Wang Xihou

Who was Wang Xihou?

Wang Xihou was a Chinese scholar from Xinchang County during the Qing dynasty who was executed under the rule of Emperor Qianlong.

Wang was born in 1713. At the age of five, he began his studies with his brother Wang Jingyun, and became proficient at the exegesis of ancient Chinese texts by age eight. He locked himself in a room, studying day and night, and was sent home-cooked meals through a small crevice.

Wang became a scholar-bureaucrat at age 38. He wrote a book called Zi Guan, which criticized the Kangxi Dictionary and printed the emperor's name without leaving out a stroke as required by Chinese naming taboo. When Emperor Qianlong found out about this in 1777, Wang was imprisoned in Beijing and sentenced to nine familial exterminations, the most serious form of capital punishment in dynastic China.