Huang Yupian is best known as the author of A Detailed Refutation of Heresy (破邪詳辯 Pōxié Xiángbiàn), written in 1838. A native of Gansu

Gansu

' is a province located in the northwest of the People's Republic of China.It lies between the Tibetan and Huangtu plateaus, and borders Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the west, Sichuan to the south, and Shaanxi to the east...

 province, he served as the magistrate of Qinghe (清河) county in Zhili

Zhili

Zhílì was a northern province in China from the Ming Dynasty until the province was dissolved in 1928 during the Republic of China era.-History:...

 (直隸) province, present day Hebei

Hebei

' is a province of the People's Republic of China in the North China region. Its one-character abbreviation is "" , named after Ji Province, a Han Dynasty province that included what is now southern Hebei...

, from 1830.

Little is known about Huang other than what is recorded in his work. He saw his ideological attacks of evil cult

Cult

The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...

s as part of his duty as a scholar official, and was especially concerned with the popularity of local White Lotus

White Lotus

White Lotus was a type of Buddhist sectarianism that appealed to many Han Chinese, who found solace in worship of the "Unborn or Eternal Venerable Mother" , who was to gather all her children at the millennium into one family....

 sects. To this end he confiscated sectarian religious writings known as Precious Scrolls (寶卷 bǎojuàn) and established schools to teach correct Confucian doctrine.