Wáng Shìzhēn 王世貞 (1526–1590), zì Yuánměi 元美, hào Fèngzhōu 鳳洲 / Yǎnzhōu shānrén 弇州山人 / Yǎnshānrén 弇山人, was the leading mid-to-late-Míng literary and historical scholar from Tàicāng 太倉 (in Jiāngsū). He took the jìnshì in Jiājìng 26 (1547) and rose through Boards of Punishments offices at Beijing and Nánjīng to Vice Director of Punishments at Nánjīng (Nánjīng xíngbù shàngshū 南京刑部尚書). He is a central figure of the Hòu Qī Zǐ 後七子 (“Latter Seven Masters”) archaist literary movement and is regularly paired with Lǐ Pānlóng 李攀龍 as one of its two principal champions; his program centred on the imitation of HànWèi prose and High-Táng poetry. He is the author of the massive literary collection Yǎnzhōu shānrén sìbù gǎo 弇州山人四部稿 (174 juǎn) and its sequel, the Xù gǎo 續稿. As a historian he produced the Yǎnshāntáng biéjí 弇山堂別集 KR2e0020 — a 100-juǎn topically organized institutional and critical history of the Míng, including the foundational Shǐchéng kǎowù 史乘考誤 critique of the Míng shílù — and the Jiājìng yǐlái shǒu fǔ zhuàn 嘉靖以來首輔傳 (a critical biographical history of the Míng grand secretaries from Jiājìng to Wànlì). His record is in the “Literary Garden” treatise of the Míngshǐ. He was one of the wealthiest book-collectors of the Míng (his Yǎnshāntáng 弇山堂 library at Tàicāng was one of the largest private collections of the late Míng) and his combined literary-historical influence is one of the principal channels through which late-Míng shǐxué shaped the Qīng evidential tradition.