Wang Xiuchu was a 17th-century Chinese middle-class scholar who lived through the conquest of the Ming dynasty by the Manchu-ruled Qing dynasty. Wang's most significant accomplishment is his writing of the "Yangzhou shiri ji" an account that details his survival of the notorious massacre of Yangzhou that was perpetrated by the Manchu prince Dodo. In this account, five members of Wang's extended family are killed by Qing troops, and he witnesses the rapes and killings of many of his neighbors. In the end of the narrative, he is rescued by a sympathetic Manchu officer who orders his soldiers to spare the lives of Wang and his surviving family members.