There are two people named Wen Sheng in the history of China, namely Duke Zhou and Ouyang Xiu. The former is the founder of Confucianism in China, and the latter is a master of literature, who is honored as Wen Sheng.

Historically, the date of birth and death of Duke Zhou is unknown, only knowing that his surname is Ji, the fourth son of King Ji Chang and his younger brother. Because the fief is in Zhou, it is called Duke Zhou. As the founder of Confucianism in the late Shang Dynasty and early Zhou Dynasty in China, after the death of King Wu, he began to assist the young king and began a long regency career. Although Cai Shu and others United against the Yin nobles, they were directly hit by him. In order to prevent the princes from uniting, it was later enfeoffed to maintain the stability of the Zhou Dynasty. In addition, he was one of the main founders of the system of rites and music and the laws and regulations of the Western Zhou Dynasty. He put forward the moral standard of "Even a wise man worries a lot, he will lose something", formulated a complete etiquette standard, and governed the country with "courtesy", which also laid the foundation for the later "rule of Cheng Kang".

It is said that the Duke of Zhou also studied the creation of the Book of Changes, and even Confucius, who was later respected by the world, was also respected by the Duke of Zhou and was respected as a saint by Confucianism at that time. Many thoughts of Confucianism are related to Duke Zhou, so in the Han Dynasty, Confucianism directly called Duke Zhou and Confucius as Confucius, which shows how lofty he was among Confucianism.

Ouyang Xiubei is honored as "Wen Sheng" mainly because his prose achievements have reached a high level. His "literary life" is different from the "literary life" of Duke Zhou. Ouyang Xiu, as one of the eight outstanding figures in the Northern Song Dynasty, was the first literary leader in the literary history of the Song Dynasty to create a generation of literary style and led the poetry innovation movement at that time. After inheriting and developing Han Yu's ancient prose theory, he combined literary creation with ancient prose theory and finally created a generation of literary style. Even while changing his writing style, he also innovated his poetic style and ci style, so he was honored as "Wen Sheng" by later generations, which was the highest honor for his cultural reform in China.