Yáng Jiǒng 楊炯 (650–693)
Native of Huáyīn 華陰 in Huázhōu 華州 (modern Wèinán 渭南, Shǎnxī). Second of the Sì jié 四傑 (“Four Outstanding Ones”) of early-Táng letters, alongside Wáng Bó 王勃, Lú Zhàolín 盧照鄰, and Luò Bīnwáng 駱賓王.
A child prodigy. Presented at the court of Gāozōng at ten suì (660) as a shéntóng 神童 and given the dàizhì 待制 status of the Hóngwén guǎn 弘文館. Jìnshì (or rather jǔ jìnshìyījiǎ kē) of the Yífèng 1 (676) examination, after which he was made jiàoshū láng 校書郎 of the Hóngwén guǎn; subsequently promoted to zhānshì zīyì 詹事司直 in the household of Crown Prince Lǐ Xián 李賢 (the future Zhōngzōng). In 685, in the wake of the abortive rebellion of Xú Jìngyè 徐敬業 against Wǔhòu 武后, he was exiled to Zǐzhōu sīfǎ 梓州司法 (in modern Sìchuān) for a remote but real degree of complicity through his cousin Yáng Shénràng 楊神讓. Pardoned in 689 and returned to court as a jiàoshū 教書 in the Mìshūshěng 秘書省, he was sent out in 692 as Yíngchuān lìng 盈川令 (county magistrate of Yíngchuān in modern Lóngyóu 龍游, Zhèjiāng), where he died in office in 693, by tradition harshly governing the locals to a degree that became a zhìguài anecdote about his ghost.
His extant collection — Yíngchuān jí KR4c0004 in 10 juǎn, recompiled by Tóng Pèi 童佩 in the late Míng — is much reduced from the Xīn Tángshū yìwén zhì’s 30-juǎn figure. His most famous work is the Cóngjūn xíng 從軍行 (“Following the Army”), which closes with the iconic line nìng wéi bǎifūzhǎng, shèng zuò yī shūshēng 寧為百夫長勝作一書生 (“Better to be a centurion than a scholar with a book”) — possibly the single most-quoted couplet of frontier verse in early-Táng literature. CBDB carries no birth/death year for him (cbdbId 31110); the 650–693 figure is the standard scholarly bracket.