YANG YEN

born 727, China died 781, China Pinyin Yang Yan minister to the T'ang emperor Te Tsung (reigned 779/780805). Yang introduced a new system of taxation into China that helped reduce the power of the aristocratic classes and eliminate their large tax-free estates. Yang abolished the various land, labour, produce, and other taxes to which the Chinese peasantry had been subject and the upper classes immune. In their place he created the double tax. Levied twice a year on land in the 6th and 11th months, regardless of ownership, it persisted in its basic form until the Communist revolution in 1949. Yang himself committed suicide when a jealous co-minister accused him of bribery and corruption.