Feng Tzu-yu (1881-6 April 1958), an early associate of Sun Yat-sen who was prominent in the Hsing-Chung-hui and the T'ung-meng-hui. After the 1924 Kuomintang reorganization, his active political career ended. He later wrote a number of historical works about the revolutionary movement. A native of Nanhai (Namhoi), Kwangtung, Feng Tzu-yu was born in Japan, where his father, Feng Ching-ju, operated a stationery and printing business. Feng Ching-ju had been born in Hong Kong, and it appears that while residing in the British colony the family had taken the name Kingsell. Thus, the company in Yokohama was known as the Kingsell Company. It dealt in imported stationery, as well as job printing and the printing of books, and the family enjoyed considerable prestige in the growing Chinese community in Yokohama. The family first came into contact with anti- Manchu political activities when Sun Yat-sen, after founding theu Hsing-Chung-hui in Honolulu, passed through Japan in the winter of 1894-95, distributed copies of the new organization's regulations, and enjoined patriotic Chinese to form a branch in Japan. The following year. Sun Yat-sen was again in Japan, and his contact with Feng's family led to the founding of a small branch of the Hsing-Chunghui in Yokohama. Feng Ching-ju was elected head of the branch organization. His 14-yearold son, Feng Tzu-yu (then known as Feng Mou-lung), was enlisted as its youngest member. In the years following the establishment of the Hsing-Chung-hui, there was considerable controversy within the Chinese community in Japan between those who supported Sun Yat-sen's political views and those who favored the ideas of K'ang Yu-wei and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao (qq.v.). Feng Ching-ju stood aloof from these conflicts. The young Feng Tzu-yu, however, was influenced by the anti-Manchu historical tracts secretly printed and circulated by the Hsing- Chung-hui, and he became an increasingly firm supporter of the objectives of that organization. Feng enrolled at Waseda University in Tokyo in 1900, the year of the Boxer Uprising in China. In the next few years, he became increasingly involved in patriotic activities carried on by Chinese students in Japan. In 1901, in association with Wang Ch'ung-hui (q.v.) and others, Feng helped to found the Kwangtung Independence Association, a group formed to oppose the extension of French influence in their native province. A year later, in collaboration with several other Chinese, including Chang Ping-lin (q.v.) and Ma Chün-wu, he helped to plan a ceremonial meeting to commemorate the death of the last emperor of the Ming dynasty. The interference of the Japanese police prevented them from holding the meeting in Tokyo, but they later held it in Yokohama. Feng also turned his attention to the dissemination of propaganda for Sun Yat-sen's programs and policies. He founded the Kuo-min-pao [citizens' newspaper] in 1901 and in 1903 became the Tokyo correspondent of the Chung-kuo jih-pao [China daily] of Hong Kong (the organ of the Hsing-Chung-hui) and of the Ta-t'ung jih-pao [Ta-t'ung daily] of San Francisco.

When the T'ung-meng-hui was inaugurated in Tokyo in the autumn of 1905, Feng Tzu-yu was only about 25. However, he had been a member of the Hsing-Chung-hui and had known Sun Yat-sen for a decade. Because he was a Cantonese with family connections in both Hong Kong and Japan, it was decided that he should be sent to direct the organization's affairs in the Hong Kong-Canton-Macao area. He arrived in Hong Kong late in 1905. Headquarters were set up at the office of the Chung-kuo jih-pao, then edited by Ch'en Shao-pai, and Feng devoted his attention to both organization and propaganda activities. A year later he was appointed Hong Kong director of the T'ung-meng-hui and director of the Chung-kuo jih-pao. This was a period during which anti-Manchu uprisings suffered repeated failures, and Feng was able to continue operations only because of his great persistence. In 1910 Feng left Hong Kong to become editor of the Ta-hanjih-pao [great Chinese daily] in Vancouver, British Columbia. The succession of unsuccessful attempts to overthrow the Manchu government in China posed serious financial problems for Sun Yat-sen, and Feng hoped to obtain financial aid for Sun from the overseas Chinese communities in Canada. In the summer of 191 1 Sun, who was in the United States on a fund-raising campaign, requested that Feng move to San Francisco to edit the Ta-furig jih-pao and to secure the cooperation of the Chih-kung-tang, a secret society which, like the T'ung-meng-hui, had been founded with the purpose of overthrowing Manchu rule. The Chih-kung-tang had supported the cause of constitutional monarchy advocated by K'ang Yu-wei. Whether the Chih-kung-tang, which had substantial strength among Chinese in the San Francisco area, would continue to support the constitutional monarchists or would support Sun Yat-sen became a major issue among overseas Chinese, particularly in North America. In October 1911 the successful revolt at Wuchang brought an abrupt change in the Chinese political scene, and Feng was chosen to help organize the new government at Nanking. Arriving in Shanghai shortly before the end of 1911, Feng brought the records of overseas contributions to the revolutionary cause as well as unused gold script issued by the fund-raising organization. These were presented to Sun Yat-sen as leader of the T'ung-meng-hui. After his election as provisional president of China, Sun Yat-sen made Feng his confidential secretary, and Feng remained in Nanking as long as Sun held the presidency.

After Yuan Shih-k'ai became provisional president, Feng Tzu-yu was appointed director of a newly created organ, the (Ko-ming) Chihsün-chü, or Office for Investigation of (Revolutionary) Merits. This relatively unimportant position, the only official governmental post Feng ever held, was established especially for him because of his broad knowledge of the various anti-Manchu revolutionary operations prior to the Wuchang uprising of 1911. Feng held office for a little more than a year. After the outbreak of the so-called second revolution in 1913, he had to flee from Peking. Following the organization of the Chung-hua ko-ming-tang in 1914, Sun Yat-sen appointed Feng Tzu-yu to take charge of party affairs in the United States. Feng went to San Francisco and published the Min-kuo tsa-chih [republican magazine], which functioned as a party organ. In 1917 he was elected to the Senate in Peking as a representative of overseas Chinese. During the next few years, Feng appears to have gradually ceased participation in political activities. In 1923 he was appointed a reserve member of Sun Yat-sen's provisional Central Executive Committee at Canton. In that capacity, he participated in the discussions which paved the way for the reorganization of the Kuomintang the following year. He attended the First National Congress of the Kuomintang in January 1924, but was excluded from the higher councils of the party because he staunchly opposed Sun Yat-sen's policy of cooperation with the Chinese Communists. Shortly after the First National Congress of the Kuomintang, Feng, together with Teng Tse-ju (q.v.) and other dissident Kuomintang members, independently held a meeting at Canton for the purpose of drafting a resolution warning Li Ta-chao (q.v.) and other Chinese Communist members of the Kuomintang against attempting to seize control of the party. However, before the resolution was circulated, Feng and other participants of this meeting were summoned before Sun Yat-sen on charges by Liao Chung-k'ai (q.v.), Li Ta-chao, and Borodin that they had violated party discipline and had incited discord between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist party. Feng later claimed that these charges were dismissed by Sun, but the details of the case remain obscure. After the death of Sun Yat-sen, Feng, in the latter part of 1925, took a leading part in setting up the so-called Kuomintang Comrades Club in Peking. This group, according to some sources, was on friendly terms with militarists and politicians in the northern capital. On the eve of the Western Hills conference, Feng was involved in the assault on and abduction of Tai Chi-t'ao (q.v.) and Shen Ting-i, two prominent Kuomintang members who had come to Peking to attend the conference. Feng Tzu-yu earned the disfavor of the Kuomintang leadership, and he never again wielded significant influence in either party or government. Although he was appointed a member of the Legislative Yuan at Nanking in 1932 and was named to membership on the National Government Council in 1943, these positions had little political importance. In 1949, after the removal of the Nationalists to Taiwan, Feng became national policy adviser to Chiang Kai-shek, a title which he held until his death of apoplexy in the spring of 1958, at the age of 77 sui.

After the mid-1920's, Feng's interests had turned from politics to history, and he made a major contribution in the field of party history. Early in 1928 Feng began to gather together reports, correspondence, and other personal papers, as well as the recollections of his former colleagues within the party. Using these materials and relying upon his own extensive knowledge of the people and events of the pre-republican period, he began to compile a history of the revolutionary party and its activities before the revolution of 191 1 . In November 1928 the first volume was published as the Chung-hua min-kuo k'ai-kuo ch'ien ko-ming shih [history of the revolutionary movement before the founding of the republic] ; a second volume appeared two years later, and the third and final volume was published in 1944. Observing the traditional distinction in Chinese historiography between the formal history (chengshih) and the informal history (yeh-shih or i-shih), Feng planned this book as a formal history of the revolutionary party, as a supplement to which he subsequently compiled an informal history, using materials which he considered to be more intimate than official, such as personal reminiscences and anecdotes about events and personalities in the early revolutionary movement. Entitled Ko-ming i-shih [an unauthorized history of the revolution], this latter work was published in five volumes ( 1 93947). Feng was also the author of three other histories of the revolutionary movement, the Hua-ch'iao ko-ming k'ai-kuo shih [the role of overseas Chinese in the revolution and in the founding of the republic], the Chung-kuo ko-ming jün-tung erh-shih-liu nien tsu-chih shih [a history of the organization of China's revolutionary movement of twenty-six years], and the Hua-ch'iao ko-ming tsu-chih shih-hua [history of the revolutionary organization of the overseas Chinese]. These were published, respectively, in 1946, 1948, and 1954.

A versatile writer and keen observer, Feng Tzu-yu was one of the earliest Chinese revolutionaries to perceive the similarities between Sun Yat-sen's "principle of the people's livelihood" and Western socialism. In 1906 he wrote an article for the Chung-kuo jih-pao entitled "Ming-sheng chu-i ytx Chung-kuo cheng-chih ko-ming chih ch'ien-t'u" [the principle of the people's livelihood and the future of the Chinese political revolution], in which he enjoined members of the T'ung-meng-hui to devote particular attention to Sun's economic concepts, especially land nationalization and the single tax theory. This article was reprinted on 1 May 1906 in the fourth issue of the Min Pao [people's journal]. In 1920 Feng published a work entitled She-hui chu-i ju Chung-kuo [socialism and China], which purported to be a study of the various schools of socialism and of their implications for China.