Tea (Camellia sinensis L.) is one of the most important and traditional economic crops widely cultivated in acid red soils in the subtropical zones in China, and the planting pattern constitutes the major artificial factor affecting the soil bacterial community structure. However, the effect of the planting patterns on soil bacterial community structures and functions in the tea garden remains unclear. To study the characteristics of soil bacterial community compositions and functional groups under different planting patterns and slope positions, soil samples derived from topsoil (0-20cm) were collected from the upper, middle, and lower slope positions of conventional (CT) and organic (OT) tea gardens. Illumina MiSeq sequencing and PICRUSt2 predictions were performed to investigate the bacterial community structures and functional groups, respectively. Further, the Spearman correlation analysis and redundancy analysis (RDA) were also used to examine the soil property factors that drived the community structure. The results showed that:(1) compared with the conventional planting pattern, the soil bacterial diversity under organic planting pattern decreased remarkably, and the Sobs and Simpson indices significantly decreased in the middle slope position (P<0.05). Regardless of the planting patterns, the soil bacterial diversities were the highest in the middle slope position. Ace and Simpson indices of the bacterial community in this slope position were significantly higher than the respective values of the lower slope position under the conventional planting pattern (P<0.05). (2) A total of 29 phyla, 82 classes, 190 orders, 316 families, 517 genera and 929 species were detected in soil bacteria of tea gardens. The dominant bacterial phyla were Chloroflexi, Actinobacterita, Proteobacteria and Acidobacteria. The dominant bacterial genera were AD3, Acidothermus, norank_f__norank_o__Elsterales, and norank_f__Xanthobacteraceae. (3) The results of principal coordinates analysis (PCoA) showed that the soil bacterial community structures could be distinctly separated in different planting patterns. The community structures of soil bacteria in different slope positions were significantly different under the conventional planting pattern (P<0.05), whereas they were similar under the organic planting pattern. The permutational multivariate analysis of variance (PERMANOVA) indicated that the bacterial community structures under different planting patterns showed significant differences (P<0.05), whereas those in different slope positions did not (P>0.05). The linear discriminant analysis effect size (LEfSe) analysis showed that 57 biomarkers were very sensitive to the planting patterns, with different planting patterns enriching different bacterial populations. (4) PICRUSts2 platform predicted 6 biological metabolic pathways and 46 subfunctions in the soil bacteria of tea gardens, suggesting of abundant soil bacterial functions. These pathways mainly involved metabolic processes, genetic information processing, and environmental information processing. The organic planting pattern increased carbohydrate metabolism, amino acid metabolism, membrane transport, signal transduction, and lipid metabolism of cofactors and vitamins functional genes. (5) The results of the Spearman correlation analysis and RDA showed that soil alkaline nitrogen, available phosphorus, total phosphorus, total potassium and pH were the main factors affecting the abundance and diversity of the soil bacterial community. In conclusion, the organic planting changes the community structure and the metabolic functions of soil bacteria, promotes soil bacteria carbon and nitrogen metabolism and enriches beneficial bacteria, and thus is beneficial to maintain the sustainable ecosystem in tea garden soil.