Tang Sanzang

Tang Sanzang (唐三藏) or Tang Seng (唐僧) is a monk based on a historical monk named Xuanzang. He is a main character in the novel Journey to the West.

The background story of Tang Sanzang wasn't really introduced at the beginning of  Journey to the west. It was not until round (Chapter) eleven did the book finally described a little bit of Tang Sanzang using a poem of three sentences. The verse basically says that When scholars were organizing  Journey to the West, they put in appendices that helped explain the main character's background story, which appeared to be a short tragedy.
 * 1) Tang Sanzang's childhood is calamitous,
 * 2) he has suffered a lot more than the ordinary people would,
 * 3) his dad is ranked first place in the regional ranking of the national examination,
 * 4) his grandfather has the position equivalent to the prime minister back in their time.