Yú Zǎi 余載, zì Dàchē 大車, of Sānshān 三山 (Fúzhōu 福州, Fújiàn). Fl. Tiānlì era of Yuán Wénzōng (1328–1330). Held the post of Fúzhōu lù rúxué lù 福州路儒學錄 (“Recorder of the Confucian School of Fúzhōu Lù”) under the Yuán; resigned and lived as a bùyī 布衣 (“commoner”) to care for his parents, then taught privately. The principal source for his life is the preface he himself wrote to the Sháowǔ jiǔchéng yuèbǔ 韶舞九成樂補 (KR1i0005) and a parallel preface by his disciple Zhū Mó 朱模 of Xīnān 新安 — the latter establishing his floruit in the Tiānlì era of Wénzōng (1328–1330). His preface boasts 47 years of life under the Yuán, suggesting birth ca. 1280–1284. CBDB id 102199 records him with the zì Dàchē but no dates.
He was an autodidact of music theory; the Sháowǔ jiǔchéng yuèbǔ combines mode theory in Sòng-orthodox idiom (he draws on the Lǚlǚ xīnshū of 蔡元定 and the Hétú / Luòshū numerology of Chén Tuán 陳摶) with reconstructions of the Sháo dance notation. The Sìkù compilers note that the work, while interpretively forced in places, preserves arguments not otherwise transmitted.