Bao Zheng
The character was based on the historical court records of the Qing dynasty government official Chen Shumei (陈熟美), whose wife was Qin Xinlian (秦馨蓮). Like Bao Zheng, Chen was an upright official who eventually became an enemy of other corrupted officials. These officials created two fictitious husband-and-wife characters based on the couple by changing the middle Chinese characters of their real names and brought Bao Zheng of the Song dynasty era into their fictitious story to slander and smear Chen Shumei and his wife Qin Xinlian.