Zhào Míngchéng 趙明誠 (1081–1129), zì Défù 德父 (also written 德甫), was a Northern Sòng official and the most important early Sòng epigrapher after Ōuyáng Xiū. A native of Mìzhōu Zhūchéng 密州諸城 (Shāndōng), son of the chief councillor Zhào Tǐngzhī 趙挺之 (1040–1107), he served in successive prefectural posts ending as prefect of Húzhōu 湖州 zhī Húzhōu jūnzhōu shì. From his youth he and his wife the great poet Lǐ Qīngzhào 李清照 (1084–ca. 1155) collected rubbings of bronze inscriptions and stone stelae, compiling them into the Jīnshí lù KR2n0013 (30 juan), an authoritative catalogue of nearly 2,000 jīnshí objects with critical colophons on 502 of them. Zhào died of fever in 1129 during the Jiànyán emergency at Jiànkāng (Nánjīng) while travelling to take up a Húzhōu posting; the manuscript was completed and presented to court by Lǐ Qīngzhào in the Shàoxīng era. Her famous hòuxù 後序 to the Jīnshí lù — one of the supreme prose pieces of Chinese letters — describes their joint scholarly life and the collection’s destruction in the wars of 1127–1129. Zhāng Duānyì’s 張端義 Guì’ěr jí 貴耳集 says Qīngzhào also “trimmed and brushed” (筆削) the catalogue, suggesting joint authorship.