Chéng Zhāo 程昭, zì Shìmíng 士明, was a Northern-Sòng Daoist alchemical writer from Wǔchāng 武昌 (modern Wǔhàn, Hǔbei), otherwise unknown to the standard sources. He is the named author of [[KR5a0230|DZ 229 Jiǔhuán qīfǎn lónghǔ jīndān xīlǐ zhēnjué]], in whose preface he describes himself as “deeply attentive to the Way’s gates” and gives an autobiographical narrative: he had read widely in furnace-and-fire alchemy (lúhuǒ 爐火) and the various technical writings — the Dòngyuán jì 洞元記, the Hùnyuán jué 混元訣, the Jīnbì jīng 金碧經, the Yùhú lóngtāi fèngchì 玉壺龍胎鳳翅, and the Tàiyǐ cāntóng qì 太一參同 — without success, and one rénshēn 壬申 mid-spring “in the Great Sòng” (= either 1032 or 1092 CE) chanced to lodge with a recluse from Sìmíng 四明 who transmitted to him the principles of inner alchemy. The dialogue between Chéng and this Sìmíng yěkè 四明野客 forms the body of his treatise.
CBDB has no confident match: there is a Sòng 程昭 (CBDB id 26401, dynasty 15 = Sòng) recorded as the grandson of 程侃 (Táng, id 26399) and father of 程叔良 (995–1050, id 26402), but his stated origin would put him in the Anhuī 程 family, not the Wǔchāng one self-attested in the present preface. The CBDB record carries no birth- or death-year and no notice connects this Chéng with the alchemical work; the identification is therefore left undone here. See Schipper in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:798–799, who likewise treats Chéng as “otherwise unknown.”