Council Room

The Council Room in Lijiang sits under a heavy, curved roof of dark clay tiles, marked by the intricate, unpainted wooden lattice work typical of Naxi architecture. This space served as the administrative core where local chieftains, the Mu family, managed their influence over the tea trade routes. In sixteen twenty-four, they hosted a group of traveling scholars here to draft a formal agreement regarding tax collection on salt shipments. The ink on that original agreement faded, but the room remains.