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Zhu Danxi was the youngest of all the Jin-Yuan Masters. In fact, he is only one born during the reign of the Yuan dynasty.

Some Chinese History:

Before the Yuan dynasty came into being, what we consider the eastern part of China was occupied in the north by the nvzhen (女真) people of the Jin dynasty, and occupied in the south by the southern Song dynasty. The Song dynasty stood steady against further attack by the Jin dynasty, which didn’t manage to expand its southern borders much further.

The Mongols were united in 1206 by Genghis Khan. From then on, we see an interesting attempt to expand Mongolian borders, a task that was passed from generation to generation. While he was expanding westward into the lands between India and the Black Sea, his army also defeated its neighbor to the east (the Western Xia Kingdom), and then moved futher east to sack the Jin capital of Yanjing (later known as Beijing) in 1215. This, to the Song Chinese, were a war between two barbaric tribes – the Mongols and the Manchurians. By 1234, the Jin dynasty was no more.

Thirty-five years later in 1279, the Song dynasty was finished too. Kublai Khan the grandson of Genghis founded the Yuan dynasty and located his capital in present day Beijing – then known as Dadu (大都), which means “large capital.”

Zhu Danxi in relation to Chinese History:

Zhu Danxi was born two years after the Southern Song dynasty was replaced by the Yuan empire. He was in a town called Danxi (丹溪), which is not too far from Hangzhou, still capital of the southern Song just few years before his birth. He passed away in 1358, 10 years before the Yuan dynasty was replaced by the Ming dynasty.

Six Things to remember about Zhu Danxi:

1. He didn’t like the southern method of using prescriptions as laid out by the Song formulary in the book heji jufang (合剂局方).
2. He was first schooled in Neo-confucianism (理学), which deeply influenced his view of medicine and health.
3. He absorbed the northern ideas of the earlier Jin masters – all of whom lived in either Henan (河南) or Hebei (河北) – via a guy called Luo. Luo had traveled up north for 20 years, and learned from a disciple of Liu Wansu. Luo was also well versed in the ideas of Zhang Congzheng – who had learned alot from Liu Wansu, as well as the ideas of Li Gao – the disciple of Zhang Yuansu. They say that Zhu Danxi had managed to bring together the most important ideas of his era and meld them into one.
4. Danxi was all about excess fire in the body. He talked about excess yang and deficient yin (阳有余阴不足), arguing for the need to boost deficient yin. He spoke of xianghuo (相火), the fire which is needed to keep a body physiologically health, but burns the body when in excess. He also maintained the need for stillness if pathological xianghuo is not to appear.
5. Note his most well-known herb pair to zhimu and huangbai (知母—黄柏). Such use is attributed to his idea that tonifying yin and clearing heat-fire are mutually supporting strategies (”补阴火自降、泻火为补阴之功”). He also uses other bitters – e.g. huangqin and huanglian to tonify Kidney “cold.” This was later ground for controversy and disapproval — Xueji (during the early Ming dynasty) had alot to say about his method of “tonifying the cold.”
6. Danxi is know for treating miscellaneous diseases (杂病). His methods, on hindsight, are easy to lay out. For qi deficiency (气虚), use si jun zi tang (四君子汤). For blood deficiency (血虚), use si wu tang (四物汤). For phlegm (痰), use er chen tang (二陈汤). For repression/stuckness (郁), use yue bi wan (越鞠丸).

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