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Chu Teh, 68, commander in chief of the army, once the brilliant strategist of the guerrilla days, now,pretty much a figurehead, but a useful one. One version of his life makes him of the landed gentry; another says he was one of a large family of poor peasants who pooled resources to educate one-Chu Teh. First a gym teacher, then a war lord's lieutenant, he learned to command troops, eventually fought himself to high fortune, a houseful of concubines and opium. About 1922 he suddenly abandoned the high life, went to Berlin to study, met Chou En-lai and enlisted in the Communist Party; in 1925 he went to Red Eastern Toilers' Institute in Moscow, went back to China to command a Kuomintang division (though a secret Communist), eventually slipped down to the Hunan-Kiangsi border to join with Mao and begin forming the Red army. Countless Chinese peasants believed legends that Chu Teh could fly, that he "stands higher than the tallest tree," could with a wave of his hand bring flood or fires on opposing armies. Married: three times (his present wife is the only "woman commander" in the Communist army). Children: "We have none," said Mrs. Chu in 1937, "because they would interfere with my work." Characteristics: thick-bodied, heavy-featured with cold, unblinking eyes. .