Adaptation And Innovation: Yuwen Financial Times, And The Tang Dynasty

The powerful and prosperous Tang's ages (namely Kai-Yuan and Tian-Bao times) was an important period on the Chinese history, because she not only was the transition period of the history of Tang Dynasty, but was the important stage on the transformation period of Chinese ancient society. At this ages, which taking "transformations" as "the core proposition", new circumstances and new problems piled up one after another, the old public finance, economy, military and administration systems hadn't already reply availably,many social contradictions couldn't dissolve in time, the whole society incubate various crisises.At this time, Yu-wen Rong(683?～731?) had appeared on the scene in response to the needs of the times. From the 9th year of Kai-Yuan times, Yu-wen Rong suggested and hosted the gigantic movement on population surveys, and adopted a lot of measures subsequently, which produced an important influence on many aspects in Tang Dynasty, such as finance, economy, politics, military, etc, and had made an active, beneficial contribution on the powerful and prosperous period of Kai-Yuan and Tian-Bao.In very long time, the name of Yu-wen Rong had a close relation with the minister in charge of earning money, being regarded as "disloyal minister" and "mean person" in the historical records of the authority. As a result, Yu-wen Rong was subjected to much treatment unfairly. We should be practical and realistic, carrying out a kind of whole and comprehensive research on this financier, from the dynamic angle.In terms of the research being done on Yu-wen Rong, this paper puts emphasis on the following three aspects:Firstly, it investigates Yu-wen Rong's life story, and the political conflict he experienced. The whole life of Yu-wen Rong was very circuitous, twice jumped and twice fell, and had produced significant effect on the central political situation in the medium term of Kai-Yuan times, especially the complicated and confusing relation between Yu-wen Rong and Zhang Yue, who was his political opponent. Deserving to be mentioned, in the 17th year of Kai-Yuan times, being the prime minister, Yu-wen Rong regarded administering the country as his mission, and had the ambition continuing to carry on the public finance reformation. Unfortunately, he failed in the competition of clique, and died in the south region of Five Ridges.Secondly, this thesis focuses on the movement on population surveys hosted by Yu-wen Rong, carrying on the thorough research on it's basic process, contents, results, and the organization system. During the period of population surveys, the government of Tang Dynasty had promoted three reforming policies successively: population surveys, land surveys, and the reformation on taxes and corvees, linking up mutually, having something science rationality. In addition, Yu-wen Rong built up a kind of system of emissaries gradually, which had an administrative body, and those organizations of emissary in fifteen areas ("dao"), guaranteed the success of the movement on population surveys from the organization, also had an important influence on the public finance and administration system of Tang Dynasty greatly.Thirdly, taking the natural calamities from the 14th year to the 15th year of Kai-Yuan times as the studying background, it analyses those various measures to answer the disaster crisis, adopted by the government of Tang Dynasty, to show Yu-wen Rong's historical position and outstanding functions. Facing the grave disaster, the government of Tang Dynasty adopted many measures to spend the social crisis produced by the natural calamity smoothly, from three aspects on dispelling disasters, reducing disasters, and supporting frontier forces. For getting away from the public finance predicament caused by the natural calamity, the government of Tang Dynasty launched a large-scale public finance reformation in the 16th year of Kai-Yuan times: the canal transport change, Hui Zao, Yong Diao zhe Zu, and He Di, creating fine public finance foundation for the powerful and prosperous period of Kai-Yuan and Tian-Bao.To sum up, Yu-wen Rong who depended on the talent of unique economy, was an famous financier in the period of Kai-Yuan and Tian-Bao, being full of the spirit of reformation, had ever hosted the movement on population surveys, participated in relieving people in disaster area from the 14th year to the 15th year of Kai-Yuan times, then developed the key function in the finance reformation in the 16th year of Kai-Yuan times, thus wrote down one brilliant page on the Tang Dynasty history. We should inspect Yu-wen Rong's circuitous life story seriously, and study various finance measures that he had adopted deeply, thus would help us to comprehend the connotation and social transformations on the powerful and prosperous Tang's ages.