Kǒng Shàngrèn 孔尚任 (courtesy names 季重 Jìzhòng and 聘之 Pìnzhī; studio names 東塘 Dōngtáng, 雲亭山人 Yúntíng Shānrén, 孤雲草堂 Gūyún Cǎotáng, 介安堂 Jièān Táng; 1648–1718) was a Qīng playwright and official, the sixty-fourth-generation lineal descendant of Confucius (孔子). Born in Qūfù 曲阜, Shāndōng. CBDB (id 65579) confirms his dates as Shùnzhì 5 (1648) to Kāngxī 57 (1718), citing the Qīngdài Rénwù Shēngzú Nián Biǎo 清代人物生卒年表.
He was summoned to the Kāngxī court in 1684 when the emperor visited the Confucian shrine at Qūfù; the emperor was impressed and appointed Kong to a position in the Board of Works. He was later posted to Nánjīng and Yángzhōu in connection with hydraulic projects, where he spent years collecting oral traditions, documentary materials, and eyewitness testimonies from survivors and descendants of the Southern Míng (Nán Míng 南明) court. After approximately fifteen years of composition and revision, he completed the chuánqí 傳奇 drama Táohuā Shàn 桃花扇 (KR4k0235) in 1699. The drama received imperial performance and caused a sensation in literary circles; shortly after its premiere, Kong was removed from office — an event that his contemporaries and later scholars have sometimes, though not conclusively, connected to the drama’s politically sensitive portrayal of the fall of the Míng dynasty.
He is also the author of the Hǎitáng Shī Shè Shī Jí 海棠詩社詩集 and other literary collections. Táohuā Shàn remains his principal legacy and is universally regarded as one of the two great chuánqí dramas of the Qīng period, alongside Hóng Shēng’s 洪昇 Cháng Shēng Diàn 長生殿 (1688).