Yuwen Rong () (d. 730 or 731) was a Tang dynasty politician, serving as a chancellor for 100 days during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong. He was said to be the first official during Emperor Xuanzong's reign who became powerful on account of his ability to increase government revenue.
Background
Yuwen Rong's family was from the Tang dynasty capital Chang'an, and traced its ancestry to Yuwen Yidougui, the last chief of the Xianbei tribe Yuwen, which was destroyed by the Former Yan ruler Murong Huang. His great-grandfather Yuwen Bi (宇文弼) was a major general for Tang's predecessor Sui dynasty, and Yuwen Rong's grandfather Yuwen Jie served as a chancellor during the reign of Emperor Gaozong of Tang. Yuwen Rong's father Yuwen Jiao (宇文嶠) served as a prefectural secretary general.
During Emperor Xuanzong's reign
Early in the Kaiyuan era (713-741) of Emperor Xuanzong, Yuwen Rong served as the treasurer for Fuping County (富平, in modern Weinan, Shaanxi), which was then part of Jingzhao Municipality (i.e., the municipality encompassing Chang'an), and was said to be capable in that capacity. While the officials Yuan Qianyao and Meng Wen (孟溫) successively served as the mayors of Jingzhao, both of them respected his abilities. He later served as Jiancha Yushi (監察御史), an imperial censor. At that time, there were many people who tried to evade labor conscription and taxes by avoiding being enrolled on census rolls, or fraudulently claiming exemptions, causing a drain on the imperial treasury. In 721, Yuwen requested that he be specially commissioned to go after census evaders and fraudulent exemption claimers, and, with support from Yuan, who was then a chancellor, Emperor Xuanzong agreed. Yuwen was able to locate some 800,000 alleged census evaders—although traditional historians believed that this figure was inflated—adding much to the imperial treasury. When the county magistrate Huangfu Jing (皇甫憬) submitted a petition arguing that this was causing a panic among the people, Emperor Xuanzong moved Huangfu to a more distant county as punishment. When the deputy minister of census Yang Yang (楊暘) also pointed this out, Yang was sent out of the capital. Subsequently, apparently at Yuwen's urging, Emperor Xuanzong issued an amnesty period for the census evaders to report themselves and allowed them to be exempted from retroactive taxation. When Yuwen toured the realm to announce this, the census evaders, not realizing his earlier role in investigations into them, were exceedingly thankful to him. For his role in the project, Yuwen was promoted to be the deputy imperial censor (御史中丞, Yushi Zhongcheng).
In 725, Emperor Xuanzong gave Yuwen the additional office as deputy minister of census (戶部侍郎, Hubu Shilang). He also decreed that the grains submitted as taxes by the census evaders were to be put aside in storage in case of famine, and also established agriculture promotion offices in the prefectures and counties to try to enhance agriculture. Later that year, when Emperor Xuanzong suspected the ministry of civil service affairs to be unfair in its selection of officials, Yuwen suggested that he appoint 10 officials to review the selections, and then further review the 10 examiners' decisions. Emperor Xuanzong agreed and carried out the plan, despite objections submitted by the official Wu Jing (吳兢), although in 726 he stopped the scheme.