Zeng Pu

Zeng Pu published a scholarly work on the later Han dynasty in 1895.

Therefore, his works appealed to readers who had a classical education and were considered sophisticated in their society.

David Der-wei Wang, author of Fin-de-siècle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late Qing Fiction, 1849-1911, wrote that Zeng Pu was "probably" the sole late Qing novelist who knew a foreign language.

[4] David Wang explained that since Zeng Pu knew French he had "direct access to European literature without the mediation of distorted translations.

[5] Zeng Pu, writing under the pseudonym "Sick man of Asia",[6] took control of the novel in 1904.