Wáng Yīnglín 王應麟
Style names Bóhòu 伯厚 and Shēnníng 深寧, studio name Hòuzhāi 厚齋. Self-styled “of Jùnyí” 浚儀 after his ancestral seat in Kāifēng; lived in Qìngyuán 慶元 (Yín 鄞 county, modern Níngbō 寧波). Jìnshì of 1241 (Chúnyòu 1); awarded the bóxué hóngcí 博學鴻詞 doctorate in 1256 (Bǎoyòu 4). Held a series of court and provincial offices, rising to Vice Minister of Rites (Lǐbù shàngshū 禮部尚書) and Censorial Adviser (jǐ shìzhōng 給事中); resigned and retired after the fall of the Southern Sòng, refusing service under the Yuán. The Sòngshǐ Rúlín zhuàn 宋史儒林傳 carries his biography.
The leading bibliographer, encyclopedist, and kǎojù 考據 scholar of the late Southern Sòng. Massive surviving output across the canon: the encyclopedia Yùhǎi 玉海 in 200 juan, the philological notebooks Kùnxué jìwén 困學紀聞, the historical-geographic Tōngjiàn dìlǐ tōngshì 通鑑地理通釋, the bibliographic Hànzhì kǎozhèng 漢制考 and Hànshū yìwénzhì kǎozhèng 漢書藝文志考證 — plus a series of pioneering recompilations (jíyì 輯佚) of lost classical commentaries: Zhōuyì Zhèng Kāngchéng zhù (KR1a0003), Zhèng shì Zhōulǐ zhèngzú zú 鄭氏周禮鄭注, Zhèng shì Lǐjì jiē 鄭氏禮記解, and the Sānjiā Shī kǎo 三家詩考 reconstruction of the lost Lǔ, Qí, and Hán Shī schools. The traditional attribution of the children’s primer Sānzìjīng 三字經 to him is conventional but unverifiable.
His method — gathering scattered citations from extant sub-commentaries, dynastic-history monographs, and lèi shū 類書, and reassembling them into coherent pre-Hàn or Hàn texts — is the methodological prototype for the Qīng kǎozhèng recompilations of Huì Dòng 惠棟, Mǎ Guóhàn 馬國翰, and others.