Late-Míng / early-Qīng official, antiquarian, and connoisseur of calligraphy and painting; native of Yìdū 益都 (registered as Dàxīng in the capital region). Zì Ěrbó 耳伯; hào Běihǎi 北海 and Tuìgǔ 退谷. Took the jìnshì in Chóngzhēn 4 (1631); served the Míng as Censor (Yùshǐ); served the Shùn (Lǐ Zìchéng’s regime) briefly in 1644, then transferred to the new Qīng with the Manchu entry, ultimately rising to Vice-Minister of Personnel under Shùnzhì. Withdrew from office and devoted the last decades of his long life to scholarship at his Beijing studio Tuìgǔ 退谷. His enormous corpus—the Gēngzǐ xiāoxià jì 庚子銷夏記 (a foundational work of Chinese painting connoisseurship), the Yuáncháo diǎngù biānnián kǎo 元朝典故編年考 (KR2m0019), the Tiānfǔ guǎngjì 天府廣記, Chūnmíng mèngyú lù 春明夢餘錄, and many shorter works—covers institutional history, art history, classical commentary, and capital-region topography. His reputation suffered for his service under both the Shùn and the Qīng but his scholarship is unanimously praised. CBDB confirms 1592–1676.