Chapter 207, Project 207, Bahrain Department
Yin'e first gave the Ninth Prince a reassuring look, then pulled him behind him.
After the Ninth Prince pursed his lips and calmed down, Yin'e turned to the Third Prince and said in a calm tone, "Third Brother, if you don't like it, you don't have to eat it. Just take it back and give it to someone else. Nobody is forcing you to do me the favor. If it's free, why not take it?"
Putting aside the indescribable taste of the goat milk pastry, the gold-painted mahogany gift box is quite classy, isn't it?
Third Prince: I can't let it go. Even if it's a bargain, the advantage is too small, while the accompanying disadvantages are far too great.
Seeing that the Third Prince remained unmoved, Yin'e rolled his eyes, a mischievous smile playing on his lips. He leaned closer and whispered meaningfully, "The Balin tribe can also produce goat milk powder..."
The Third Prince's expression suddenly froze. He looked up in astonishment, his eyes filled with surprise and disbelief, as if he were seeing Yin'e for the first time.
Clearing his throat, Yin'e ignored the Third Prince's subtly probing gaze, raised his hand, and gave him a mocking, cupped-hand salute: "Third Brother, give me some face~"
After a pause, Yin'e added in a low voice, "You don't have to actually eat it. Just take it back and give it to someone. But you still have to praise them, and you must let the Imperial Household Department know—" Yin'e winked at the Third Prince with his left eye, implying, "You understand?"
The Third Prince's lips twitched, and he remained silent, conflicted. In the end, he didn't throw the pastry box back at Yin'e and the others to show that he was completely severing ties with them. This attitude, while not exactly one of approval, was at least tacit consent.
Yin'e chuckled and, beaming, pulled the Ninth Prince toward the back of the study. He quickly and equally slipped a box of pastries to the Seventh and Eighth Princes as well.
The Seventh Prince and the Eighth Prince were concentrating on reviewing their lessons, but the commotion caused by the Third Prince and the Ninth Prince's argument was quite significant, and they couldn't completely ignore the external influences, so they were drawn in, either actively or passively.
Faced with the "goodwill" of Yin'e and the Ninth Prince, the two, who already knew from the Third Prince's reaction that this was actually a sugar-coated bullet, and even the sugar coating wasn't sweet, could only accept the snacks with a wry smile and half-hearted refusal.
—What else could they do? Argue with the Ninth Prince on the spot like the Third Prince did? Neither the Seventh Prince nor the Eighth Prince could do something like that.
With the last three boxes of pastries remaining, Yin'e and the Ninth Prince exchanged a glance. Neither of them intended to keep a portion for themselves. The two of them tacitly piled all three mahogany gift boxes onto the Fifth Prince's desk.
Ahem, this "special care" for the Fifth Prince was not because he was the Ninth Prince's elder brother, so Yin'e and the others treated him differently. Rather, it was because the Fifth Prince, who was raised under the Empress Dowager's care and whose diet consisted of goat's milk and mutton since childhood, was indeed the most likely person to accept these snacks.
After Yin'e and the Ninth Prince finished their commotion, the Fourth Prince, who had been silently observing, finally spoke up and asked, "Were you doing this on purpose?"
"...Huh? What?" Yin'e, who had just sat down in his seat, raised his head blankly, not quite understanding for a moment.
Raising his chin, the Fourth Prince pointed at the pastry box on the table. His face was expressionless, and his tone was indifferent: "The gift box has been carefully prepared, so there's no reason for the real main ingredient to be treated carelessly." It's not difficult to remove the fishy smell from goat milk; it's just that the cost is a bit higher compared to goat milk powder.
"Oh right!" Yin'e slapped his forehead as if waking from a dream. "Ninth Brother and I were planning to use a strategy of building up the impression by first suppressing it."
The Fourth Prince is right. The Ninth Prince and Yin'e deliberately sent the princes in the Imperial Study today pastries made with untreated goat milk. It wasn't to preserve the original flavor of the goat milk, but to make them taste bad in order to leave a bad impression on the princes.
This is "suppression first," as for "exaggeration later"...
Under the calm and unwavering gaze of the Fourth Prince, Yin'e twitched the corners of his mouth and said somewhat awkwardly in a low voice, "The plan between Ninth Prince and me is to send the inferior pastries that haven't been deodorized today, and then send the goat milk pastries that have been deodorized and carefully made tomorrow."
"Even if the goat milk used to remove the fishy smell is used to make pastries, the taste will still be just so-so, not amazing. But with the comparison, you will feel that the new pastries are not bad, and the evaluation of the Imperial Household Department will be higher."
Yin'e's "ingenious ideas" left the Third Prince dizzy. He closed his eyes, calmed himself down, and chuckled, both speechless and annoyed: "You guys are really clever. I've really learned something new!"
The Third Prince's words at this moment drew the attention of the Ninth Prince, who belatedly realized that the plan had failed at the very beginning. He immediately glared at the Third Prince and said, "Isn't it all your fault? You suddenly made a scene and messed up my and the Tenth Prince's plans."
"What does this have to do with me?" The Third Prince was so angry that he laughed. "Ninth Brother, I think you're just targeting me on purpose. You're completely unreasonable and you're blaming me for all sorts of nonsense!"
The Fourth Prince was somewhat taken aback by Yin'e's brilliant plan, but unlike the Third Prince, he was not impatient. After thinking for a moment, he said thoughtfully, "Even if your plan was correct, and we all thought the pastries you sent later tasted good, so what?"
"It just tastes good, but that's not enough for the Imperial Household Department to include it in their procurement list." The reason why milk candy is acceptable is because the existence of candy wrappers greatly facilitates the storage and transportation of hard candy, not because the taste of milk candy is so amazing that it would make the Imperial Household Department make an exception.
Goat milk pastries were not a novelty in the palace; aside from others, the Empress Dowager ate them regularly.
The imperial kitchen used fresh goat milk to make goat milk pastries; they didn't bother to select inferior products or use goat milk powder.
Fresh goat milk definitely tastes better than goat milk powder. As long as the palace's demand for goat milk does not exceed the amount of fresh goat milk that the Imperial Household Department can supply, the Imperial Household Department has no reason not to purchase goat milk powder when it has better fresh goat milk.
According to the Fourth Prince, the consumption of goat milk in the palace was not large, because in addition to raising sheep to provide fresh goat milk, there were also many wet nurses in the palace. The young princes and princesses in the palace were all breastfed by wet nurses, so they did not need goat milk.
Leaning back in his chair, the Fourth Prince's calm gaze swept over Yin'e and the Ninth Prince, whose expressions remained calm and unaffected by his words: "You two have other tricks up your sleeves, don't you? Can you tell me about them?"
Yin'e blinked, took a step to the left to stand next to the Ninth Prince, and whispered in a voice barely audible: "Shall we talk?"
“Speak,” Ninth Prince and Yin’e whispered to each other, “The mission is about to fail before it even begins… We’ve come this far, what’s the point of worrying about the plan? Let’s just get straight to the point.”
Yin'e nodded in deep agreement: "Then let's just say it. I think Fourth Brother is quite easy to talk to, and the probability of him agreeing if we just say it is not small."
"As for Third Brother, he immediately fell silent and compromised when I mentioned the Bahrain Ministry. It seems that Third Brother can be won over. If there is really a way out for goat milk powder, it is not impossible to import it from the Bahrain Ministry."
Why does the mention of the Third Prince of Bairin cause him to stop refusing the goat milk pastries offered by Yin'e and the Ninth Prince? It's because the Third Prince's half-sister, the Third Princess, was granted the title of Princess Rongxian of the First Rank in the first month of this year, and married Urgun of the Borjigit clan of the Bairin tribe in southern Mongolia in June of this year.
Princess Rongxian was the third daughter of the emperor. Before she was granted the title of princess, everyone in the palace called her Third Princess. However, she was actually Kangxi's eldest daughter. The eldest and second daughters of the emperor died young, and only she grew up to adulthood.
In terms of birth order, Princess Rongxian was the second princess. The eldest princess who was ahead of her was not Emperor Kangxi's biological daughter, but the eldest daughter of Prince Gong Changning, whom Emperor Kangxi adopted after his first two daughters died young.
Last year, Emperor Kangxi bestowed the title of Princess Chunxi of the First Rank upon his adopted daughter and married her to Borjigit Bandi, a Taiji of the Khorchin.
Compared to Princess Chunxi, who married into the Khorchin tribe, Princess Rongxian, who married into the Balin tribe, undoubtedly faced a more perilous and complex situation, and found it more difficult to establish herself on the Mongolian grasslands.
Although both the Khorchin and Bairin tribes were located in southern Mongolia, the Khorchin tribe had a closer relationship with the Qing Dynasty. Both the late Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang and the current Empress Dowager were from the Khorchin tribe. In contrast, the Bairin tribe had a less close relationship with the Qing Dynasty, and there had been little kinship ties between them in recent years.
Under such circumstances, Princess Rongxian was married off to the Bairin tribe to pacify Mongolia. Naturally, the Third Prince was very worried, fearing that Princess Rongxian would not have a good life on the grassland.
The Third Prince's birth mother, Consort Rong, was the most senior concubine in the palace. She entered the palace as a princess in the early years of the Kangxi Emperor's reign and gave birth to five sons and one daughter. However, Chengrui, Saiyinchahun, Changhua, and Changsheng all died young, leaving only one son and one daughter who survived: the Third Prince and Princess Rongxian.
The Third Prince had a deep affection for his only remaining elder sister from the same mother. He could not control his sister's fate of being sent to Mongolia, and he only hoped that he could grow up as soon as possible to become his sister's support, so that the Mongolian princes would not dare to mistreat her and make her unhappy in Mongolia.
Admittedly, Princess Rongxian was married to Fumeng by imperial grace. As long as the Mongolian princes of Bairin did not dare to break with the Qing Dynasty and were not out of their minds, they would not and dare not underestimate Princess Rongxian.
But to live well in one's husband's family, it's not enough to simply avoid being looked down upon or mistreated.
If Princess Rongxian could bring some benefits and advantages to the Bairin tribe, even if those benefits were very small and only brought her some prestige, it would be enough for Princess Rongxian to gain a foothold and establish herself in the Bairin tribe, rather than just being a mascot for the Mongols.
Goat milk powder is not a rare food; almost every herder on the Mongolian grasslands knows how to make it. If goat milk powder can truly open up a market in the Qing Dynasty, the Bairin tribe in southern Mongolia will definitely benefit. It was with this in mind that the Third Prince stopped making a fuss and reluctantly accepted the goat milk snack.
Yin'e and the Ninth Prince exchanged a glance, both realizing their true plan behind the feigned arrogance: Under normal circumstances, the Imperial Household Department, which did not have a large demand for goat milk pastries, would not purchase pastries made with goat milk powder from the shops under Yin'e and the Ninth Prince's names.
But what if, by chance, the palace has a great need for goat milk pastries, and needs them very urgently?
In urgent situations, expediency is necessary. In order to do the things the master has ordered well and not mess up the job, the Imperial Household Department might be willing to lower its standards in an emergency.
As for where the perfect, large and urgent demand for goat milk snacks came from? Hehe, if there's no demand, then create demand! This requires the cooperation of the Third Prince and the Fourth Prince.
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