The Zhou Yishan 周义山

Zhou Yishan (80 BC–?) was a native of Ruyin (present-day Fuyang County, Anhui Province) during the Western Han Dynasty.

Styled Jitong, he was also known as True Person Ziyang. His grandfather, Zhou Xuan, served as the Inspector of Qingzhou in the first year of Yuanfeng (80 BC).

His father, Zhou Mi, was once the Magistrate of Fanyang and later was promoted step by step to the position of an official in Chenliu. According to records in The Inner Biography of True Person Ziyang and Volume Thirteen of The Comprehensive Mirror of True Immortals Through the Ages Who Embodied Taoism, when Zhou Yishan was sixteen years old, he followed his father in the county and studied books such as The Analects of Confucius, I Ching, and Classic of Filial Piety.

He liked to sit alone in quiet places and did not seek fame or friendships. However, he was meticulous in his deep thinking, and whatever he focused his mind on would surely evoke responses. During a time of severe drought, Zhou Yishan donated all his wealth to help the poor and needy, yet the people he aided did not even know who he was. Later, he encountered a divine being who taught him techniques for refining the body to eliminate disasters, methods of absorbing qi to restore the spirit and preserve the soul, the essential principles of maintaining the "Three Ones" (a Taoist concept), as well as the main ideas of various Shangqing scriptures, including practices of taking elixirs and abstaining from grains.

After completing his cultivation and fulfilling his Taoist virtues, he attained the rank of Supreme Immortal.