Jimo.
This had once been Qi State's largest city after Linzi, and was the most prosperous city within the Jiaodong Kingdoms, accounting for almost thirty percent of the entire kingdom's tax revenue.
But it did not belong to the Jiaodong Kingdoms. It belonged to the Jimo Lü Clan's Marquis Lü State, which stood alongside the Linzi Lü Clan's Qi Duchy as one of the two great ancestral seats of the Jiang-surnamed Lü Clan.
Especially after five counties had been carved away from the Jiaodong Kingdom to establish Jiaobei Commandery, the Jiaodong Kingdoms had fallen behind the Marquis Lü State in both population and economy.
The former queen of Jiaodong, now its empress dowager, was the current Marquis Lü's younger sister.
Inside a quiet room.
Marquis Lü, Lu Chan, looked at his sister with an aching heart and said softly, "Your husband has only just passed away. Rest properly at home and spend some time with Mother."
A trace of sorrow flashed through Lü Ying's eyes, but she let none of it show on her face. Her voice was hard as iron. "Brother, I did not come home to indulge in such tender sentiments. I came because our clan is being battered by wind and rain. The court is investigating taxes, and I am deeply worried."
Lu Chan thought Lü Ying wanted the clan to relinquish its commercial tax revenues. Quite troubled, he said, "Sister, you know perfectly well what sort of man I am. I am not someone unwilling to give up his interests, nor someone so blinded by profit that he would stake his life on money.
"The Lü Clan once possessed lands stretching a thousand li. We were once the royal clan of a state. Having endured the destruction of our state and homes, having wandered from place