Rise To Importance
Sang's skill at economic policy would only come into play during the middle of Emperor Wu's reign. By then the ongoing campaigns against the Xiongnu had drained the wealth built up by Emperor Wu's predecessors, and the state had entered a financial crisis. in 120 BC, the Minister of Agriculture Zheng Dangshi first proposed the state monopolies on iron and salt, recommending two powerful salt and iron magnates to join the government and manage the industry on the national scale. Sang Hongyang was then assigned to aid the magnates in their planning. With the success of the monopolies in alleviating the financial situation Sang eventually rose to become Assistant Minister of Agriculture.
As the Assistant Minister Sang soon implemented several more measures to refill the national coffers. These included an asset tax, payable by artisans, loaners, merchants, and owners of carriages and boats, which was calculated according to the amount of assets. Smallholders only needed to pay half the official rate of tax. At the same time laws were enacted, under which false reporting and concealment of assets was punishable by confiscation of assets and exile to the borders for a year. People were encouraged to report cases of concealment, since half the confiscated assets were awarded to the reporters.
Read more about this topic: Sang Hongyang
Famous quotes containing the words rise to, rise and/or importance:
“When we raise our children, we relive our childhood. Forgotten memories, painful and pleasurable, rise to the surface.... So each of us thinks, almost daily, of how our own childhood compares with our children’s, and of what our children’s future will hold.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)
“The fact is that love is of two kinds—one which commands, and one which obeys. The two are quite distinct, and the passion to which the one gives rise is not the passion of the other.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)
“People without imagination are beginning to tire of the importance attached to comfort, to culture, to leisure, to all that destroys imagination. This means that people are not really tired of comfort, culture and leisure, but of the use to which they are put, which is precisely what stops us enjoying them.”
—Raoul Vaneigem (b. 1934)