张应俞

Zhang Yingyu is the author of the Ming dynasty notebook-style work Dupian Xinshu (A New Book on Exposing Swindles). His birthplace, dates of birth and death, and other biographical details are limited in publicly available sources and difficult to verify. Judging from his extant works, he focused for a long time on fraudulent practices in urban society, cataloguing various swindles and cases by category in a documentary style. His language is concise and vivid, serving both as a warning and as entertainment. Dupian Xinshu circulated widely and also appeared under titles such as Jianghu Qiwen (Strange Tales from the Jianghu); various edited and unannotated editions survive today. The book touches on commercial activity, social manners, and public security in the late Ming, making it valuable material for the study of social history, legal thought, and popular literature in premodern China, while its detailed depictions of scams give it enduring appeal for general readers.