Niú Hóng 牛弘
Style name Lǐrén 里仁. Native of Máolíng 茂陵 in Fúfēng 扶風 (modern Shaanxi). Sui dynasty official, bibliophile, and scholar. CBDB id 32044 (dates 545–610 confirmed).
Niú Hóng served successive Sui emperors in high cultural and ritual offices, rising to Lǐbù shàngshū 禮部尚書 (Minister of Rites) under both Emperor Wen 隋文帝 (r. 581–604) and Emperor Yang 隋煬帝 (r. 604–618). His biography is in Suíshū 隋書 juǎn 49.
He is primarily famous as a bibliophile and institutional promoter of book collection. His memorial 〈上表請開獻書之路〉 (Memorial Requesting the Opening of a Path to Offer Books to the Court), submitted to Emperor Wen of Sui, contains the celebrated account of the Five Disasters (wǔ è 五厄) that had progressively destroyed China’s ancient book collections — from the Qin burning of books, through the collapse of the Western Han, the chaos of Wang Mang, the destruction of the Eastern Han palace library in the Dong Zhuo uprising, and finally the catastrophic losses of the Yongjia upheaval that ended the Western Jin. This catalog of bibliographic catastrophe made a powerful case for comprehensive state book-gathering and was foundational for the eventual compilation of the Suíshū jīngjízhì 隋書·經籍志, the most important surviving medieval Chinese bibliographic monograph. Niú Hóng also composed ritual poetry for the Sui court. His literary remains are gathered in KR4b0085.