Your Majesty, please do not disturb, the empress only wants to engage in business

Chapter 193 First Year Banquet

Yao Jinse was never the Empress's enemy, nor did she ever consider the Empress an enemy.

In the harem, a place of interests, there are no clear enemies, to be honest. Even between Consort Rong and Empress Shen, there was no real conflict.

It was nothing more than petty squabbles and jealousy, hardly even considered topics of conversation in the imperial harem.

The two at the very top are like that, and the others are even more adept at playing along.

On the surface, they treated each other like sisters, but what happened between the concubines who were truly close or had vested interests behind closed doors was naturally not for outsiders to know.

As for the people around you, whether they have ties with others behind your back, and whether those ties can be detected, that depends on each person's abilities.

Yao Jinse was one of the most observant people in the harem. Of course, she had no choice; if she held a high position, she would naturally have countless people passing on information to her.

However, being in this position, she was in an awkward position, and could only rely on her usual charitable deeds, a good reputation, and her own hard work to ensure the comprehensiveness of the information.

In the imperial harem, one either becomes someone else's spy or someone else's pawn to gather information. Even the most naive child will quickly adapt to the treacherous life within the harem after entering it.

The saying "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" is roughly like this.

Now that things have come to this, Yao Jinse can no longer do anything based on her so-called understanding of the plot. If she still thinks she has the advantage of foresight, then she is being too arrogant.

But at the same time, she still knew some things that others didn't, and she had some understanding of the personalities of certain people, which could still come in handy.

Having an information gap is naturally a good thing.

Compared to living in an unknown environment, being able to have a basic grasp of the information around you naturally makes you feel safer.

But that's not enough. At least Yao Jinse herself felt that the cards she held were not enough to protect herself.

However, self-preservation is not something she can do as she pleases. In the harem, without sufficient family background, one has to rely on the emperor or empress dowager to protect oneself. Now, she has barely managed to climb the line with the empress dowager, but the emperor's side is not so reliable.

"Speaking of which, a few days ago, in order to make the Empress Dowager's birthday banquet more appropriate, the Emperor personally said that our princess's first birthday banquet would be postponed. But after the news of the Consort's pregnancy came out, the Emperor probably lost interest in the princess's first birthday banquet."

Yao Jinse rubbed her temples, after all, she had originally planned not to hold a first birthday party for her daughter.

In the story she knew, the Imperial Concubine was not pregnant at this first birthday banquet, so she naturally wouldn't miss such a grand occasion. Therefore, what should have been a banquet with the princess as the main character turned into a stage for the Imperial Concubine and Qiao Yanran to compete.

Therefore, from the very beginning, Yao Jinse used the Empress Dowager's birthday celebration as an excuse to discuss with Xie Yun'an the possibility of postponing the event—it was just a royal family banquet, certainly not as important as the Empress Dowager's birthday celebration. In the original story, there was no scene depicting the Empress Dowager's birthday. In the first year after the Emperor ascended the throne, although the Empress Dowager also celebrated her birthday, it was not a grand affair.

The grand occasion for the Empress Dowager's birthday celebration was actually partly due to Yao Jinse.

If she hadn't come up with this excuse to shield Xie Yun'an from the Empress Dowager's desire to divide power, Xie Yun'an wouldn't have been so extravagant in arranging things for Empress Dowager Xu in his first year on the throne.
In this way, the magical battle from the original story will be reenacted at Princess Dongyang's first birthday banquet.

Yao Jinse didn't regret bringing it up, but now that the Empress Dowager's birthday banquet had been over for almost two months, Xie Yun'an still hadn't made any move regarding the princess's first birthday banquet, which was what made Yao Jinse feel something was wrong.

Although Xie Yun'an has a somewhat dark and suspicious personality, he is never one to forget things on the surface and is always very reliable.

Not to mention that many things in the inner palace are governed by rules and regulations. Things like the princess's first birthday banquet are handled by the Imperial Household Department, so there's no need for Emperor Xie Yun'an to put in any effort.

"Your Highness should remind His Majesty of this matter, but it was Your Highness who brought it up in the first place. At that time, His Majesty must have had a good impression of you. If we bring this up again now, wouldn't that..."

Bai Tan stood to the side helping Yao Jinze serve the dishes. After hearing Yao Jinse's words, she replied, but stopped halfway through her sentence. Yao Jinse naturally knew why she hesitated; it was simply because she was concerned about her image as Consort Lin in the Emperor's eyes.

After all, it wasn't easy for Yao Jinse to establish such a virtuous, gentle, and somewhat clever image in Xie Yun'an's mind, someone who could help resolve problems without asking for anything in return. If she were to deliberately bring up the matter of Princess Dongyang's first birthday banquet now, it would make Yao Jinse seem somewhat vain.

“So we can’t bring this up ourselves,” Yao Jinse thought for a moment and quickly came up with a suitable person: “The Empress is the mother of the nation, in charge of many affairs of the harem, and is also the mother of all the children. Naturally, she should take care of the princess’s first birthday banquet.”

Even if it were just a few tables of food set up in Yuxiu Palace, with the emperor coming over privately, it would be better than Xie Yun'an's current state of putting things out of his mind.

"But how can Your Highness remind Her Majesty of this matter? If Your Highness were to ask Her Majesty for help, it would certainly not be easy to ask for such a favor. Moreover, if Her Majesty were to tell the Emperor about this, that would be disastrous."

This isn't difficult to handle. Since Yao Jinse can't go herself, we can just send someone else.

Although the princess is not having a first birthday banquet, she has already turned one year old and has been granted a title, so naturally the proper etiquette must be observed.

There are some pieces of jewelry that princesses of that age could use, such as necklaces, which should be made by the Imperial Household Department in due course.

Yao Jinse didn't have many connections at the Imperial Household Department's Treasure Bureau, but she didn't need any connections to handle these matters. It was just a matter of doing official business. She used the Treasure Bureau's connections to bring this matter to the Empress's attention.

It was also a good opportunity to test the waters.

The fact that the Empress still holds onto power in the harem and hasn't had it taken away by the Empress Dowager is largely thanks to Yao Jinse, the strategist who devised this plan.

If Empress Shen shows no reaction to this matter, Yao Jinse wouldn't mind letting the Empress Dowager take over the affairs of the inner palace again.