In a traditional origin story, the Eastern Han physician credited with inventing jiaozi is Zhang Zhongjing.
The story places Zhang Zhongjing in the Eastern Han period, traditionally dated AD 25–220. It says that, while returning home during winter, he encountered poor people suffering from frostbitten ears. He supposedly prepared lamb, pepper, and warming medicinal ingredients, wrapped the mixture in dough, and boiled the parcels before distributing them with broth.
This account is a folk origin story rather than securely documented culinary history. Zhang Zhongjing was a real physician and pharmacologist, generally associated with roughly AD 150–219, and is remembered as one of traditional Chinese medicine’s most influential figures. The dumpling story connects his medical reputation with a practical winter food.
Jiaozi were not necessarily invented in their modern form by one person. Archaeological finds and written references indicate that dumpling-like foods existed later in Chinese history, while the Zhang story explains their cultural meaning. The physician should not be confused with Hua Tuo, another famous Han-era doctor, or with Li Shizhen, who lived more than a millennium later.