Founding-Míng Hànlín xuéshì 翰林學士 and statesman, native of Dāngtú 當塗 (Tàipíng 太平 prefecture, Ānhuī). Zì Zhǔjìng 主敬. Late-Yuán jǔrén; in the late 1340s served as Míngdào shūyuàn shānzhǎng 明道書院山長 (head of the Míngdào Academy) at Jiànkāng 建康 (Nánjīng). When Zhū Yuánzhāng 朱元璋 took Tàipíng in 1355, Táo greeted him at the city gate and counselled the strategic line credited in the Míng shǐ (j. 136) and Sòng Lián’s 宋濂 tomb-inscription with formulating the foundational Hóngwǔ strategy: “The Yuán cause is exhausted; the Heaven-mandate is changing; if you take the rivers and lakes, the empire follows”. After the Hóngwǔ accession (1368), appointed the first Hànlín xuéshì 翰林學士 of the dynasty (responsible for the major ceremonial documents of Hóngwǔ 1–3) and shortly after seconded to Jiāngxī as Cānzhèng 參政 of the Jiāngxī xíngshěng 江西行省, where he died in office in Hóngwǔ 4 (1371) at the age of 57 suì. Posthumously enfeoffed Yìngtài hóu 應泰侯; posthumous title later given as Wénjiè 文介 (or Wénxiàn 文獻 in some sources). Major work Táo xuéshì jí 陶學士集 KR4e0008; the Shàngshū jǐnyán 尚書近言 is also recorded but not transmitted here.
Note on lifedates. CBDB BIOG_MAIN c_personid 28532 gives 1310–1368, but the Academia Sinica authority data noted in CBDB itself records the more precise 1315–1371 (延祐 2 – 洪武 4), which agrees with the catalog meta of KR4e0008 and with the Míng shǐ biography’s “fifty-seven suì at death”. The 1315–1371 bracket is followed here.