Zhu was born into poverty and was adopted by a wealthy uncle at age nine and received a superior early education that led to his admission into a military academy. After graduating, he joined a rebel army and became a warlord. Afterward he joined the CCP. He commanded the Eighth Route Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War. By the end of the civil war he was also a high-ranking party official.
Zhu was born on 1 December 1886, to a poor tenant farmer's family in Hung, a town in Yilong County, Nanchong.Template:Sfnb Of the 15 children born to the family only eight survived. His family of Hakkas in Sichuan migrated from Hunan province and Guangdong province.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="loving memories of mother">Template:Cite web</ref> His origins are often given as Hakka, but Agnes Smedley's biography of him says his people came from Guangdong and speaks of Hakka as merely associates of his.<ref>Smedley, The Great Road, p. 14 and 23.</ref> She also says that older generations of his family had spoken the "Kwangtung dialect" (which would be close to but probably different from modern Cantonese) and that his generation also spoke Sichuanese, a distinct regional variant of Southwestern Mandarin that is unintelligible to other speakers of Standard Chinese (Mandarin).<ref>Smedley, The Great Road, p. 14</ref>
Despite his family's poverty, by pooling resources Zhu was chosen to be sent to a regional private school in 1892. At age nine he was adopted by his prosperous uncle, whose political influence allowed him to gain access to Yunnan Military Academy.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He enrolled in a Sichuan high school around 1907 and graduated in 1908. Subsequently, he returned to Yilong's primary school as a gym instructor. An advocate of modern science and political teaching rather than the strict classical education afforded by schools, he was dismissed from his post<ref name="loving memories of mother"/> and entered the Yunnan Military Academy in Kunming.<ref name=":322">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp There he joined the Beiyang Army and the Tongmenghui secret political society (the forerunner of the Kuomintang).<ref>Template:Cite web Tongmenghui</ref>
Bust of Zhu De in Former Residence, Jianshu
Nationalism and warlordism
Zhu De in 1916.
At the Yunnan Military Academy in Kunming, he first met Cai E (Tsai Ao).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He taught at the academy after his graduation in July 1911.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Siding with the revolutionary forces after the 1911 Revolution, he joined Brig. Cai E in the October 1911 expeditionary force that marched on Qing forces in Sichuan. He served as a regimental commander in the campaign to unseatYuan Shikai in 1915–16. When Cai became governor of Sichuan after Yuan's death in June 1916, Zhu was made a brigade commander.<ref>Shum Kui-kwong, Zhu-De (Chu Teh), University of Queensland Press (St. Lucia: 1982), p. 3-4.</ref>
Following the death of his mentor Cai E and of his first wife Xiao Jufang in 1916, Zhu developed a severe opium habit that afflicted him for several years until 1922, when he underwent treatment in Shanghai.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> His troops continued to support him, and so he consolidated his forces to become a warlord. In 1920, after his troops were driven from Sichuan toward the Tibetan border, he returned to Yunnan as a public security commissioner of the provincial government. Around this time he decided to leave China for study in Europe.<ref>Zhu De and his Marriages</ref> He first traveled to Shanghai, where he broke his opium habit and, according to historians of the Kuomintang, met Sun Yat-sen. He attempted to join the Chinese Communist Party in early 1922, but was rejected for being a warlord.<ref>Shum Kui-kwong, Zhu-De (Chu Teh), University of Queensland Press (St. Lucia: 1982), p. 4-5.</ref>
Converting to Communism
Zhu photographed in Berlin, 1922
In late 1922 Zhu went to Berlin, along with his partner He Zhihua. He resided in Germany until 1925, studying at one point at Göttingen University.<ref name="High Command">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.</ref> Here he met Zhou Enlai and was expelled from Germany for his role in a number of student protests.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Around this time he joined the Chinese Communist Party; Zhou Enlai was one of his sponsors (having sponsors being a condition of probationary membership, the stage before actual membership).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In July 1925, after being expelled from Germany, he traveled to the Soviet Union to study military affairs and Marxism at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East. While in Moscow He Zhihua gave birth to his only daughter, Zhu Min. Zhu returned to China in July 1926 to unsuccessfully persuade Sichuan warlord Yang Sen to support the Northern Expedition.<ref name="High Command" />
In 1927, following the collapse of the First United Front, Kuomintang authorities ordered Zhu to lead a force against Zhou Enlai and Liu Bocheng's Nanchang uprising.<ref name="High Command"/> Having helped orchestrate the uprising, Zhu and his army defected from the Kuomintang.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The uprising failed to gather support, however, and Zhu was forced to flee Nanchang with his army. Under the false name of Wang Kai, Zhu managed to find shelter for his remaining forces by joining warlord Fan Shisheng.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Zhu-Mao
Zhu (second from right) photographed with Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai (second from left) and Bo Gu (left) in 1937.
Zhu's close affiliation with Mao Zedong began in 1928 when, with the help of Chen Yi and Lin Biao, Zhu defected from Fan Shisheng's protection and marched his army of 10,000 men to Jiangxi and the Jinggang Mountains.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Here Mao had formed a soviet in 1927, and Zhu began building up his army into the Red Army, consolidating and expanding the Soviet areas of control.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The meeting, which happened on the Longjiang Bridge on 28 April 1928, was facilitated by Mao Zetan, who was Mao's brother serving under Zhu.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref> He carried a letter to his brother Mao Zedong where Zhu stated, "We must unite forces and carry out a well-defined military and agrarian policy."<ref name=":0" /> This development became a turning point, with the merged forces forming the "Fourth Red Army", with Zhu as Military Commander and Mao as Party representative.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
During the Long March Zhu and Zhou Enlai organized certain battles in tandem. There were few positive effects since the real power was in the hands of Bo Gu and Otto Braun. In the Zunyi Conference, Zhu supported Mao Zedong's criticisms of Bo and Braun.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> After the conference, Zhu cooperated with Mao and Zhou on military affairs. In July 1935 Zhu and Liu Bocheng were with the Fourth Red Army while Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai with the First Red Army.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> When separation between the two divisions occurred, Zhu was forced by Zhang Guotao, the leader of Fourth Red Army, to go south.<ref>Battle of Baizhangguan Pass</ref> The Fourth Red Army barely survived the retreat through Sichuan Province. Arriving in Yan'an, Zhu directed the reconstruction of the Red Army under the political guidance of Mao.<ref>CCTV Eyewitnesses to history: Yan'an</ref>
In 1949 Zhu was named Commander-in-Chief of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> From November 1949 to May 1955, he served as the first secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Zhu also served as the vice-chairman of the Communist Party (1956–1966) and vice-chairman of the People's Republic of China (1954–1959).<ref>Zhu De Concurrent Positions</ref> Zhu oversaw the PLA during the Korean War within his authority as Commander-in-Chief.Template:Cn In 1955, he was conferred the rank of marshal.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> At the Lushan Conference, he tried to protect Peng Dehuai, by giving some mild criticisms of Peng; rather than denouncing him, he merely gently reproved his targeted comrade, who was a target of Mao Zedong. Mao was not satisfied with Zhu De's behavior.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> After the conference, Zhu was dismissed from vice chairmen of Central Military Commission, not in least part due to his loyalty for the fallen Peng.<ref name="britannica.com" />
Zhu De married four times, according to the unfinished biography written by Agnes Smedley. However, there is no evidence of his marrying the mother of his only daughter. His known relationships were with:
Former Residence of Zhu De in Jianshui 2025Xiao Jufang (Template:Zh or Hsiao Chu-fen). Xiao was a fellow student of Zhu's at Kunming Normal Institute (Template:Zh).<ref name="cpc">Template:Cite web</ref> The pair married in 1912. Xiao died of a fever in 1916 after giving birth to Zhu's only son, Baozhu.<ref>Smedley, The Great Road, p. 106</ref><ref name=cpc/>
Chen Yuzhen (Template:Zh). After the death of Xiao Jufang, Zhu was advised to find a mother for his infant son. He was introduced to Chen by friends in the military. Chen had participated in revolutionary activities in 1911, as well as in 1916. Chen reportedly set the condition that she would not marry unless her future husband proposed to her in person, which Zhu did. The two married in 1916. Chen looked after the home, even building a study for Zhu and his scholarly friends to meet, which she furnished with pamphlets, books, and manifestos on the Russian October Revolution. In the spring of 1922, Zhu left his home to visit the Sichuanese warlord Yang Sen.<ref name=cpc/> According to Agnes Smedley's biography, Zhu considered himself separated from Chen after leaving her and felt free to marry again, though there had been no formal divorce. Chen was killed by the Kuomintang in 1935.<ref>Smedley, The Great Road, p. 122 and 314</ref>
He Zhihua (Template:Zh). She met Zhu in Shanghai and followed him to Germany in late 1922.When Zhu was deported from Germany in 1925, she was already pregnant and later gave birth in a village on the outskirts of Moscow. Zhu named the daughter Sixun (Template:Zh), but relations between the two had diminished, and He Zhihua rejected his choice, naming the baby Feifei (Template:Zh) instead. He Zhihua sent her daughter to live with her sister in Chengdu shortly after the birth. She then married Huo Jiaxin (Template:Zh) in the same year. He returned to Shanghai in 1928. She reportedly betrayed wanted communists to the Kuomintang, before being blinded in a gun attack by Red Army soldiers that killed her husband. After this, she returned to Sichuan, dying of illness before 1949.Template:Cn
Wu Ruolan (Template:Zh or Wu Yu-lan). Wu was the daughter of an Intellectual from Jiuyantang (Template:Zh) in Hunan. Zhu met Wu after attacking Leiyang with the Peasant's and Workers Army. They married in 1928.<ref>Smedley, The Great Road, p. 223-4</ref> In January 1929, Zhu and Wu were encircled by Kuomintang troops at a temple in the Jinggang Mountains. Zhu escaped, but Wu was captured. She was executed by decapitation and her head was allegedly sent to Changsha for display.<ref name="cpc2">Template:Cite web</ref>
Kang Keqing (K'ang K'e-ching or Kang Keh-chin). Zhu married Kang in 1929 when he was 43.<ref name=cpc2/> She was a member of the Red Army and also a peasant leader. Kang was highly studious and Zhu taught her to read and write before they married. Kang outlived him.<ref>Smedley, The Great Road, p. 272-3</ref> Unlike most women who joined the Long March, she did not become part of the propaganda unit marching at the rear. Kang fought by the side of her husband, distinguishing herself as a combat soldier, a markswoman, and a troop leader.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Children
Zhu Baozhu (Template:Zh) was born in 1916 and later changed his name to Zhu Qi (Template:Zh). He died in 1974 from illness.
Zhu Min (Template:Zh) was born in Moscow in April 1926 to He Zhihua (Template:Zh). Zhu De named her Sixun (Template:Zh), but she rejected this and choose Feifei (Template:Zh). He Zhihua sent her daughter to her sister in Chengdu shortly after her birth, where she went by the name He Feifei (Template:Zh). She pursued higher education in Moscow from 1949 to 1953 before teaching at Beijing Normal University. She died of illness in 2009.<ref name="ChinaDaily">Template:Cite web</ref>
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Royal Order of Cambodia (Grand Cross Medal) (1964)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Star of the Republic of Indonesia (2nd Class Medal) (1961)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>