Xú Mèngshēn 徐夢莘 (1126–1207), zì Shānglǎo 商老, of Línjiāng 臨江. Jìnshì of Shàoxīng 24 (1154); successively Educational Officer of Nán’ān 南安, magistrate of Xiāngyīn 湘陰, and Prefect of Bīnzhōu 賓州, dismissed after a policy dispute over the salt administration. His biography stands in the Sòngshǐ rúlín zhuàn 宋史儒林傳. Born in the year of the Jīngkāng 靖康 disaster, he is recorded as having brooded throughout his life on the fall of the Northern Sòng and on the need to know its history in full. The fruit was the Sānzhāo běiméng huìbiān 三朝北盟會編 (KR2c0004) of 250 juǎn, presented in 1194, a year-by-year, day-by-day documentary compendium of SòngJīn relations from the Hǎishàng zhī méng 海上之盟 of Zhènghé 7 (1117) to Shàoxīng 31 (1161). On its presentation he was promoted to Editor-in-Chief of the Imperial Library (zhí mìshěng 直秘省). The catalog meta gives “1124–1205” for his lifedates; CBDB (personid 18597) and Wilkinson (Chinese History, §62.2 #11) give 1126–1207, followed here.