狐丘，亦称狐刚子，是道家武林之冠，炼丹界的杰出代表。关于他的生卒年和籍贯在古籍中无确切记载，但据今人陈国符先生考证，他可能与葛洪同时期，曾撰写《五金诀》，将狐刚子誉为“最大之外丹黄白师”。赵匡华先生也指出，狐刚子的名字有多种表述，如胡罡子、狐罡子等。他生活于东汉末年，以其卓越的化学发明闻名遐迩。他的著作虽未能完整流传，但在唐初的《黄帝九鼎神丹经诀》及唐代黄白术专著中保留了他在这方面的一些重要佚文。
fox, also known as fox zhangzi, is a representative of the alchemical community. As for his birth and death years and place of origin, there are no clear records in ancient texts. However, according to Mr. Chen Guofu's research, he may have lived during the same period as Ge Hong and was responsible for writing "Wujin jue", which referred to Fox Zangzi as "the greatest external elixir yellow white master". Similarly, Mr. Zhao Guanghua pointed out that Fox Zangzi had multiple names such as Hu Gangzi or Fox Gangzi.
He resided in the late Eastern Han Dynasty and was renowned for his exceptional chemical inventions. Although his works were not fully preserved, some important fragments remain in early Tang dynasty texts like "Huangdi jiu ding shen dan jing jue" and specialized books on yellow-white alchemy from the Tang era.
Fox Zangzi's writings reflect the high level of alchemical techniques achieved by China during that time. Unfortunately, due to incomplete preservation of his works, he remained largely unknown until recent studies revived interest in him.
Despite this limitation, it is evident that Fox Zangzi made significant contributions to various fields including gold-silver refining techniques through direct observation and experimentation with geological distributions of precious metals; exploration into new methods such as blowing glass furnaces (blowing furnace method), an early form used before modern smelting processes; development of unique gold-silver powder production techniques where fine gold particles are evenly distributed onto salt grains after heating them together - then rinsing off water vapor leaves behind only pure golden powder remaining attached on salt grains' surface; creation of five metal powder chart secrets revealing new discoveries related to silver refining history via closed vacuum extraction methods allowing higher recovery rates compared earlier simple oxidation roasting process resulting major transformation within Chinese silver refinement history with advancements proposed by fox himself using improved recipes over traditional methods involving basic oxygenation baking processes making improvements over previous steps improving yield efficiency while reducing waste materials further enabling more efficient use resources both human labor & natural materials alike thus contributing greatly towards scientific advancement at that time thereby laying foundation future innovations developments later generations would build upon continuing legacy passed down through generations centuries following long after gone now but never forgotten because they changed lives countless people forever altering course human civilization shaping world we know today
