Hung Hu-Tzu

Hung Hu-Tzu

 

(in Russian, khunkhuzy), members of the armed bands that operated in Manchuria from the mid-19th century until the victory of the People’s Revolution in China in 1949. Hung hu-tzu detachments, consisting mainly of destitute peasants and urban déclassé or lumpen elements and sometimes numbering several thousand men each, attacked towns and settlements for the purpose of plunder. On the eve of the Hsinhai Revolution of 1911–13, local authorities recruited many of these armed bands to fight on their side. Chang Tso-lin and several other northern Chinese militarists came from the ranks of the Hung hutzu.