纪晓岚

Ji served as chief editor of the 《四库全书》 from 1773, a decade-long imperial project that catalogued and copied over 3,400 works into roughly 36,000 volumes - simultaneously a monumental preservation effort and, notoriously, a massive Qing censorship operation that destroyed banned books.

Thanks to the 1998 hit TV comedy 《铁齿铜牙纪晓岚》 (starring Zhang Guoli as Ji and Wang Gang as the corrupt 和珅), mainland audiences know him less as a serious scholar than as a quick-witted sparring partner outsmarting Heshen under a bemused Qianlong.