Wang Tingshao

Also known as Hao Kaitang

Wang Tingshao, who signed himself Kaitang of Moling, was a man of letters of the Qianlong reign about whom little is recorded. His preface tells how the Tianjin singing master Yan Zide, then past seventy, shared his manuscript song books, how friends pooled money to print them as the Nishang xupu, and how Wang was asked to correct their many errors. The eight juan hold Western tunes in the first three and miscellaneous songs in the rest, with a suite for the emperor's birthday, preserving popular songs of Beijing and Tianjin before the mid-Qing. It was printed by the Jixian Tang in 1795.