 Confucian thought in China’s Song (960–1279 CE), Yuan (1279–1368 CE), and Ming (1368–1644 CE) dynasties is marked by concerted efforts to weave the ideas expressed in traditional Confucian texts into more coherent and theoretical worldviews, and to make more explicit what its advocates and practitioners take to be the Confucian tradition’s metaphysics and moral psychology, and to refute and curtail the influence of Buddhism and Daoism. Many anthologies and histories of Chinese philosophy treat the Song-Ming period as second only to the classical, pre-Qin period in terms of its importance and influence on Confucian thought, with its two leading philosophers Zhu Xi (1130–1200) and Wang Yangming (1472–1529) doing the most to shape the tradition as we know it today. Most studies of this period focus on Confucians in the first and last of these dynasties, the Song and Ming. There were several notable Confucian philosophers in the middle Yuan dynasty as well, and the Yuan was also important for bringing state support and institutional backing to the orthodoxy of the Song philosopher Zhu Xi (Chen 2010: 241–274). But scholars tend to refer to Confucians of this period as “Song-Ming Confucians”, emphasizing the two most philosophically important dynasties and perhaps downplaying the relatively short-lived middle dynasty under Mongol rule.