Zhu De

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Chu Teh, FM (correctly Zhu De) (1886-1976). Like many Chinese communist leaders, Chu Teh was born into a peasant family. Having entered the Yunnan Military Academy in 1911, he was caught up in Sun Yat-sen's nationalist revolution of 1911 that overthrew the Ch'ing (Manchu) dynasty. In the ‘warlord’ period during and following WW I, Chu Teh served as a brigade commander but in 1922, growing disillusioned with the chaos of the period, he went to Europe to study. It was here that Chu Teh joined the Chinese Communist Party. On his return to China, Chu Teh kept secret his communist affiliations and joined Chiang Kai-Shek and the Kuomintang (KMT) army. However, in 1927, Chu Teh took part in the communist-led Nan-ch'ang uprising, an event that marked the beginning of the Chinese Red Army, which would become the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in 1946. During the epic 6, 000 mile (9, 654 km) Long March of 1934-5, when Mao Tse-tung took his communist forces north to Yenan (Yan'an) in Shensi (Shaanxi) province to escape encircling KMT armies, Chu Teh was commander of the First Front Army. Chu Teh's military career continued during the Sino-Japanese war of 1937-45 when he commanded the Eighth Route Army. During the Chinese civil war of 1945-9, Chu Teh was promoted to C-in-C of the PLA forces that defeated Chiang Kai-Shek and ejected the KMT from mainland China. In the 1950s, Chu Teh was promoted to marshal but was gradually marginalized from positions of political and military importance and his influence waned. However, his legacy in terms of PLA tactics and overall military strategy should not be underestimated. Chu Teh was responsible for emphasizing guerrilla warfare as part of conventional operations. This presaged many of the ‘small wars’ of Africa and Asia after 1945. Chu Teh showed how guerrilla forces could supplement conventional armies and become strategic forces. By employing these tactics, communist soldiers were able to survive in the Chinese countryside and become indistinguishable from the mass of peasants. Under Chu Teh's command, the PLA became a highly mobile and self-sufficient force living off the land. Like the Roman general Fabius, Chu Teh avoided set-piece battles wherever possible, preferring to pick off his enemy piecemeal using attritional attacks. These tactics proved successful against the Japanese during the Sino-Japanese war, and were vital in the Chinese civil war when Chu Teh's PLA forces initially occupied the countryside rather than the major cities.

— Matthew Hughes

Chu Teh (1886-1976), or Zhu De, was a Chinese Communist military leader. He became closely associated with Mao Tse-tung (Mao Zedong) in 1928 and was for many years afterward commander in chief of the Communist military forces.

One of 14 children in a poor, frugal peasant family, Chu Teh was born in the village of Ma'an Chung, Szechwan Province, on Dec. 18, 1886. The Chu family had moved to Szechwan from Kwangtung in the early 1800s and although his grandparents were buried in Szechwan, the family's customs and dialect remained that of Kwangtung. It was only in Chu Teh's generation that family members began to speak the Szechwan dialect in addition to Cantonese. Through careful scrimping by the entire family, Chu alone was given an education, studying in the nearby town of Tawan, where he came under the influence of a reform-minded Confucian scholar. In 1905 Chu entered a modern school at Nanch'ung but continued to study for the traditional examinations. He passed the first civil service examination in 1906, just after the examinations had become meaningless because of government reforms. He continued for another year at Nanch'ung and then studied physical education at the Chengtu Higher Normal School. He left school in 1908 to help support his family by teaching physical education in a school near home. His family, which had expected to gain prestige and an easier living through making him a government official, was horrified.

Military Career

In 1909 Chu entered Yunnan Military Academy at Kunming, where he became involved in the T'ung Meng Hui, an association dedicated to the overthrow of the Manchus, and the Ko-lao-hui, a Chinese secret society with strong roots in the country's southwestern region. He also joined the Revolutionary Party of Sun Yat-sen. Toward the end of his course of studies at Yunnan, Chu established a relationship with one of his teachers, Ts'ai O, a patriot from the province of Hunan and military leader who had come to Yunnan in the spring of 1911 to command a local brigade and to teach at the military academy. When Chu graduated from the academy in June 1911, he became a second lieutenant in the brigade of Ts'ai O, who was a secret revolutionist. Under Ts'ai's command, Chu participated in the revolution against local Manchu authority. The coup brought Ts'ai to power as the first republican governor of Yunnan. Chu and his Szechwanese regiment next returned to their native province to attack the headquarters of Chao Erh-feng, Manchu governor general, at Suifu. Chu and his troops patrolled the Suifu region of Szechwan until the spring of 1912, when he went back to Kunming as an instructor at Yunnan Military Academy. He also joined the Kuomintang and was promoted to the command of a detachment. After his promotion to major in 1913, Chu was stationed on Yunnan's border with Indochina until 1915.

In 1915 Chu became a colonel in Ts'ai O's command, participating in a revolt organized by Ts'ai and Liang Ch'icha'o against would-be monarch Yuan Shih-k'ai. In early 1916 Ts'ai led his forces from Yunnan into southern Szechwan, where Chu commanded troops which fought pro-Yuan forces to a bloody stalemate. Only the death of Yuan in June 1916 brought the conflict to an end. The following month Ts'ai was named governor of Szechwan. Ts'ai in turn appointed Chu commander of the 13th Mixed Brigade of the 7th Division of the Yunnan Army in Szechwan and when Ts'ai became governor of Szechwan in 1916, Chu was made a brigadier general and commander of provincial forces in the southwest. For several years he fought the warlords in Szechwan but slipped into the habits of a warlord himself. By 1921 he and his allies were badly defeated, and Chu was forced to flee to Shanghai for his life.

Convert to Communism

In October 1922 Chu went from Shanghai to Berlin, where he met Chou En-lai and joined the Chinese Socialist Youth League. Chu's subsequent membership in the Communist party was kept secret. He attended the University of Göttingen for a year and then returned to Berlin for political work. He assisted Chou in organizing the German headquarters of the Kuomintang (KMT), with which the Communists were allied. Twice arrested in connection with demonstrations, Chu was expelled from Germany in June 1926.

Chu arrived in China at the height of the Northern Expedition and became director of the Nationalist training school for new officers in Nanchang, Kiangsi, and in effect became garrison commander and head of the Nanchang police. When the Nationalists broke with the Communists in the summer of 1927, the Communist leadership unsuccessfully attempted to capture Nanchang. Chu and a part of the Communist force retreated toward Canton and eventually to the Kiangsi Soviet base of Mao Tse-tung. Chu became commander in chief, and Mao political commissar, of the forces there. Their alliance became the major basis of later Communist success.

In the next four years Chu successfully defended and extended the base area, and early in 1934 he was made a member of the Political Bureau of the party. By late 1934, however, Nationalist attacks on the Kiangsi region forced the abandonment of the base. Chu planned the evacuation and subsequent Long March to northwestern China of about 100,000 men, breaking through three encircling lines of KMT troops and then following an 8,000-mile route through hostile and difficult terrain. Chu commanded the force through the most difficult portion of the march but was apparently "kidnapped" by Chang Kuo-t'ao, leader of a Soviet base in Szechwan, in an obscure inner-party quarrel. Mao proceeded with the main force to Paoan, Shensi, where Chu finally arrived in October 1936.

Chu spent the years of the Sino-Japanese War largely in the Communist capital of Yenan, serving as commander-in-chief of the Eighth Route Army, the chief force in the Communist movement. In August 1937 Chu Teh's armies, now a part of the regular Nationalist forces, began attacking the Japanese. For eight years Chu Teh, who had been appointed to his command by Chiang Kai-shek, was in direct command of all Communist military operations against the Japanese. On Aug. 14, 1945, however, he refused to obey Chiang's order that he halt independent action, and thereafter Chu's troops began resisting new attempts launched by the Kuomintang to annihilate them. Warfare spread, and by the end of 1948 all Manchuria had fallen to the People's Armies commanded by Chu Teh. Forces under Chu's command swept inexorably southward, taking Peking (Beijing), Nanking (Nanjing), Shanghai, and, finally in November 1949, Canton. Chu's military successes were attributed to a number of his policies, including the maintenance of very close ties between soldiers under his command and the peasants, organizing operations behind enemy lines, effective use of propaganda, and his mobile tactics of "concentration and dispersal." In September 1949, Chu was named to the Consultative Council of the new (Communist) Chinese People's Republic, and in October he was named commander in chief of the People's Liberation Army. In 1954 he became vice chairman of the republic. In 1958, when Mao announced his plan to relinquish his administrative responsibilities as chief of staff, it was thought that Chu might succeed him. However, the following year, in April, the National People's Congress tapped Liu Shaochi'I for chairman. At that time, Chu gave up his post as vice chairman of the National Defense Council and became chairman of the standing committee of the People's Congress.

His Family

Chu's first wife, whom he married in 1912, died in 1916 shortly after giving birth to Chu's only child, a son, who was apparently killed during a Nationalist police raid on his home in 1935. Chu married again in 1917; the marriage ended in separation in the 1920s, and she was killed by police in 1935. He remarried in 1928; his third wife was executed by the government in 1929. About 1930 he married K'ang K'o-ch'ing, who survived the Long March and became a leader of the women's movement in the People's Republic. After 1949, she served her country on a number of overseas cultural missions. She was named vice chairman of the Women's Federation of China in 1957. On July 6, 1976, at the age of 89, Chu died in Peking.

Further Reading

Chu's most important publication, a 1945 report on military affairs during the Sino-Japanese War, was translated into English as On the Battlefronts of the Liberated Areas (1952). The only full-length study of Chu is Agnes Smedley, The Great Road: The Life and Times of Chu Teh (1956), a sensitive presentation based on extended interviews with Chu in 1937, written by an American woman who traveled with the Red Army in its fight against the Japanese. Her earlier work, China Fights Back (1938), also contains personal accounts of Chu. Chu is discussed in Edgar Snow, Red Star over China (1938; rev. ed. 1968) and The Other Side of the River: Red China Today (1961); Samuel B. Griffith, The Chinese People's Liberation Army (1967); and John Gittings, The Role of the Chinese Army (1967). Further information on Chu may be found in S.T. Ludwig's entry on him in Colliers Encyclopedia (1996), Britannica Online at http//www.eb.com, and Biograpical Dictionary of Republican China (1967), edited by Howard L. Boorman.

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Zhu De 朱德
Marshal Zhu De
1st Vice Chairman of the People's Republic of China
In office September 27, 1954 – April 27, 1959
Succeeded by	Song Qingling & Dong Biwu
2nd Chairman of the NPCSC
In office April 1959 – July 1976
Preceded by	Liu Shaoqi
Succeeded by	Ye Jianying
Born	December 1, 1886(1886-12-01) Yilong County, Sichuan, Qing Dynasty
Died	6 July 1976 (aged 89) Beijing, China
Political party	Communist Party of China
Spouse(s)	Kang Keqing

Zhū Dé (Chinese: 朱德; pinyin: Zhū Dé; Wade-Giles: Chu Teh; zi: Yùjiē 玉阶; 1 December 1886 – 6 July 1976) was a Chinese Communist military leader and statesman. He is regarded as the founder of the Chinese Red Army (the forerunner of the People's Liberation Army) and the tactician who engineered the revolution from which emerged the People's Republic of China.

Contents 1 Life 1.1 Early life 1.2 Nationalism and Warlordism 1.3 Converting to Communism 1.4 'Zhu Mao' 1.5 Red Army leader 1.6 Later life 2 See also 3 Notes 4 References 5 External links

Life

Early life

Zhu De was born in in Yilong County, a hilly and isolated section of northern Sichuan province. His father, a Han Chinese Hakka, was born in Guangdong province^[1]. Zhu De's grandfather took his family and emigrated to Sichuan province^[2]. He was one of the thirteen children of the Zhu family. After a secondary education funded by his uncle, the only member of the family capable of doing so, and only after a family decision that he be the beneficiary of an education, Zhu felt obliged to enroll for the district examinations despite his dislike for the traditional Confucian education system. Zhu passed these examinations, to his surprise, and was awarded a xiucai degree.^[3]

Zhu hid these results from his family and traveled to Chengdu to study physical education. In 1904 he enrolled in a middle school and studied the Classics in preparation for the civil service exam. He then went to Chengdu to study physical education and in 1908 entered a secondary school. Shortly thereafter, he enrolled in the Yunnan Military Academy, where he was likely first exposed to the ideals of Sun Yat-sen's Tongmenghui (United League, predecessor to the Kuomintang [KMT, or Nationalist Party]), which he joined 1912. He also joined the Gelao Hui, or Elder Brother secret society.^[4]

Nationalism and Warlordism

At the Yunnan Military Academy in Kunming, he came under the influence of Cai E (Tsai Ao), and taught at the Academy after his graduation in July 1911 from the academy's first class. Zhu was with Brigader Cai in the October 1911 expeditionary force attacking Manchu (Qing Dynasty) forces in Sichuan, and in 1915-16 was a regimental commander in the campaign to unseat Yuan Shikai. When Cai became governor of Sichuan after Yuan's death in June 1916, Zhu was made a brigade commander.^[5]

Following the death of his mentor Cai E, and his own wife, Zhu developed a strong opium habit and in his depression fell into a life of decadence and warlordism. In 1920, after his troops were driven from Sichuan toward the Tibet border, he returned to Yunnan as a public security commissioner of the provincial government. Around this time, his second wife and child were murdered by rival warlords, which may have contributed to his decision to leave China for study in Europe. He first travelled to Shanghai where he broke his opium habit and apparently met Dr Sun Yat-sen. He attempted to join the Chinese Communist Party in early 1922, but was rejected due to his former warlord ties.^[6]

Converting to Communism

In late 1922,^[7] Zhu went to Europe, studying at Göttingen University in Germany from 1922 to 1925 at which point he met Zhou Enlai and was expelled from the country by the government for his role in a number of student protests. Around this time, he joined the Communist Party. Zhou Enlai was one of his sponsors. In July 1925, he traveled to the Soviet Union to study military affairs. In July 1926, he returned to China and undertook to persuade Sichuan warlord Yang Sen to support the Northern Expedition,^[7] but failed. Soon after, he was named head of a new military institute in Nanchang.

In 1927, following the collapse of the First United Front, KMT authorities ordered Zhu to lead a force against the Nanchang Uprising led by Zhou Enlai and Liu Bocheng^[7]. However, as he had helped to orchestrate this uprising, Zhu and his army defected from the Guomindang and fought against them. The uprising failed to gather the support of the local working class, however, and he was forced to flee Nanchang with his army. Under the fake name Wang Kai, Zhu managed to find shelter from a warlord Fan Shisheng for his remaining regiment. He eventually expanded his force.

'Zhu Mao'

Zhu's close affiliation with Mao Zedong began in 1928 when under the assistance of Chen Yi and Lin Biao, Zhu brought his army of 10,000 men to the Jinggang Mountains where Mao had formed a soviet in 1927. From these humble beginnings, Zhu built the Red Army into a skilled guerrilla force that consolidated and expanded the PLA areas of control.

Zhu was the military expert, and Mao was the political expert. They needed each other.

Zhu's bravery and skill in leading these men made him a figure of immense prestige. Locals credited him with supernatural abilities. During this time Mao and Zhu became so closely connected that to the local peasant farmers they were known collectively as "Zhu Mao".^[8]

In 1929 Zhu and Mao were forced to flee Jinggangshan to Ruijin to the East following Guomindang military pressure. Here they formed the Jiangxi Soviet which would eventually grow to cover some 30, 000 square kilometers and include some three million people. In 1931 Zhu was appointed leader of the Red Army in the Ruijin by the CCP leadership. Zhu successfully led a conventional military force against the Guomindang during the Fourth Counter Encirclement Campaign; however he was not able to do the same during the Fifth Counter Encirclement Campaign and reluctantly the CCP began to make preparations to flee the Jiangxi Soviet. Zhu helped to form the 1934 break out from the soviet that would begin the Long March.

Red Army leader

During the Long March, Zhu De and Zhang Guotao commanded the "western column" of the Red Army, which barely survived the retreat through Sichuan Province.

In Yan'an, Zhu directed the reconstruction of the Red Army under the political guidance of Mao.

During the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, he held the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army. In 1940 Zhu De devised and organized the Hundred Regiments Offensive without the support of Mao. This campaign was very successful but has since been attributed as the main provocation for the devastating Japanese Three Alls Policy.

Later life

After 1949, Zhu was named Commander-in-Chief of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). He was also the Vice-Chairman of the Communist Party (1956-1966) and Vice-Chairman of the People's Republic of China (1954-1959). In 1950 Zhu De oversaw the PLA during the Korean War. In 1955, he was made a marshal.

In 1966, during the onset of the Cultural Revolution, Zhu De was dismissed from his position on the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. However, thanks to the support of Zhou Enlai he was not harmed or imprisoned. In 1971 Zhu was reinstated as the Chairman of the Standing Committee.

He continued to be a prominent and respected elder statesman until his death in July 1976.

See also

• Eighth Route Army
• History of the People's Republic of China (1949-1976)
• List of officers of the People's Liberation Army

Notes

1. ^ http://www.gov.cn/english/2008-01/14/content_857292.htm
2. ^ http://www.asiawind.com/pub/forum/fhakka/mhonarc/msg00475.html
3. ^ Shum Kui-kwong, Zhu-De (Chu Teh), University of Queensland Press (St. Lucia: 1982), p. 2-3.
4. ^ ibid.
5. ^ ibid, p. 3-4.
6. ^ ibid, p. 4-5.
7. ^ ^{a b c} William W. Whitson, Huang Chen-hsia, The Chinese High Command: A History of Communist Military Politics, 1927-1971, Praeger Publishers: New York, 1973, p. 30f.
8. ^ Bianco, Lucien (1957). Origins of the Chinese Revolution, 1915-1949. Stanford Press. p. 64, note 10. 

References

The Great Road: The Life and Times of Chu Teh by Agnes Smedley, Monthly Review Press, New York and London 1956

External links

• Zhu De Biography From Spartacus Educational
• People's Daily Biography

Political offices
Preceded by None	Vice President of the People's Republic of China 1954 – 1959	Succeeded by Dong Biwu and Song Qingling
Preceded by Liu Shaoqi	Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress 1959 — 1976	Succeeded by Song Qingling acting
Preceded by Dong Biwu acting	Head of State of the People's Republic of China (as Chairman of the NPC Standing Committee) 1975 – 1976	Succeeded by Song Qingling acting
Party political offices
Preceded by None	Vice Chairman of the Communist Party of China Served alongside: Chen Yun, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, Lin Biao 1956 – 1969	Succeeded by Lin Biao

v • d • e Ten Great Marshals of the People's Republic of China Zhu De – Peng Dehuai – Lin Biao – Liu Bocheng – He Long – Chen Yi – Luo Ronghuan – Xu Xiangqian – Nie Rongzhen – Ye Jianying File:Yuan Shuai.JPG

v • d • e Chinese Civil War
Main events pre-1945	Main events post-1945	Specific articles
First United Front (1924) Shanghai massacre of 1927 Nanchang Uprising Autumn Harvest Uprising Guangzhou Uprising Encirclement Campaigns (1930–1934) Chinese Soviet Republic (1931–1934) Long March (1934–1936) Xi'an Incident (1936) Second United Front (1937–1946)	Part of the Cold War Full-scale Civil War (1946–1949) First Taiwan Strait Crisis (1955) Second Taiwan Strait Crisis (1958) Third Taiwan Strait Crisis (1996) Pan-Blue visits to mainland China (2005-)	Political status of Taiwan Legal status of Taiwan Chinese reunification Taiwan independence Cross-Strait relations Primary participants Kuomintang of China Communist Party of China

v • d • e Head of State of the People's Republic of China Chairman of the PRC (1949-1975) Mao Zedong · Liu Shaoqi · Soong Ching-ling and Dong Biwu  · Dong Biwu Chairman of SC of NPC (1975-1983) Zhu De  · Ye Jianying · Soong Ching-ling (President) · Ye Jianying President of the PRC (1983-present) Li Xiannian · Yang Shangkun · Jiang Zemin · Hu Jintao

v • d • e Deputy Head of State of the People's Republic of China Vice Chairman of the CPG of PRC (1949-1954) Zhu De · Soong Ching-ling · Li Jishen · Zhang Lan · Gao Gang Vice Chairman of PRC (1954-1983) Zhu De · Soong Ching-ling and Dong Biwu (1968-1972) · Dong Biwu · vacant (1975-1983) Vice President of PRC (1983-present) Ulanhu · Wang Zhen · Rong Yiren · Hu Jintao · Zeng Qinghong · Xi Jinping

v • d • e Chairmen of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress Liu Shaoqi · Zhu De · Soong Ching-ling (Acting) · Ye Jianying · Peng Zhen · Wan Li · Qiao Shi · Li Peng · Wu Bangguo

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