Zeng Xueming

Zeng was born into a Catholic family in Guangzhou in October 1905.

She was the youngest daughter in a family of ten children, including seven girls.

Her mother's surname was Liang (梁).

Her father, a businessman from Meixian, Guangdong, named Zeng Kaihua (曾開華), died in 1915.

As the daughter of a concubine, she was expelled from her father's house when he died.

In these difficult circumstances, she was befriended by the wife of Vietnamese communist Lam Duc Thu.

Hồ arrived in Guangzhou in November 1924 on a boat from Vladivostok.

He posed as a Chinese citizen named Li Shui (Ly Thuy) and worked as a translator for Comintern agent and Soviet arms dealer Mikhail Borodin.

She learned to be a midwife at a school in Guangzhou and graduated in 1925 at the age of 20.

At this time, Vietnam was part of French Indochina, with communist and nationalist political activity targeted by the Sûreté, or French national police.

In May 1925, Hồ participated in the founding of Thanh Nien, or Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth Association.

This group was a forerunner of today's Vietnamese Communist Party.

In 1925, Zeng was introduced to Hồ by Thụ.

Thụ was at this time active in Thanh Nien, although he was later exposed as an informer to the Sûreté.

Hồ later gave Zeng a ruby engagement ring.

When Ho's comrades objected to the match, he told them, "I will get married despite your disapproval because I need a woman to teach me the language and keep house."

She was a Catholic from Guangzhou and it was claimed that she married Nguyễn Ái Quốc (a pseudonym used by Vietnamese communist leader Hồ Chí Minh) in October 1926.

The couple were married on 18 October 1926.

The legal witnesses were Cai Chang and Deng Yingchao, wife of future Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai.

Zeng was 21 and Hồ was 36.

The wedding took place in the same building where Zhou had married Deng earlier.

They then lived together at Borodin's residence.

Hồ was overjoyed when he learned that Zeng was pregnant in late 1926.

However, Zeng obtained an abortion on the advice of her mother, who feared that Hồ might be forced to leave China.

They lived together until April 1927, when Hồ fled China following an anti-communist coup.

Despite several attempts to renew contact by both Zeng and Hồ, the couple never reunited.

Zeng and Hồ were never legally divorced, nor was their marriage ever annulled.

There is uncertainty of true happenings as some say it was a marriage of convenience to avoid Hồ's political persecution during his time in Kuomintang-ruled China, whilst others say the story was never true to begin with, and was only a hypothesis.

On 12 April 1927, KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek staged an anti-communist coup in Shanghai and other cities.

Hồ went into hiding and fled to Hong Kong on 5 May.

Chinese police raided his residence in Guangzhou on the same day.

Although she was uninterested in politics, Zeng is recorded as a member of the (Chinese) Communist Youth League from July 1927 to June 1929.

Hồ then traveled to various countries, finally arriving in Bangkok in July 1928.

In August, he sent a letter to Zeng: "Although we have been separated for almost a year, our feelings for each other do not have to be said in order to be felt. At present, I am taking advantage of this opportunity to send you a few words to reassure you, and also to send my greetings and good wishes to your mother."

This letter was intercepted by the Sûreté.

According to one report, Zeng visited Hồ in the winter of 1929–1930 when he was in Hong Kong.

In May 1930, Hồ sent a letter asking Zeng to meet him in Shanghai, but her boss hid the letter and she did not receive it in time.

Hồ was arrested by British police in Hong Kong on 6 June 1931.

Unknown to him, Zeng attended his court hearing on 10 July 1931, the last time she would see him.

Zeng Xueming (October 1905 – 14 November 1991), known in Vietnamese as Tăng Tuyết Minh, was a Chinese midwife.