Zhāng Zhuó 張鷟 (658–730), zì Wénchéng 文成, self-styled Fúxiūzǐ 浮休子, native of Lùliáng 陸梁 of Shēnzhōu 深州 (modern Héběi). CBDB id 30975. The lifedates 658–730 are followed here on Tackett’s CBDB reconstruction; the Sìkù catalog meta’s 661–741 reflects a less reliable Sòng calculation. He passed jìnshì in 679 (the Sìkù tíyào writes the reign-period as Gānlù but means Diàolù 調露), was first appointed Xiāngyáng wèi 襄陽尉, rose through Sìmén yuánwài láng 四門員外郎, and ended his career — after being implicated in a court controversy under Xuánzōng — as Senior Recorder (zhǎngshǐ 長史) of Gōngzhōu 龔州 (modern Guǎngxī).
The Xīn Táng shū 161, in the biography of his grandson Zhāng Jiàn 張薦, transmits the famous anecdote of his name: as a small child he dreamed of a great purple-marked bird alighting in the family courtyard; his grandfather identified it as the yuèzhuó 鸑鷟 (a phoenix-class auspicious bird) and predicted the boy would honour the court with literary composition. Yuán Bànqiān’s 員半千 epithet “qīngqián wànxuǎn wànzhòng” 青錢萬選萬中 (“blue cash chosen ten thousand times, hitting the mark ten thousand times”) gave him the popular nickname Qīngqián xuéshì 青錢學士. He was famous enough that ambassadors from Japan and Silla brought silk and gold to buy his writings.
Of his prose only two works survive: the Cháoyě qiānzài 朝野僉載 (KR3l0003; a bǐjì of WǔZhōu and early Táng anecdotes — heavily tampered with in transmission) and the Lóngjīn fèngsuǐ pàn 龍筋鳳髓判 (KR3k0005; specimen pàn responsa for examination preparation). His son-in-law and his grandson Zhāng Jiàn were both significant literary officials of the late Táng. The traveller-anecdotalist Mò Xiūfú 莫休符, native of Guìzhōu, recorded biographical material on him in Guìlín fēngtǔ jì — a near-contemporary source.