"Elder Sister, do you understand the gap between us and them now?"
While Liu Tong was still reeling from the figure of five hundred million, Liu Xie hurriedly said,
"Back then, Father couldn't just produce five hundred million to give the imperial clan as living expenses. He even had to hit up the imperial clan for money."
That wasn't entirely Emperor Ling's fault.
The Aristocratic Families had taken the lion's share, and the entire country's annual revenue amounted to only tens of millions of coins.
Forget the several billion—or nearly ten billion at its peak—earned by the Former Han. During Emperor Ling's reign, the revenue hadn't even reached a billion.
How was anyone supposed to live like that?
"Mm."
Liu Tong answered softly. After a moment of silence, she said,
"...I know what they're capable of. It's precisely because of that ability that I believe we still have a chance."
"Does Your Majesty remember why Marquis of Linzi has the surname Qi?"
Liu Tong asked.
The Qi in Shen San Qi Fei came from an ancestor who had branched off from the Chen Clan.
But when you got to the bottom of it, it was still an old scandal of the Chen Clan.
And that wasn't the only time the Chen Clan had stirred up trouble. Wang Mang, who had tried to replace Han with Zhou in the new dynasty, belonged to another branch of the Chen Clan.
So Chen Xi and Qi Fei—especially Qi Fei—
with their abilities and background, naturally seemed to outsiders like men with ambitions to rebel.
Even if they didn't, all it would take was a small rift between Liu Bei and Qi Fei, and they would soon have such ambitions.
Liu Tong had seen an opportunity.
She didn't expect Qi Fei to truly break