Chinese Communist party in 1945, when he was elected to the Central Committee. At war's end, Teng Tzu-hui played an important liaison role among the Communist military commanders who were responsible for the extension of Communist control after the Japanese surrender. In the autumn of 1946 he was appointed political commissar of the Communist forces in the Shansi-Hopei-Shantung-Honan Border Liberated Area, then commanded by Liu Po-ch'eng (q.v.). Teng also assumed responsibility for liaison between Ch'en Yi and Liu Po-ch'eng, in which capacity he helped coordinate Communist military movements in the rural areas north of the Yangtze in 1947-48. Late in 1948 the principal Communist forces on the mainland were redesignated: the units under P'eng Te-huai (q.v.) became the First Field Army; those under Liu Po-ch'eng, the Second Field Army; those under Ch'en Yi, the Third Field Army; and those under Lin Piao (q.v.), the Fourth Field Army. Lin Piao's troops moved from Manchuria into north China proper, occupied Tientsin and Peiping, and continued southward. At this point, Teng Tzu-hui was assigned to liaison duties between Liu Po-ch'eng and Lin Piao to ensure that the Second Field Army would provide maximum support to the Fourth Field Army in the drive along the Peiping-Hankow railway line to Wuhan. Teng Tzu-hui thus became a deputy political commissar in the Fourth Field Army. When the Fourth Field Army continued its drive southward after occupying Hankow in mid- 1949, Teng Tzu-hui remained behind to help guide the consolidation of Communist control in central China. For about three years (1949-52), he dominated the Chinese Communist party's Central-South bureau. Lin Piao and Lo Jung-huan (q.v.), though senior to Teng in the regional hierarchy, were absent from Wuhan for most of this period. Teng also served as a vice chairman of the Central-South Military and Administrative Committee, in which capacity he produced long, and authoritative policy statements on economic and political affairs. At the national level, he was a member of the Central People's Government Council and the People's Revolutionary Military Council. Teng Tzu-hui moved to Peking late in 1952 to become a vice chairman of the financialeconomic committee of the Government Administration Council and a vice chairman of the State Planning Commission. In 1952 he was made director of the rural work department of the party Central Committee. With the reorganization of the Central People's Government in 1954, he became a vice premier of the State Council and director of that body's staff office in charge of agriculture and water conservation. In the spring of 1955 he made his first trip outside China as head of the Chinese delegation to the tenth anniversary celebrations of Hungary's Communist regime. He was appointed director of the central famine relief committee in July 1957, and he became director of the State Council's office of agriculture and forestry in September 1959. Three years later, he was removed from the latter office to become deputy director of the State Council. In December 1964 Teng was elected to membership in the Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Throughout this period, he retained his position as head of the rural work department. Teng Yen-ta T. Tse-sheng