Yang Yan

Yang Yan (* 727, † 781) was under Emperor Dezong Chancellor of the Empire of China.

Yang Yan was already under Emperor Daizong as an expert in matters of finance. His son Dezong (r. 779-805 ) made ​​him the Chancellor of the Empire. Yang Yan introduced the so-called double - control system. The objective here is to replenish the treasury of the empire, to have money for campaigns against the quasi -autonomous rulers, especially in the north-western regions of China was available. The dual - control system was to abolish all special taxes and levies that had been introduced since 755 ( the beginning of the An- Shi Rebellion ). Instead, to be paid by all property owners property tax was introduced, which required a different ratio of income depending on the district.

This ratio had the central government, willy-nilly, in consultation with the authorities to define locally, which is also a major failure of the reform was. The regional and local authorities also kept occupied a large part of the tax revenue itself. Only about a third of total tax revenues went to the central power.

Regions with large armies, the required even a lot of money for the maintenance of these troops, paid no taxes. This affected the entire north and west of the Empire and the Shandong and militarized areas around the Grand Canal. 70 % of the taxes were applied from eight provinces in the middle and lower Yangtze River.

Of the contemporaries Yang Yan's reform was hailed as a masterpiece. The history of science provides the basis of the concessions to particularistic forces the reform as not fully successful at.