Yinglin Wang

Born in 1223 in Yin County of Qingyuan Prefecture, in present-day Ningbo, Wang Yinglin was a scholar and government official in the late Southern Song dynasty. Chinese reference sources describe him as a noted scholar and educator, and modern summaries also remember him for work in classical learning, philology, and historical study.

He is widely associated with the Three Character Classic (San Zi Jing), a short teaching text that became one of the best-known introductions to traditional Chinese learning. Some sources say it was probably written in the 13th century and mainly attributed to him, while also noting that its authorship is not completely certain.

Wang Yinglin died in 1296. Even centuries later, he is still remembered less as a single-purpose writer than as a broad, learned figure whose scholarship ranged across the classics, history, and education.