Tāng Yòucéng 湯右曾 (1655–1721), zì Xīyá 西厓 (“Western Cliff”), of Rénhé 仁和 (Hángzhōu, Zhèjiāng). CBDB id 75544; catalog meta gives 1656–1722 but CBDB gives 1655–1721 — a one-year discrepancy. The CBDB dates are followed here per the principle of preferring externally verified figures.
Jìnshì of Kāngxī 27 (1688, wùchén), transferred to shùjíshì, rose to Lìbù yòu shìláng (Vice-Minister of Personnel) concurrently Hànlínyuàn zhǎngyuàn xuéshì (Director of the Hànlín Academy). A senior late-Kāngxī Hànlín official.
Tāng was the leading second-generation Shényùn school disciple of 王士禛 Wáng Shìzhēn — explicitly identified by the Sìkù tíyào as Wáng’s “rùshì dìzǐ” (chamber-entering disciple), the highest grade of formal discipleship. The Zhè poetic line — from the Xīlíng shí zǐ (Ten Sons of West-Hill) → through Wáng Shìzhēn’s Shényùn → to Tāng — formed the canonical mid-Qīng Zhèjiāng poetic genealogy. Tāng underwent a transformation through his official shǐshì (envoy-mission) to Guizhou, after which his poetry took on greater shényùn refinement.
查慎行 Zhā Shènxíng’s verse of dedication to Tāng — “Pénglái lǐngxiù dé shī xiān” (“Pavilion-of-Pénglái’s leader, getting the poetic immortal”) — registers his peer-recognition as one of the leading late-Kāngxī court poets. The mid-Qiánlóng critic 沈德潛 Shěn Déqián’s Qīng shī bié cái jí groups Tāng with 朱彝尊 as the two leading Zhèjiāng poets, with the famous formulation: “Zhèshī: front-rank push to Zhúchá [朱彝尊], rear-rank push to Xīyá [湯右曾] — between the two there is no surpassing.”
Tāng’s collected works Huáiqīngtáng jí 懷清堂集 (KR4f0042) survive in 20 juan, almost entirely poetry — over 1,400 gǔjīn tǐ (ancient-and-modern-style) poems arranged chronologically.