Other professors and influences included Qian Mu, Lei Haizong, and Tao Xisheng in Chinese studies, and in English, Ye Gongchao (George Yeh).

[3] His first book, Money and Credit in China (中國的貨幣與信用) (Harvard-Yenching Institute 1952) was a slim volume of little over 100 pages, but provided the foundation for research by many scholars because it clarified some 300 basic terms, put trends in chronological order, and put these trends against the political and military historical background.

His numerous publications in the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies included investigations of historical linguistics as well as Han dynasty bronze TLV mirrors, female rulers, hostages, the ancient game Liubo, and schedules of work and rest in imperial China.

[1] Beginning in the 1940s, he responded to the requests of fellow Harvard professor John King Fairbank for summary but wide-ranging articles on such topics as "China's traditional worldview" and social attitudes.

Yang’s diaries reveal that in the 1950s he felt doubtful of many foreign scholars, wary of Fairbank’s political skills and Benjamin Schwartz’s generalizations.

At times his mental condition was not good, and he was even given electric shock treatment An attempt by his friend Ho Ping-ti to arrange a move from Harvard to University of Chicago did not work out.

Even being awarded a full professorship in 1958 did not put his heart at ease, and he returned to Beijing in 1974, at the end of the Cultural Revolution.

As a student in the 1930s at the Beijing Normal University High School, he was known for the strength of his poetry and style of painting, which went beyond the amateur level, and he excelled at the board game weiqi.