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...