 After arriving in Germany Zhang joined the Communist Party of China (CPC) after becoming friends with Zhu De (Field Marshal and Supreme Military Commander of the New China), his roommate at the time.Zhang left the CPC following the doom of the “August First” military uprising at Nanchang in 1927, and over the years, in collaboration with others, founded the so-called "third parties", known today as the Chinese Democratic Party of Peasants and Workers, and the China Democratic League.Before his revolutionary career, Zhang was the dean of No.4 Normal School (Xuancheng High School) in his home province of Anhui (where he had taught at the beginning of his career), and later an English professor in Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province.