Wang Lung is a fictional character, the protagonist of Pearl Buck's The Good Earth. The exact dates of his life by the Gregorian calendar are not given, but the book includes railroads in China, so not earlier than the late 19th century. (The book was published in 1931.) Wang Lung starts out as a poor peasant who marries a homely servant girl from the house of the local rich people, and due to hard work (and one instance of looting during a chaotic uprising), rises to become the head of a new local rich family, but never forgets that the farm brought him his security.