Huan Kuan

Also known as Zi Cigong

Huan Kuan, courtesy name Cigong, from Runan, studied the Gongyang commentary to the Spring and Autumn Annals, was appointed a gentleman and rose to assistant to the governor of Lujiang. In 81 BCE Emperor Zhao's court summoned more than sixty worthies and literati to debate the salt and iron monopolies and other policies with the imperial counsellor Sang Hongyang. The Book of Han says that under Emperor Xuan Huan Kuan expanded the record of this debate into the Discourses on Salt and Iron, in question-and-answer form; the received text has sixty chapters setting out the two sides' views on the state monopolies.