Zai Zhang

Born in 1020, Zhang Zai was a Chinese philosopher and government official of the Northern Song dynasty. He became one of the key early figures in Neo-Confucianism, and later generations remembered him as an important voice in giving Confucian thought a stronger metaphysical foundation.

Sources consistently describe him as deeply interested in the nature of qi, the vital material force that he saw as underlying all things. His ideas connected cosmology, ethics, and self-cultivation, helping shape the intellectual world later developed by major Confucian thinkers.

He is also associated with the name Hengqu, taken from the place where he lived for much of his life, and he died in 1077. Though he lived nearly a thousand years ago, his work remained influential in East Asian philosophy for centuries.