Táng official, proper name Chēn 綝, who used his courtesy name Fāngqìng 方慶 in life. His ancestors had moved from Dānyáng 丹陽 to Xiányáng 咸陽. He served under both Gāozōng 高宗 (in which reign he held Lìbù lángzhōng 吏部郎中, the office named on the title-page of his Wèi Zhènggōng jiànlù) and Empress Wǔ 武后, rising under the latter to Luántái shìláng tóng Fènggé Luántái píngzhāngshì 鸞臺侍郎同鳳閣鸞臺平章事, equivalent to deputy chancellor. Under Wǔ Zétiān he played a notable role in the politics of the imperial succession, prevailing on the empress to recall her exiled son Zhōngzōng 中宗 (then Lúlíng wáng 廬陵王), and proposing that the heir’s name not be taboo-avoided as a procedural step toward the eventual restoration of the Táng. He ended his career as Tàizǐ zuǒshùzǐ 太子左庶子 with the enfeoffment of Shíquánxiàngōng 石泉縣公; his posthumous title was Zhēn 貞. He died in 702. His biography is in Xīn Tángshū (juàn 116) and Jiù Tángshū (juàn 89). The Xīn Tángshū says he was widely learned, an authority on court ritual, and the author of more than two hundred piān; his only major surviving work is the Wèi Zhènggōng jiànlù 魏鄭公諫錄 (KR2g0004), the principal Táng-period record of Wèi Zhēng’s 魏徵 remonstrances under Tàizōng. CBDB id 154276 (death-date attested) and 376331 (floruit 683–) are the two relevant records; CBDB id 154276 is preferred here.