Teryokhin was born on 17 March 1896 in the village of Polyany in Ryazan Governorate to a peasant family. He graduated from seven grades, working as a shepherd and in a starch plant during his childhood and adolescence. In the winter he studied at a rural school, from which he graduated in 1910. From August 1915 he served in the Imperial Russian Army as a Ryadovoy and an Unteroffizier. Teryokhin was sent into combat in March 1917 in the Baltic, and reached the rank of Senior Unteroffizier before the Imperial Russian Army disintegrated following the Russian Revolution. He joined the Red Army in August 1918 and fought in the Russian Civil War. Teryokhin became a member of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) in 1919. He successively served as a platoon instructor in a volost vsevobuch department, the armourer of a Cheka battalion in Kaluga, and a platoon commander, fighting against the Mamontov Raid, the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine and the Tambov Rebellion. In 1920, he graduated from the Ryazan Infantry Courses.