Early life Zhu was born on 1 December 1886, to a poor tenant farmer's family in
Hung, a town in
Yilong County,
Nanchong. Of the 15 children born to the family only eight survived. His family of Hakkas in Sichuan migrated from
Hunan province and
Guangdong province. 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. 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). 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. 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 There he joined the
Beiyang Army and the
Tongmenghui secret political society (the forerunner of the
Kuomintang).
Nationalism and warlordism At the
Yunnan Military Academy in Kunming, he first met
Cai E (Tsai Ao). He taught at the academy after his graduation in July 1911. 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 unseat Yuan Shikai in 1915–16. When Cai became governor of Sichuan after Yuan's death in June 1916, Zhu was made a brigade commander. 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. 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. 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.
Converting to Communism 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. Here he met
Zhou Enlai and was expelled from Germany for his role in a number of student protests. 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). 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. 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.
Zhu-Mao 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. 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. 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. 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." Zhu's leadership made him a figure of immense prestige; locals even credited him with supernatural abilities. During this time Mao and Zhu became so closely associated that to the local villagers they were known collectively as "Zhu-Mao" In 1929, Zhu De and Mao Zedong were forced to flee
Jinggangshan to
Ruijin following military pressure from
Chiang Kai-shek. Here they formed the
Jiangxi Soviet. In 1931 Zhu was appointed leader of the Red Army in
Ruijin by the CCP leadership. He successfully led a conventional military force against the Kuomintang in the lead-up to the
Fourth Counter Encirclement Campaign; however, he was not able to do the same during the
Fifth Counter Encirclement Campaign and the CCP fled. Zhu helped form the 1934 break-out that began the
Long March.
Red Army leader at the
Eighth Route Army's field headquarters in
Shanxi province, December 1937 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. 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. When separation between the two divisions occurred, Zhu was forced by
Zhang Guotao, the leader of Fourth Red Army, to go south. 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. During the
Second Sino-Japanese War and the
Chinese Civil War, he held the position of
Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army and, in 1940, Zhu, alongside Peng Dehuai, devised and organized the
Hundred Regiments Offensive. Initially, Mao supported this offensive. While a successful campaign, Mao later attributed it as the main provocation for the devastating Japanese
Three Alls policy later and used it to criticize Peng at the Lushan Conference. In 1944,
United States Marine Corps colonel
Evans Carlson praised Zhu as "a master of
guerilla warfare."
Later life (left) at the
Marshal of the People's Republic of China rank awarding ceremony. In 1949 Zhu was named Commander-in-Chief of the
People's Liberation Army (PLA). From November 1949 to May 1955, he served as the first
secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. 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). Zhu oversaw the PLA during the
Korean War within his authority as Commander-in-Chief. In 1955, he was conferred the rank of
marshal. 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. 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. In October 1969, Lin Biao issued a command named "
Order Number One" that evacuated important martial figures to distant areas due to the tension between China and Soviet Union, and Zhu De was taken to
Guangdong. In 1973 Zhu was reinstated in the Politburo Standing Committee. In 1974, when the imprisoned
Peng Dehuai was on his death bed, it was reported that his last wish was to see Zhu, which was ultimately denied by his guards. When Zhu learnt of his wish, he reportedly burst into tears. He continued to work as a statesman until his death on 6 July 1976. His passing came six months after the death of Zhou Enlai, and just two months before the death of Mao Zedong. Zhu was cremated three days later, and received a funeral days afterwards. == Personal life ==