Lv Haifeng
In other words, if we talk about Liu Yan, I believe that there are not many people who know. Because the history is relatively old. But I think at the beginning, he was a well-known figure in the Tang Dynasty. Not only did he once serve as the prime minister of the Tang Dynasty, but he was also a famous financial manager of the Tang Dynasty. So, what's going on here? Let's go and investigate together.
First of all, let's first review the basic situation of Liu Yan. He was born in 716 AD, the character Shi'an. He was a native of Nanhua, Caozhou (present-day Dongming County, Heze City, Shandong). From an early age, he was talented and even known as a "prodigy". Therefore, in the Three Character Sutra that we are circulating now, there are "Tang Liu Yan, Fang is seven years old." Raise up the prodigy and make the right words". He successively served as an official, such as Shangshu of the Bureaucracy, Pingzhangshi of Tongzhongshu Menxia, Du zhi envoy, minting money envoy, and salt and iron envoy, and was the founding uncle of Pengcheng County.
Of course, his origin is actually very ordinary. Liu Yan's father, Liu Sanfu, was orphaned and poor since childhood, and his mother still had a waste disease, so the family situation was very poor. Only later did it get better with his efforts. However, as the saying goes, "since ancient times, the heroes have only come out of the cold door", which is true. Liu Yanqi was not at all constrained by his family situation, and because he had been "famous" since he was a child, he began to rise to the top during the Changqing period of Emperor Muzong of Tang.
Of course, all the Maxima had Bole, and Liu Yan's Bole was Li Deyu, the Tang Dynasty minister at that time. Because his father had had contacts with Li Deyu when Li Deyu was in decline, Liu Yan was soon appointed under his care as a hanlin scholar, Shang Shulang Zhongzhi Zhijie, Zhongshu Sheren, Hubu Shilang and a series of important positions in the imperial court.
Since then, he has made a great achievement in the post of Tobe waiter. Because Liu Yan's appointment as a household attendant at that time was due to the dangerous autumn after the Anshi Rebellion, the finances of the Tang Dynasty were very difficult, and even the salaries of officials were difficult to pay. It was in this situation that Liu Yan struck.
First of all, he focused on restoring and improving the transportation of Jianghuai and solving the difficulty of transporting grain to the Beijing Division. Because although the Guanzhong region at that time was also very rich and the grain was abundant every year, it was always difficult to meet the needs of the people of the Beijing Division and a large number of forbidden troops, so it was necessary to transfer a million stones of grain from the Jianghuai region every year. However, the main mode of transportation at that time was water transportation, and every time this waterway reached Sanmenxia, it was often a ship that overturned and sank, resulting in very difficult transportation. Therefore, during the difficult period of the Beijing Division, the price of grain once rose to 1,000 to 1,500 yuan per bucket. It was also under such circumstances that Liu Yan opened up this grain road and solved the food crisis for the imperial court.
Secondly, due to the long period of war and turmoil, the imperial court's finances were increasingly short, so Liu Yan personally took over the salt business. First, the redundant staff were cut and many corrupt officials in the salt industry were eliminated. Subsequently, not only in the main salt-producing areas, ten salt supervisors and four salt farms were set up. Thirteen inspection courts have also been set up in major cities across the country to manage salt markets and investigate the smuggling activities of salt dealers, and gradually established a set of "monopoly on the spot": that is, it is uniformly purchased by salt officials, concentrated in salt farms, and then resold to salt merchants, and the salt circulation tax is included in the salt price. After the merchant pays the salt payment, he can freely transport and sell it, that is, the civil system, official revenue, commercial transportation, and commercial sales. Obviously, since then, the imperial court's finances have achieved a situation of turning losses into profits.
In short, why is Liu Yan, the prime minister of the Tang Dynasty, known as a wealth manager in ancient China? He made outstanding contributions to the financial management of the imperial court. (Lv Haifeng)