Wáng Jiàn 王建 (ca. 766 – ca. 830, zì Zhònghé 仲和), of Yǐngchuān 潁川 (modern Hénán Xǔchāng), was jìnshì of Dàlì 10 (775; the tíyào gives this date — but the dating is in tension with later evidence). He served as cìshǐ of Dùzhōu and rose during Tàihé (827–835) to Shǎnzhōu sīmǎ (Marshal of Shǎnzhōu), whence the title Wáng Sīmǎ of his collection (KR4c0064).
Wáng is the canonical yuèfǔ social-realist of the early ninth century, paired with Zhāng Jí 張籍 as the ZhāngWáng 張王 partnership. Bái Jūyì cited the ZhāngWáng yuèfǔ explicitly in his theoretical letters as a forerunner of the xīn yuèfǔ program. Wáng’s Gōng cí 宮詞 — 100 quatrains on imperial-palace life — is his single most influential work, founding a sub-genre that persisted into the Qīng (the Gōngcí of Wáng Yán, Cuī Shūpī, Zhū Yǒudūn, etc.). His regular yuèfǔ — Shuǐfū yáo, Lǎofū tàn, Tiánjiā xíng — focuses on conscript soldiers, peasant suffering, and the displaced poor, and is the canonical mid-Táng counterpart to Bái’s Mài tàn wēng and Xīnfēng zhé bì wēng.
Principal work in the corpus: Wáng Sīmǎ jí KR4c0064 in 8 juǎn (古體 2 + 近體 6), edited by Hú Jièzhǐ in the late 17th century. CBDB id 92047 gives Wáng’s birth as 766; standard reference works give “ca. 766 – after 830.” Note: a separate Wáng Jiàn (846–918), the QiánShǔ founder, is a different person; no confusion in the modern record.