Tao Zhu

Tao Zhu, commonly known a "Commandant Zhu", is a Yakiyahn UPC revolutionary and founding member of the Agricultural Workers Union (Raised Fist), which he has lead as its Commandant and Chairman since its founding. His theories, military strategies, and political policies are collectively known as Revolutionary Synthesis Neo-Posadism.

Youth in Ruyi Village
Tao Zhu was born on July 21st, 3173 in Ruyi Village, Yakiyah, Tsatsos System. His father was an impoverished peasant in rural Yakiyah, his mother died in childbirth. An only child, his father was bitter after his mother's passing, and would often beat Zhu if he stepped out of line. At age 8, Zhu began to help in the fields so that his father could fulfill the steep quotas set for peasants. When Zhu was 13, his father would arrange his marriage to a local peasant girl, and Zhu ran away before they were due to be married on his 15th birthday.

In Tanez
After running away from his home at age 15, Zhu would travel to the Yakiyan capital city, Tanez. There, he worked as a dock worker, a bucher and a produce packager. It was here that Zhu first developed anti-imperial sentiment. "Life in the empire is no different in the city than the countryside. The people work just as hard, for just as little pay, and the bosses just as cold" he wrote in "Son of a Peasant Farmer" a memoir about this period of his life.

Joining the Agricultural Workers Union
Zhu was first introduced to the Agricultural Workers Union at age 17 via his job at as a produce packager, and he would quickly join their swelling ranks. Due to his age he shortly thereafter had to leave the city though, in order to avoid the Imperial Draft for the Synth War. For two years, Zhu worked as a transport driver, as well as maintained his AWU membership, attending many meeting across the whole planet.

Yakiyahn General Strike and Tanez Riots
Due to the Synth War, conditions for workers across the planet had rapidly deteriorated and in December 3192, The Agricultural Workers Union called for a general strike, bringing the entire planet of Yakiyah to a grinding halt. Zhu now returned to Tanez, joining the ranks of the Yakiyahn Self-Defense Force, the AWU's organization for protecting the strikers from A.C.R.E Security Teams. The Strike would last until January, when the Aquilan Legion arrived, they quickly got to work arresting the leaders of the General Strike, and soon the entire city of Tanez entered a complete riot. The Imperial Guard fired gas into the crowd and fired "warning shots". By the end of the day, 1000's of civilians lay dead on the streets. Somehow, Zhu and a number of other members of the Yakiyahn Self-Defense Force had found themselves on a list of wanted fugitives for being instigators of the riot, along with many of the others he would flee into the most remote part of rural Yakiyah, the Laru Mountains.

The Enduring Climb
After fleeing into the Laru Mountains, Zhu quickly found himself in a leadership position among the surviving members of the Yakiyahn Self-Defense Force. When the group reached the edge of the Laru Mountains, many did not want to continue into the rough terrain, Zhu and a few others held that continuing forward was the only way to avoid being hunted down by those searching for them, and he proved correct, the vast majority stayed behind and where subsequently caught, but about 100 men decided to follow Zhu's group into the mountains and where able to avoid capture. The group would trek for about a month to reach the central area of the mountain range, this trip would become known as "The Enduring Climb" and by the time they made it to a safe area where they could set up camp undetected, only about 35 of the party remained alive. Many of them had only ever worked in Tanez or on high tech A.C.R.E farms in the surrounding area and they were not accustomed to the harsh life and brutal conditions of the peasants in rural Yakiyah. Zhu would teach them organic farming and wilderness survival skills and establish what would become the first AWU(RF) Base.

Revolutionary Synthesis Neo-Posadism
Over the next year, as the group built their new base and recovered from "The Enduring Climb", they debated often about what had caused the failure of the Yakiyahn General Strike, and over time, the line Zhu supported won out. This line of thought held that the failure of the stike lay in the fact that for the most part, peasants did not partake as very few of them where AWU members, on top of this, the AWU had failed to seize the docks and ships on the planet, this allowed A.C.R.E and the noble to not only continue a large amount of agricultural production on world, but also bring in scabs from off world to operate the docks and ship food off world. This new line proposed that the solution was a more militant revolution, one which would forge an alliance between the industrial workers and the peasants, and then would fight a long and protracted guerilla war to remove or take control of corporate and noble assets across the planet. The group would released two books together (though some hold it was mainly Zhu who penned them, he claims to this day that it was largely a group effort) titled "On the Failure of the Yakiyahn General Strike" and "On the Need for a Revolutionary Synthesis of Neo-Posadism". They would subsequently establish an organization following the principles outlined in these works, the Agricultural Workers Union (Raised Fist), with Zhu being elected their first Commandant and Chairman.