Zeng Bu: basic information about his life, official career, native place and dates of birth and death is not clearly recorded in publicly available sources. What can be verified is only a single work attributed to him, The Surviving Records of Lord Zeng (Zeng Gong Yilu). Classified under Eastern philosophy, the book has the character of notes and historical source material: it records people and events and includes discussion, written in a plain, concise style without elaborate embellishment. Judging from the surviving evidence, the author set down observations and reflections in the form of miscellaneous notes, valuing the preservation of primary material rather than literary polish; the work is therefore better used as supplementary documentation for studying the figures and times it concerns. Since only this one title is recorded here and no biographical material is available, it is not yet possible to sketch his complete intellectual development or the full range of his writings. A fuller understanding of Zeng Bu and his scholarship must await the discovery of more primary sources and further scholarly examination.
