Wáng Fūzhī 王夫之 (1619–1692), zì Érnóng 而農, hào Jiāngzhāi 薑齋, also Chuánshān 船山, was one of the “Three Great Confucians of the Early Qīng” (along with Huáng Zōngxī 黃宗羲 and Gù Yánwǔ 顧炎武), and a leading Míng-loyalist Yìjīng and Lǐxué scholar from Héngyáng 衡陽 (Húguǎng 湖廣, modern Húnán 湖南); the Sìkù notice errs in giving his native place as Hànyáng 漢陽. He was a jǔrén of the Wànlì period under the Míng. After the Míng collapse he served briefly under the Yǒnglì 永曆 emperor of the Southern Míng (1648–1650), then withdrew permanently to Mount Chuán 船山 in Héngyáng — which gave his most famous hào — and refused all Qīng appointments for the remaining four decades of his life. He composed an immense corpus on the Classics, philosophy, and history.
His major works on the Yì form a graded sequence: the Zhōuyì bài shū 周易稗疏 (KR1a0120) is a textual-and-philological notebook; the Zhōuyì wài zhuàn 周易外傳 is an extended philosophical commentary; the Zhōuyì nèi zhuàn 周易內傳 is the systematic close exegesis; the Zhōuyì kǎo yì 周易考異 (one juàn, transmitted as appendix to the Bài shū) is a focused textual critique. Together with parallel works on the Shī, Shū, Lǐ, Chūnqiū, the Four Books, and Sòng Lǐxué (the famous Dú Tōngjiàn lùn 讀通鑑論 and Sòng lùn 宋論), these constitute a comprehensive Confucian re-engagement with the canonical and historical tradition under the conditions of Qīng dominance.
Wáng’s importance to modern Chinese philosophy is enormous: revived in the late nineteenth century by Tán Sìtóng 譚嗣同 and others, his work would become a principal intellectual resource for late-Qīng and Republican-era thinkers re-imagining China’s intellectual past.