Yuán Hóng 袁宏
Eastern Jìn 東晉 historian and fù writer. Zì Yànbó 彥伯; childhood name Hǔ 虎. Native of Yángxià 陽夏 in Chénjùn 陳郡 (modern Tàikāng 太康, Hénán). Member of the Yángxià Yuán 陳郡袁氏 lineage, one of the elite gāomén clans of the Eastern Jìn.
His biography is in Jìn shū 92 (Wényuàn zhuàn). Held a series of provincial military and central court appointments, eventually rising under Xiè Ān 謝安 to Dōngyáng tàishǒu 東陽太守 in the early Tàiyuán 太元 era (376 onwards). His fame in the Eastern Jìn was both as a literary brilliant — celebrated in Shì shuō xīn yǔ anecdotes — and as a historian.
His principal work is the Hòu Hàn jì 後漢紀 (KR2b0004) in 30 juǎn, the standard chronological biānnián recasting of the Eastern Hàn 東漢 history. Composed between roughly 360 and 372 — Yuán’s own preface mentions “eight years of toil” — it draws on at least seven now-lost Eastern Hàn historical works, including Xiè Chéng’s 謝承 Hòu Hàn shū, Sīmǎ Biāo’s 司馬彪 Hòu Hàn shū, Huá Qiáo’s 華嶠 Hòu Hàn shū, Zhāng Fán’s 張璠 Hòu Hàn jì, and others. As such it is a primary witness for Eastern Hàn history independent of Fàn Yè’s later Hòu Hàn shū (KR2a0021); Liú Zhījī (Shǐ tōng Zhèng shǐ 史通正史) ranks Yuán together with Fàn Yè as the two definitive historians of the Eastern Hàn restoration.
Also composed the Sān guó míngchén xùzàn 三國名臣序贊 (preserved in Wén xuǎn 47), an influential set of historical-character estimates of figures from the Sān guó period; the Zhú lín míngshì zhuàn 竹林名士傳 (lost; cited in Shì shuō xīn yǔ); and a substantial collection of fù. CBDB has no confident match.