<Tr> <Th> Wade--Giles </Th> <Td> Chu Yu - chieh </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> IPA </Th> <Td> Mandarin pronunciation: (tʂú jû. tɕjé) </Td> </Tr> <P> Zhu De (Chu Teh; Chinese: 朱德; pinyin: Zhū Dé; pronounced (ʈʂú tɤ̌); 1 December 1886--6 July 1976) was a Chinese general, warlord, politician, revolutionary and one of the pioneers of the Communist Party of China . Born poor in 1886 in Sichuan, he was adopted by a wealthy uncle at age nine; this prosperity provided him a superior early education that led to his admission into a military academy . After his time at the academy, he joined a rebel army and soon became a warlord . It was after this period that he adopted communism . He ascended through the ranks of the Chinese Red Army as it closed in on securing the nation . By the time China was under Mao's control, Zhu was a high - ranking official within the Communist Party of China . He served as Commander - in - Chief of the Eighth Route Army during the Second Sino - Japanese War . In 1955 he became one of the Ten Marshals of the People's Liberation Army, of which he is regarded as the principal founder . Zhu remained a prominent political figure until his death in 1976 . As the chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress from 1975 - 76, Zhu was the head of state of the People's Republic of China . </P> <P> Zhu was born on December 18, 1886, to a poor tenant farmer's family in Hung, a town in Yilong County, a hilly and isolated part of northern Sichuan province . Of the 15 children born to the family only eight survived . His family relocated to Sichuan during the migration 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 the "Szechwan dialect" Sichuanese, a distinct regional variant of Southwest Mandarin that is unintelligible to other speakers of Standard Chinese (Mandarin). </P>

Who was the leader of the people's republic of china answers.com