Ding Wei (Song dynasty)
Song dynasty chancellor
Ding Wei (c. 966 – June 1037), courtesy name Gongyan, was a Song dynasty chancellor, who dominated the courts during Emperor Zhenzong's later reign and Emperor Renzong's early reign.
Ding Wei's opponent Wang Zeng (王曾) claimed that Ding was considered one of the "Five Devils", along with Wang Qinruo, Lin Te (林特), Chen Pengnian (陳彭年) and Liu Chenggui (劉承珪), a group of high-ranking ministers unpopular at the time. In the centuries to follow, Ding Wei has almost always been portrayed as a treacherous minister in popular fiction.
Early career
Ding Wei once wrote a prose essay with his friend Sun He (孫何) that quite impressed Wang Yucheng, a leading literati. Wang Yucheng considered their writing the best in China since Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan almost two centuries ago. In 992, Ding Wei passed the imperial examination and became the controller-general of Raozhou. A year later, he accompanied the crown prince Zhao Yuankan to inspect Fujian. Upon his return, he presented a report on salt and tea, and was made fiscal commissioner.
Notes and references
(in Chinese) Toqto'a; et al., eds.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ding Wei (Song dynasty)” is song dynasty chancellor. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Ding, Song and dynasty, not as a finished interpretation.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q10864404. VIAF identifies the subject as 68767821. The Library of Congress control number is nr00014065. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1037.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ding Wei (Song dynasty)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.