\nThe earliest written source is from the gazetteer of the Taihe Mountain (the old name for Wudang Mountain), Dayue Taiheshan Zhi<\/em> \u5927\u5dbd\u592a\u548c\u5c71\u5fd7, from around 1400 C.E.<\/p>\n
Wong Shiu-Hon presents his academic research about Zhang Sanfeng in the book Mortal or Immortal: A Study of Chang San-feng the Taoist<\/em> from 1993. Wong concludes that Zhang was probably born in the Yuanyou period (1314-1320) at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and died in the beginning of the Ming Dynasty probably in 1417. It was recorded that both the Ming emperors Tai Zu \u592a\u7956 and Cheng Zu \u6210\u7956 made an effort to seek him out because of his reputation – both attempts were unsuccessful. Zhang Sanfeng is not known to have founded any formal school or temple, but no less than 17 sects have taken him as their legendary founder. The first of these was the Yinxian \u96b1\u4ed9 sect who was founded around 1840. Wong Shiu-hon writes that a list of these sects was kept at the White Cloud Monastery in Beijing, this was also stated in Tung Ying-Chieh\u2019s Tai Chi book from 1948.<\/p>\n There is, I believe, enough historical material to conclude that Zhang Sanfeng was a real person. However, the accounts of his life are very old and obviously a mix of reality and legend. The fact that many sects were founded in his name long after he lived clearly indicates that he was simply taken as a legendary founder of Tai Chi. We actually don\u2019t know where this notion arose. It was simply stated in Xu Yusheng\u2019s book from 1921 and repeated over and over ever since.<\/p>\n
\nZhang Sanfeng was said to teach boxing in the biography of Zhang Songxi written in 1734 (ca. 1520-ca. 1590).
\nZhang Sanfeng\u2019s biography in the history of the Ming dynasty did not mention him as a boxer, nor did any other historical source from the 18th<\/sup> or 19th<\/sup> centuries apart from three, related, texts where Zhang Sanfeng is mentioned to be a boxer: One was in the biography of Zhang Songxi, another was Epitaph for Wang Zhengnan<\/em> from 1669, the last was by Wang Zhengnan called Neijiaquan Fa<\/em> \u5167\u5bb6\u62f3\u6cd5 The Method of Internal Boxing<\/em>. (All three texts are translated by Douglas Wile in T\u2019ai Chi\u2019s Ancestors<\/em>).<\/p>\n![\"zhang-sanfeng\"](\"https:\/\/thetaichiworkshop.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/Zhang-Sanfeng.jpg\")
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