Chapter 17 The Kitten Diplomacy

Yin Ying was given the Embroidery Garden, but the most troublesome thing right now was the two Ye family brothers. They didn’t stay often in the Embroidery Garden, but when the whole family came to Danyang, these children would still be settled here. Because Ye Tao’s residence was always bustling with people, too busy for their studies and play, the much quieter Embroidery Garden was more suitable. However, they couldn’t be said to be very attached to the Embroidery Garden; after all, they spent most of their time at Ye Family Fort and Gondor, or simply exploring the vast Cang Mang Plains. For them, the Embroidery Garden was just a place to rest. But this time, when they came to Danyang, they discovered that the Embroidery Garden had been given to Yin Ying by their mother, so they had to move into the palace. Actually, with the two brothers' habit of running off to explore and hunt all day, they didn’t really care about fluctuations in comfort, but they couldn’t resist their sister’s insistence on seeing the litter of kittens in the Embroidery Garden. Ye Wenjun had accidentally discovered them in the courtyard the last time they came to Danyang. Since it wasn’t convenient to take the kittens on a long journey, Ye Wenjun had to entrust the servants watching over the Embroidery Garden to keep an eye on and care for the litter when they returned to Yunzhou. Now that she was back in Danyang, Ye Wenjun missed them terribly.

Yin Ying was already living in the Embroidery Garden, so what to do? Ye Wenxuan had a headache for a while, then decided to take his younger siblings directly to the door. Such a small matter didn’t need to be reported to their parents.

When the Ye family’s carriage came to a smooth stop in front of the Embroidery Garden’s main entrance, the guards from the Xiling inner court were on high alert, as if facing a formidable enemy. Did the Ye family never give advance notice before visiting? Wasn’t that against the rules? But when they saw two little boys and a little girl jump out of the carriage, they were completely bewildered.

“Is Princess Yin Ying here?” Ye Wenxuan asked the gatekeeper. The people standing at the entrance seemed completely confused.

“Sorry for the intrusion. These are from the Ye Pacification Commissioner's residence,” Ye Wenxuan’s guard cupped his fist and explained to the gatekeeper, “Could you please announce our arrival?”

The gatekeeper hurriedly ran inside to report. Before long, Yin Ying’s uncle, Yin Li, the head of the current delegation, came out to greet them, leading the three children and their guards into the main hall. When Yin Li understood why the three of them had come, he couldn’t think of a suitable expression other than rolling his eyes. These three were the ones who originally lived here. When the Embroidery Garden was transferred to Yin Ying, it wasn’t thoroughly cleaned out. There were still the three children’s homework in the study, and even a small workshop with their unfinished handicrafts. It would be perfectly normal for them to come and retrieve some personal items. But they actually wanted to take away the litter of kittens? No matter what, Yin Li couldn’t refuse such a request, could he? But when he sent a servant to catch the litter of kittens, they ran into a problem. Yin Ying was currently in the courtyard playing with the kittens, and how could she let the guards take them away? When the guard returned with a strange expression to ask for instructions, Yin Li’s expression was truly something to behold. How was he going to explain this?

“Oh, does Yin Ying like kittens too?” Ye Wenjun asked, quite interested, not at all angry.

“This…reporting to the County Princess, Ying’er is just a child at heart. She’ll be fine after playing with them for a while. Or, I can have someone send the kittens to your residence later?” Yin Li replied cautiously.

“It’s okay, can we go see them?” Ye Wenjun asked again. She was really straightforward about calling Yin Ying by her name, not feeling that there was anything wrong with it at all. Ye Wenjun had never been comfortable with addressing people by their formal titles.

“Your Highness, my sister is just missing these kittens. She rescued these kittens and raised them here. My father taught us to see things through to the end, and my sister is very fond of animals. She couldn’t help but miss them on this trip back to Danyang. Please allow us to disturb you for a moment and go see the kittens. Since Her Highness the Princess also likes them and is willing to take care of them, we naturally have no reason to insist on taking them away,” Ye Wenxuan said with a smile.

“Very well, this way, please.” Yin Li was deeply touched by Ye Wenxuan’s words. Ye Wenxuan, at such a young age, already had a very refined demeanor. The Ye family’s upbringing was indeed the legendary strongest ever.

The litter of kittens was eating, and Yin Ying was actually squatting beside them, watching them gobble down their food, occasionally reaching out to stroke their heads. Seeing the cat food bowl the kittens were using, it was actually a porcelain dish specially supplied to the Xiling royal family…Because it was troublesome to obtain these special supplies, the Ye Family Workshop only managed to get a small number of samples to study the craftsmanship. Ye Wenji was very familiar with this kind of thing and immediately told Ye Wenxuan and Ye Wenjun with a smile. And Ye Wenji’s remark startled Yin Li again. Even the Ye family children knew so much about the Xiling royal family? But to these children, they could tell that Yin Ying really liked these kittens.

Ye Wenjun had never cared much about rules, quietly walking up and squatting down next to Yin Ying. Yin Ying glanced at her warily, but then her attention returned to the kittens.

“Never raised them before?” Ye Wenjun asked. She was several years older than Yin Ying, asking in a very sisterly manner.

“Mm!” Yin Ying nodded vigorously.

“These are the kittens I used to raise. I thought no one was taking care of them anymore. Since you like them too, you have to take good care of them. If you can do that, I’ll let them stay here,” Ye Wenjun said gently, but with an undeniable tone.

“Mm, I like them very much, I’ll definitely take good care of them,” Yin Ying nodded vigorously again.

The children’s diplomacy unfolded with these few kittens. Ye Wenjun was deeply loved, but she didn’t have any arrogance, just a natural disposition, saying whatever she thought without concealing anything, a personality that was extremely likeable. Yin Ying quickly became attached to Ye Wenjun, the two little girls acting like best friends who had known each other for years.

Yin Ying could only play in the Embroidery Garden originally, the adults in the delegation having too many things to do to take care of her. But now, with the Ye family siblings leading Yin Ying around Danyang, it was much better than being cooped up in the courtyard.

It happened to be the new session of the Military Chess Competition. Ye Wenxuan and Ye Wenji were last year’s champions in the youth group. The Yunzhou team they organized was full of strong players, and the cheering squad of their relatives and friends was also incredibly powerful. Now, Yin Ying had joined as well. Although Yin Ying’s identity couldn’t be revealed to the outside world yet, such a beautiful girl would always be loved, no matter where she was.

Yin Ying was immersed in this care and joy of games that had nothing to do with status or position, but Yin Li was sweating profusely. Although Ye Wenxuan and Ye Wenji were participating in the youth group, they basically used the simplified version of the Military Chess strategic rules. But the basic strategic and tactical ideas contained in this kind of war game simulation wouldn’t change, they were still so realistic. Ye Wenxuan's overall thinking was super strong, almost unmatched among his peers, while Ye Wenji, because of his extremely sharp numerical sense and calculation ability, had a great advantage in specific battles and tactical-level confrontations. Their team also had several children from the Dai, Tan, and Zhuo families, as well as several children of Yunzhou generals, each with their own role and function in the team.

During the first round of the competition, Yin Li only took the time to watch out of support, but he ended up breaking out in a cold sweat. In the first round, they drew a simulation confrontation of the Xiling northern battle situation. In fact, in this setting, the estimate of Xiling’s military strength was greatly strengthened, strengthened to the point where the two sides were evenly matched. And Ye Wenxuan and Ye Wenji, who drew the Yunzhou army, clearly found it very boring. They had heard too much about all kinds of strategies in the study. And probably no team was more familiar with the Yunzhou troops than these children. The children actually put on a brilliant offensive like mercury seeping into the ground, leaving their opponents with almost no power to resist. After that, Yin Li paid attention, attending every game, and the more he watched, the more shocked he became. In the second game, simulating Yunzhou’s conquest of Northern Liao, Ye Wenxuan drew the Northern Liao army, which made them extremely excited. They used Northern Liao’s strategic depth, fighting a flexible defense, constantly concentrating their forces to fight, and quickly dispersing and withdrawing after winning…They abandoned Yanjing, but dragged down the opponent who clearly had the advantage. The entire battle was simulated for a full five years…If it was just Ye Wenxuan and Ye Wenji’s team performing well, that would be fine, but their opponents were also very strong, advancing and retreating in an orderly manner, with an extremely tenacious style. The subsequent games also simulated battlefields from various different periods. The reason why the youth group adopted this form was to consider that the children’s fathers and elder brothers could have content to teach them, or at least have some ready-made cases to refer to, which could be considered to have reduced the difficulty a lot. But Yin Li felt that the children of Dongping were too terrifying. These strategic and tactical strategies didn’t necessarily have to be the children’s own ideas. The fact that they were able to implement these strategies on the chessboard based on their own understanding was terrifying enough. How old were they? As long as they were slightly exposed to the military and understood military affairs, they could quickly get into the state. No one knew how terrible an army could be if all the officers from top to bottom were thinking, but could be unified as one. Yin Li felt that the war should be resolved by his generation. By the next generation, it would be too embarrassing to fight. At least in the younger generation of the Xiling royal family, not to mention being able to compare with Ye Wenxuan and Ye Wenji, even comparing with several of their sub-commanders would probably be inferior. The youth group was like this, and the adult group was even more so. Tan Xiaopei frankly admitted that every year, the military had special personnel in the adult group to collect various distinctive tactics for research, constantly refining new combat ideas to avoid falling into the trap of traditional tactics. And those who showed their talents would also have the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities. Some people were only good at Military Chess and didn’t have any talent for military affairs, then they could at least have the opportunity to explain their ideas to the officers. Many young people with command talents entered the army. The first and second place winners every year were guaranteed to enter the Blood Kirin Army. The current Blood Kirin Army was an out-and-out powerful combat organization. Naturally, they couldn’t give them the position of military supervisor to play around with, but they still gave the champions and runners-up at least half a year of “trainee military supervisor” experience time to feel the unique charm of the Blood Kirin Army.

Although showing off military strength was indeed in Tan Xiaopei’s consideration, in order to strengthen the confidence and determination of the Xiling delegation members, Tan Xiaopei’s arrangements hadn’t even started yet?

“Ying’er, shall we go to Yunzhou to play?” After the youth group competition ended and they won the expected championship, Ye Wenxuan and Ye Wenji were heartlessly running to the workshops to play all day, but Ye Wenjun was a bit bored. She simply made this invitation to Yin Ying. Ye Wenjun missed the cute little animals in the small zoo at Ye Family Fort.

The Ye family, up and down, had a not-so-good habit, which was to run to the tea houses and coffee shops that were becoming increasingly popular in Dongping to rest and kill time. The tea houses were still a relatively traditional model, but the business strategy of unlimited tea and snacks was discovered by Tan Weixin. Although they weren’t very exquisite or expensive things, spending more to get free things was a business strategy that could be used for hundreds of years. And the Dongping Inner Treasury also had very rich tea resources, allowing its famous chain tea house, Hanshe, to continue to flourish. Now, there were more than one hundred and fifty chain stores throughout Dongping. As for coffee shops, the form was much newer. Ye Tao and Tan Weixin were both old hands at this, and with the availability of ample coffee beans in Yazhou and the Gulf region, they divided their coffee shops into several series with different positioning: the name Starbucks was difficult to explain the origin of, and was ultimately abandoned, but the bookstore combined with a coffee shop, “Dock”, the “Hub House” which provided various exquisite pastries, “Woge” which had delicious light meals, and "Street Guest" which was based on the streets and provided takeaway coffee in paper cups, a growing coffee consumption market was slowly being built.

The Ye family children liked the Blue Mountain Coffee Shop in the Yizhan Building complex the most in Danyang. The coffee shop, personally designed by Ye Tao, had three floors and was terraced. The spacious terraces on the second and third floors were always very popular places. And the large floor-to-ceiling windows allowed the interior of the coffee shop to accumulate enough heat in winter, making it warm and cozy. The tables and chairs in the coffee shop were specially designed, especially those chairs, which those familiar with industrial design in later generations would recognize as the famous chairs with the Y-shaped back support. The Ye family also had a small private room on the third floor of the coffee shop that they regularly used. It could be said to be an office, but the desk was against the wall, only a very small area. The comfortable and soft sofa and coffee table with beautiful wood grain were placed by the window. A group of children gathered in this private room, but they weren’t allowed to drink coffee before they were fourteen years old. Elaborately prepared milk tea and other drinks seemed to be more popular with these children. And hot chocolate, which other coffee shops couldn’t yet offer openly, was also available in abundance at Blue Mountain. Cocoa cultivation in Yazhou was still being explored, and the output was still very limited.

Yin Ying had also been coming here with the Ye family siblings and other members of the team every day to rest. Hot chocolate had become her favorite drink. And here, those who participated in the competition discussed tactics, while Yin Ying huddled next to Ye Wenjun, listening to her talk about Yunzhou, Benlang Plains, and Gondor. Words alone were not convincing, so Ye Wenjun could also ask people to bring albums. In other technologies, Ye Tao had been letting things take their course these years, only providing guidance. Only photography technology was a technology system that he always personally grasped. Now, the cameras produced by the Ye Family Workshop, although definitely still mechanical and fully manual, were already very good in performance. The Ye family all liked to take pictures. Whether for reconnaissance or recording itineraries, photography was very useful. For others, they had to consider the cost of photos. After all, photography was still an expensive application technology. But Ye Wenjun didn’t care about this. She only needed to ask her father for film. He always granted her requests. And her album had many photos full of life and extremely warm content. She had taken more than four hundred photos of just the animals in the zoo, as well as a considerable number of various creatures she occasionally saw in the wild. These photos completely aroused Yin Ying’s interest, making her want to go to Yunzhou and see it for herself from the bottom of her heart.

When Yin Ying went back and told Yin Li, it made Yin Li a little embarrassed. Yin Ying had gotten along very well with a group of children in less than ten days, and had clearly entered the Dongping young noble social circle, which was really an unexpected surprise. But going to Yunzhou made the delegation members scratch their heads. Should they go with her? How many people should go? And what would be the consequences of Yin Ying’s trip to Yunzhou?

“The happiest people in the entire Dongping are the Ye family children,” Tan Xiaopei said happily when Yin Li chatted with him about the children’s affairs. Chatting about the children’s topics made the always heavy meeting suddenly become lighter.

“Why?” Yin Li didn’t understand, but the Dongping ministers present obviously agreed with Tan Xiaopei’s words.

“They can choose their own friends,” Tan Xiaopei explained, “Even my grandsons can’t. Weiming and Weiran are too busy to take care of their children. But my two daughters-in-law are still very concerned about family status, although…it’s gotten a lot better in recent years, they’re still uncomfortable letting their children associate with commoners or the children of merchants. The Ye family children are not like that. The Pang and Gao families didn’t have a good relationship with the Ye family originally. At a garden party last year, Ye Wenxuan and Ye Wenji felt that the Gao family’s boy was quite interesting and wanted to get to know him. There’s also the grandson of Chen Sheng, the censor-in-chief, a master of the strategy game, and Ye Wenxuan wanted to invite him to join his team. Ye Tao personally visited these people and explained his intentions, saying that the children’s affairs should be left to the children, and that they were welcome to continue competing for business or impeaching him. Such grace is rare not only in my Dongping, but in the whole world, right?”

Yin Li nodded. Ye Tao had been working hard for the sake of Xiling, traveling back and forth, and it had been hard these past few days. Yin Li only roughly knew that Ye Tao had gone to Xiling once, and then quickly returned, adding up to less than a month. This speed was also quite alarming to Yin Li. Ye Tao could come like this, which meant that Dongping could mobilize at least a thousand-level combat power for such a mobilization, and in many cases, the things that a thousand-level combat power could accomplish were enough to change the battle situation. Yin Li also learned from this that Dongping had long been deployed in Xiling. Probably, Dongping would never reveal these deployments to them no matter what, but at least at the moment, it gave Yin Li a bit more confidence in this cooperation with Dongping.

Ye Tao was indeed a very unique person, and what Tan Xiaopei said did seem like Ye Tao’s style. And this made Yin Li even more interested. Yin Ying staying in Danyang was also like a hostage, but this hostage was having a very good time right now. Thinking of this, Yin Li had no objection to Yin Ying wanting to run to Yunzhou to play.

“Actually, I’m also very interested in various things in Yunzhou. However, it seems that the top priority is to arrange the various things in Anqing properly first. There will be plenty of time to go to Gondor to play in the future.”

“Haha,” Tan Xiaopei laughed heartily, “That’s the idea, let those children go play, let’s talk about the myriad things and settle them one by one first.”

The matter was settled like this. But the Ye family brothers were already very influential, and although Yin Ying was still hiding her identity in their circle of friends, this pretty little girl was valued by the Ye family siblings. The several little princes of the Tan family, including the Chi family, and the granddaughter of the former Minister Huang Xuping, etc., a large group of people liked this clever little girl very much, and Ye Family Fort, Yunzhou, Gondor, and other places were incredibly attractive to the children. Who didn’t know that Ye Tao had built a fairly large zoo for the children of Ye Family Fort?

In the end, a full twenty-five people wanted to go to Yunzhou with the Ye family siblings and others. This was a real cluster of young nobles. If it wasn’t for being with the Ye family siblings, their families probably wouldn’t have let them out to play so easily. In this respect, the Ye family’s credibility was truly outstanding. These children were going to Yunzhou to play with Ye Wenxuan and Ye Wenji, and their families wouldn’t pay any travel expenses to the Ye family. Ye Tao didn’t have time to arrange the itinerary for these children, so he simply handed it over to the Ye Wenxuan and Ye Wenji brothers to manage themselves.

The Yunzhou No. 1 airship couldn’t fit that many people, especially since each of these people was accompanied by attendants. Ye Wenji directly ran to the Danyang branch of the Ye Family Workshop and requisitioned Tan Xiaopei’s new flagship, Danyang No. 1, which had just completed its final preparations and was ready to take off, as well as the Kirin airship, which would be the new airborne command post. These two huge airships could carry more than a hundred people combined. In addition, some of the people were distributed on a total of six escorting Snow Owl-type airships, which was more than enough.

Although Yin Li was burdened with many things, he still took the time to send Yin Ying to the Dongjiaji transit camp. Originally, seeing that the journey was relatively fast, he also wanted to go to Ye Family Fort or Gondor to take a look before returning to Danyang. But in Dongjiaji, a telegram caught up with him, asking him to return to Danyang immediately, and then go to Anqing with Ye Tao. Due to some abnormal movements in the Xiling royal family, it had attracted the attention of some interested people, and in Anqing, some very serious problems had occurred.