Zhang Sanfeng

Zhang Sanfeng was a renowned Daoist master active during the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties. His secular name was Quanyi, and his Daoist name was Sanfeng; he hailed from Yizhou in Liaodong. Tall in stature and famously unconcerned with personal grooming, he was popularly known as 'Zhang the Slovenly'. Legend holds that he wore only a single patched robe and straw cloak regardless of season, sometimes eating only once every several days—or fasting for months at a time—and possessed the ability to foresee auspicious and inauspicious events. He established a hermitage on Wudang Mountain for cultivation, vigorously advocated the synthesis of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism, and founded the Wudang Daoist lineage; later generations of Taijiquan practitioners revere him as their founding patriarch. Though both the Hongwu Emperor and the Yongle Emperor repeatedly dispatched envoys to seek him out, he remained elusive. During the Tianshun reign period, he was posthumously conferred the title 'Perfected Master Who Penetrates Subtlety and Manifests Transformation'; later, he received the additional honorific title 'Immortal of Loyalty and Filial Piety'. Today, Wudang Mountain houses a bronze statue of Zhang Sanfeng and the Zhang Sanfeng Patriarch Hall—both objects of veneration for martial artists, health cultivators, and seekers of Daoist immortality.