noffsinger Chapter 473 3 year later
Chapter 473 3 year later
Kyoto, Prince An's Palace.
"Princess, His Highness has sent another letter!"
Having heard the voice before seeing the person, Luo Xiaoran smiled and shook her head.
Wei An came in hopping like a happy little rabbit.
She held a letter tightly in her hand and waved it towards Luo Xiaoran, her eyes full of teasing, as if the letter contained some hilarious secret.
Ever since Emperor Tianqi officially issued an edict setting the wedding date for His Highness and the Princess, the number of letters from the North Territory has changed from once a month to once every two weeks, and every letter expresses His Highness's thoughts for the Princess.
Last time, she asked a painter to paint the scene of the princess taking a rest under the peach tree, and sent it to the northern border along with the princess's reply letter.
A few days later, along with His Highness's letter, His Highness also sent her a reward!
You know, His Highness is always frugal in his daily life, and even the jade pendant he wears occasionally is not a precious item.
But because of the princess's painting, His Highness actually rewarded her with a bag of golden melon seeds. My brother must be so envious!
It’s not because the golden melon seeds are valuable, but because His Highness seldom rewards his subordinates for personal matters, and she is the first to have this honor!
Thinking of this, Wei An glanced sideways at the painter not far away and chuckled.
"Princess, please open it and read it! You still have to reply to His Highness!"
Luo Xiaoran was fiddling with her pepper seedlings in the yard at this time. They were just planted last month. Now the small stems are still very fragile, and there are only six or seven tender green leaves. It will take two months for them to bloom and bear fruit.
Hearing this, she looked up at Wei An, a trace of helplessness flashing across her beautiful and refined face.
After following me for a long time, Wei An's personality became more and more erratic.
On the contrary, I seem to have become more stable in the past few years? Someone boasted in his heart.
Luo Xiaoran waved her hand towards Wei An, her slender white fingers were covered with brown mud.
The soil is dotted on her fingertips, between her fingers and on her palms, adding a different color and texture to these beautiful hands.
"My hands are covered in dirt, let's see later!"
"Oh~~"
Wei An put the letter away with some disappointment, and the next moment he heard his princess muttering:
"The palace is so big, we can't just plant flowers and plants~~ Next month, we'll plant tomatoes and sweet potatoes as well."
Wei An: “…”
For some reason, she felt a little sympathy for His Highness who was far away in Yizhou, ahem, just a little bit, a little bit of sympathy.
Wei An, feeling that his thoughts were somewhat rebellious, could not help but shudder. He quickly looked towards the vegetable field where Luo Xiaoran was tending, trying to divert his attention.
Chili peppers, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes are all crops that have become popular in the north in the past two years. It is said that they are all recorded in an ancient book that the princess accidentally found. Yun Hu took a lot of effort to find them one by one.
The chili peppers were originally obtained by chance by the princess on her way to escape famine. Yun Hu sent people to find the old man who sold her the chili peppers according to the address given by the princess, and asked the old man for the suburban address where the chili peppers could be dug, but they didn't find many there.
Later, the Dongfeng caravan found sweet potatoes in a small county town on the coast of Nanman.
Sweet potatoes have a high yield and are sweet and sticky in taste. They have now become a must-grow variety for every household in the North, helping many poor people to fill their stomachs.
I don’t know if it was a coincidence, but tomatoes were also found in the coastal area of Nanman. The Dongfeng caravan also discovered a village there that had already used peppers in its cuisine, and they brought back a lot of pepper seeds from there.
Sweet potatoes are treasures, and tomatoes and peppers are even rarer.
Tomatoes can not only be eaten raw, but also used in cooking. Simply stir-frying them with eggs will make them very delicious.
Chili peppers are even better. Add a few chili peppers when cooking. After the dish is out of the pot, you will be eager to eat more. Your mouth will feel like it is burning while eating, and you will still want to eat more.
Moreover, chili peppers can drive away the cold. In winter, using chili oil as the soup base for hot pot can sometimes make people sweat.
Speaking of hot pot, the princess opened a restaurant in Kyoto that serves hot pot.
At the beginning, there were only three kinds of hot pot soup bases: clear soup, spicy and tomato. Later, the princess cultivated a lot of mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, chicken mushrooms... Anyway, there were so many varieties that she couldn't remember them all, so the princess added mushroom soup base.
Later, the princess used the seafood brought by the Dongfeng caravan from the coast to make soup bases, as well as medicinal soup bases...
In short, the hot pot business was unprecedentedly popular in Kyoto, and the princess's hot pot restaurants grew from one to two, then to three... and later opened in other places.
Of course, such a profitable business is bound to have people imitating it, but the princess always introduces new soup bases and new snacks for guests every once in a while, and she is always ahead of everyone else.
The princess also opened a traditional restaurant, but the dishes there were not traditional at all. They were all things that Kyoto people couldn't even name. Plus, the taste was excellent, so naturally the restaurant was always crowded with diners coming in an endless stream.
The princess insisted on purchasing many of the ingredients used in the hot pot restaurants and hotels from the North. In the princess's words, this is called "making money in Kyoto and spending it in the North", which is to create income for the people in the North.
In fact, the princess did a lot for the people of the North.
Together with Yun Hu, she distributed pepper and tomato seeds to the people in the north, and even taught them how to grow mushrooms.
When the vegetables and mushrooms are ripe, the princess and Yunhu will send people to collect them. They can supply them to restaurants and hot pot restaurants, or dry them or store them in ice and then sell them elsewhere.
The people had an income other than farming, and the princess and the caravan also made money, which was really killing two birds with one stone.
The princess also secretly encouraged the people in the north to raise chickens and ducks, dig ponds to raise fish, build pig pens to raise pigs, and even larger animals like sheep and cows. As long as the people were willing to raise them, she would take them in.
In just three years, the princess has opened hot pot restaurants and restaurants in many cities, but no one knows that the princess is the boss behind the scenes.
It is said that the new gadgets that the princess and Yun Hu asked the craftsmen to develop were taken to the East China Sea and Western Xinjiang by the Dongfeng Caravan, where they were sold at a high price and were even very popular in the trade.
One of them is a mirror that can reflect a person very clearly, and another is a soap with a fragrant smell and fine texture. The princess said it is called soap.
Although it has not yet been sold in Kyoto, it is already in use in Prince An's Mansion. When the store opens in the future, it will surely create quite a craze in the entire Kyoto.
Thinking about Luo Xiaoran's heroic deeds in the past few years, Wei An not only stopped shivering, but even felt her blood boiling. If she hadn't had the letter from His Highness in her arms, she would have wanted to go out for a couple of laps right now.
Wei An raised the corners of his lips and gazed tenderly at Luo Xiaoran who was working in the vegetable field.
The princess made a lot of money in recent years, but she did not keep the money. Instead, she subsidized the Northern Army.
The soldiers' food is getting better and better, and they eat more meat. When the time comes to fight, they will have more strength, and they all have to thank the princess!