Tseng Hsi-sheng was trained at Whampoa and has been a Communist Party member since the mid-1920,s. He participated in a number of keynote events of the Communist movement, including the Long March, and served in the New Fourth Army during the Sino-Japanese War.
Nothing is known of his early life until he attended Whampoa, the well-known Nationalist military academy in Canton. He was in Canton, and probably at Whampoa, in 1925 when he joined the CCP.
About the time that the Northern Expedition began in the summer of 1926 Tseng joined the Second Division of the Eighth (Nationalist) Army. The division was commanded by the Hunan military leader Ho Chien, on whose staff Tseng rose to the rank of political instructor at the regimental level. However, he was forced to leave this position in the summer of 1927 when the Nationalists broke relations with the Communists. He then became a Red guerrilla fighter on the Kiangsi-Anhwei border. In this area he very probably made connections with other Red guerrilla forces organized in the late 1920’s by Fang Chih-min who was operating along the border of northeast Kiangsi. From northeast Kiangsi Tseng was driven south and eventually he joined the headquarters of Mao Tse-tung and Chu Te at Juichin, south Kiangsi. Here, about 1930 he was identified as a member of the Central Revolutionary Military Council. He seems to have been a bureau chief of the Council, possibly concerned with intelligence, because in the following year he was reported to be engaged in intelligence work on the Kiangsi-Hunan border. Tseng took part in the Long March (1934-35), following Mao Tse-tung and his officers across eleven provinces on the march from Kiangsi to the northwest.
Tseng was transferred to east-central China sometime after the Sino-Japanese War opened in the summer of 1937. Early in 1938 the Communists put an army into operation in the Yangtze Valley the New Fourth Army commanded by General Yeh T’ing. Tseng was reported to be assigned to intelligence with the New Fourth Army soon after its creation. In January 1941 some of its units came into conflict with Nationalist troops that attacked the Communists while the latter were moving north from south Anhwei to cross the Yangtze (the New Fourth Army Incident, see under Yeh Ting). The survivors of this incident, plus those troops that had successfully established themselves in areas north of the river, were reorganized in February 1941. Because Yeh T'ing had been taken prisoner during the incident, Ch’en I was made the acting commander of the reorganized New Fourth Army. Tseng was given a responsible position as political commissar of the Seventh Division, commanded by Chang Ting-ch'eng. The latter had been with the New Fourth Army unit from which the Seventh Division was created, it is possible that some of the experiences described in his biography were shared by Tseng.
In 1949, as the Communists were sweeping the mainland, they began to form their politico- military organizations, following for the most part the normal provincial boundaries of China. An exception was made in Anhwei where it was divided into northern and southern regions. Based in the north, with the capital at Hofei, Tseng was the top Communist official in this area from 1949 to 1952. During these years he was the ranking secretary of the North Anhwei Party Committee and the commander of the North Anhwei Military District. Under the civil government structure, known as the North Anhwei People's Administrative Office, he served as a member from 1950 to 1952. Anhwei was subordinate to the multi-provincial organization known as the East China Military and Administrative Committee (ECMAC) from its formal inauguration in January 1950 until it was reorganized into the East China Administrative Committee in December 1952. The EC AC remained in existence until 1954, with Tseng having served as a member of the ECMAC-ECAC during the 1950-1954 period.
In August 1952, North and South Anhwei were merged to form the traditional province of Anhwei. This, of course, required the complete reorganization of the military, governmental, and Party bureaucracies in Anhwei. Tseng received most of the major appointments, and until about 1961 was to remain the dominant figure in Anhwei. He became the provincial governor at the time of the merger, as well as the ranking Party secretary (the designation changing to first secretary in 1956). Within the military structure, he was the political commissar for the provincial military district by early 1953. Finally, although far less important, he was named to the chairmanship of the First Anhwei Committee of the quasi-legislative CPPCC in February 1955 and was then re-elected to the Second Committee in November 1958. In March 1955 he relinquished the governorship of the province to Huang Yen, but at this same time he was elected to membership on the Provincial People's Government Council, a post to which he was re-elected in November 1958.
In 1954 Tseng was elected a deputy from Anhwei to the First NPC, he also served from this province in the Second NPC (1959-1964). At the first session of the First NPC (September 1954), when the constitutional government was inaugurated, Tseng served as a member of the Motions Examination Committee under the chairmanship of Hsi Chung-hsun. However, the high point in his career occurred in September 1956 at the Eighth National Party Congress. Tseng spoke before the congress on affairs in Anhwei and at the close of the sessions was elected a full member of the Party Central Committee. Although he was placed 96th on a list of 97 members, his election was nonetheless significant because he was one of only 33 of the 97 members who had not been a member of the Seventh Central Committee elected in 1945.
Back in Anhwei, Tseng was apparently rather active in the provincial activities carried out under the auspices of the nationwide cheng-feng (rectification) movement of 1957-58. He became the head of an office for “rectification work” under the Anhwei Party Committee in May 1957, and in the same month gave a speech on the subject before the provincial Party committee. He seemed to be even more active during the Great Leap Forward, which was inaugurated with the Second Five-Year Plan in 1958. During the period from 1958 to 1960, he authored several articles with the unmistakably ebullient tone of so many pieces written during the Great Leap. Articles by Tseng on water conservancy, the famous “backyard (steel) furnaces,” “rightists,” and the people's communes appeared in the following important publications: the JMJP (March 24, 1958, March 3, 1959, October 21, 1959, June 16, 1960, July 6, 1960) and Hung-ch'i (Red flag, June 16, 1958, March 16, 1959, June 16, 1959). During this same period from 1958 to 1960. Tseng served as host to four of China’s top leaders who visited Anhwei: Mao Tse-tung, Chou En-lai, Teng Hsiao-p'ing, and Tung Pi-wu. Already the top man in Anhwei, he assumed still another post in 1958 when he became president of Anhwei University, a new school opened in October 1958.
In mid 1940's Tseng apparently did not play a prominent role in the expanding Communist movement and he did not begin to emerge as an important Party leader until 1949 after the Communists had gained control of the mainland. However, he did remain with Ch'en army, continuing his work as a political officer. After the end of the war he was identified as the director of the Political Department of the East China Military Region, the military zone in the coastal provinces of Shantung and Kiangsu where the Ch’en I army was in control. He was with this army in 1947 and according to one source was an important officer in the 11th Division of the Seventh Column of Ch’en’s East China PLA. The latter, re-named the Third Field Army by early 1949, was one of the best postwar Communist armies.
