Táo Qián 陶潛 (365–427), better known by his zì Yuānmíng 淵明 (also Yuán liàng 元亮), with the self-style Wǔ liǔ xiānsheng 五柳先生 (“Master of the Five Willows”), native of Cháiśāng 柴桑 in Xúnyáng 尋陽 (modern Jiǔjiāng 九江, Jiāngxī), was the foundational poet of the Chinese eremitic tradition and one of the most beloved poets of the entire premodern canon. Great-grandson of the Western-Jìn general Táo Kǎn 陶侃. Held a series of minor offices under the late Eastern Jìn — most famously the magistracy of Péngzé 彭澤 — which he abandoned after about 80 days in 405, refusing to “bend his back for five pecks of rice” (bù wéi wǔ dǒu mǐ zhé yāo 不為五斗米折腰). He spent his remaining 22 years on a small farm at Cháiśāng, writing the verses, prose, and fù that became canonical: Guī qù lái cí 歸去來辭, Táo huā yuán jì 桃花源記, Yǐn jiǔ 飲酒 (twenty), Guī yuán tián jū 歸園田居 (five), Wǔ liǔ xiānsheng zhuàn 五柳先生傳, Yú huì shī 與荀禘詩, Xián qíng fù 閒情賦.
After the fall of the Jìn (420) Táo refused to use the LiúSòng niánhào, dating his works only by sexagenary cycles — a gesture that became the canonical model of dynastic loyalty. He died in 427 in his sixty-third year. Standard biographies in Sòng shū 93, Jìn shū 94, Nán shǐ 75, and (most influentially) Xiāo Tǒng’s Táo Yuānmíng zhuàn attached to his eight-juǎn edition of KR4b0008 Táo Yuānmíng jí; the Sòng-era reception led by Sū Shì 蘇軾 and Huáng Tíngjiān 黃庭堅 fixed his canonical status. CBDB confirms 365–427.