Sang Hongyang: The Man Who Prolonged the Han Dynasty

Who exactly was Sang Hongyang? The renowned economist Lu Qiyuan offered the following assessment of him: "I must give Sang Hongyang the highest praise. He was a great economist, as well as an outstanding expert in economic governance. He was remarkable, laying the foundations of the Chinese nation. Those foundations served not only the Han Empire but also the next two thousand years, even shaping the character and spirit of the Chinese people, whom we call the Han ethnic group."

"Sang Hongyang, a genius renowned for his mental arithmetic at the age of thirteen, became the chief architect of Emperor Wu of Han's solution to the economic crisis."

"Without Sang Hongyang's centralization of the economy, Wei Qing and Huo Qubing could never have achieved their illustrious military victories, nor could the Han dynasty have reached such strength and glory."

- "Sang Hongyang's economic reforms had three sharp blades, the keenest of which was reclaiming the right to mint currency. Building on that, he further introduced state monopolies over salt and iron, effectively imitating Guan Zhong's state control of mountains and seas, and establishing a direct taxation system and state-owned capital that extended all the way to the grassroots."

- "Sang Hongyang's three policies both resolved the internal problem of weakening regional vassals and laid a firm military foundation for resisting the Xiongnu, completely resolving the major internal and external conflicts that had plagued the Han dynasty from its founding until the death of Emperor Jing of Han."

- "By using the equal-distribution system to regulate salt and iron, Sang Hongyang filled the imperial granaries at Taicang and Ganquan within a single year."

- "Regrettably, historical records about Sang Hongyang and Wei Wan are extremely brief, and the Discourses on Salt and Iron preserves only part of Sang Hongyang's story... We need to view him from the perspective of Chinese history and culture, and through the logical framework of Chinese thought."...