Wáng Gǒng 王鞏 (fl. 1075–1104; CBDB id 7084 records c_fl_earliest_year 1069 and c_fl_latest_year 1094), zì Dìngguó 定國, self-styled Qīngxū xiānshēng 清虛先生. Native of Shènxiàn 莘縣 (modern Shāndōng). Grandson of the Zhēnzōng-era chief minister Wáng Dàn 王旦 and son of the Gōngbù shàngshū 王素 Wáng Sù 王素. Through family privilege (yīn) he entered office; served as Yángzhōu cuì, demoted to the salt-tax superintendency at Jūnzhōu in Yuánfēng 2 (1079) as a consequence of his association with Sū Shì in the Wūtái shī àn; later restored, reaching Zōngzhèng chéng. Biography in Sòng shǐ 320. Author of three short bǐjì preserved together in the Sòng manuscript line: KR3l0042 Jiǎshēn zájì 甲申雜記 (42 entries, dated Chóngníng 3 / 1104); KR3l0043 Wénjiàn jìnlù 聞見近錄 (104 entries, Zhōu Shìzōng to Shénzōng); KR3l0044 Suíshǒu zálù 隨手雜錄 (33 entries, Zhōu Shìzōng to early Yīngzōng). Also: a poetry collection Qīngxū jí (lost in independent transmission, partly recovered in the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn).
Wáng Gǒng’s mistress Yǔniáng 寓娘 (also Cháo Yún 朝雲, but distinct from Sū Shì’s concubine of the same name) shared his Jūnzhōu exile and is the addressee of Sū Shì’s famous cí “Dìngfēngbō” 定風波 (“My friend, why ask of the southland?”). The literary friendship with Sū Shì runs throughout Wáng Gǒng’s surviving bǐjì — making them one of the principal source-bodies for the Sū Shì circle.