Chapter 113 Royal Ball

In the twelfth year of the empire, the 31st day of December in the Western calendar.

Nanjing, Zijinshan Royal Garden.

At night, the newly decorated Juren Hall began, as usual, a must-have project for the Western New Year's Eve - the New Year's dance, because the royal family does not hold a Christmas dance, so for the royal family, this is the largest one-night dance.

The dance party, like the late Qing Dynasty, is also an extremely common thing in the Chinese Empire. However, in the early days of the Chinese Empire, dances and golf balls often had "practical surnames". Whether it were dances or golf, they were often places to communicate with envoys of various countries, and in more than ten years, everything has changed.

The ball with the original practical surname has become a gathering of the upper aristocratic elites, and the same is true of golf. It can be said that it has completely deviated from the original intention of the emperor to promote them, but the tradition has changed. For this, even the originator can only turn a blind eye.

Although it is wartime, everything needs to be simplified, but for this New Year's ball, hundreds of thousands of yuan has been spent on holding this New Year's ball. In fact, the expenditure of the royal ball has always been very amazing. In previous years, even the most economical ball needs hundreds of thousands of yuan. Small-scale New Year's dances often cost more than one million yuan.

For the clothing industry and jewelry industry in Nanjing, the month before the New Year's dance every year is often their peak business season. Men need to customize the latest dresses, and ladies and ladies, in addition to the need to customize new evening dresses, they also need to buy all kinds of jewelry. People always like to compare. The New Year's dance has always been a place for ladies and ladies to compete for beauty. Of course, it is also an occasion for men to show off their achievements of the year.

As in previous years, the New Year's dance began at 8 p.m., and the music sounded in the Juren Hall. It sounded in the main hall on the first floor of the Chinese palace built in nine years by the empire. Senior officials, superior nobles, celebrities and envoys from various countries in Beijing have begun to dance on the stage with an area of more than 2,000 square meters, and The ordinary dance is different. Until the guests arrive, as the owner of the palace, the emperor and the queen will enter. However, this year's New Year's dance seems to be different from previous years, because the emperor will not attend the dance this year, and the queen and the crown prince will host the dance.

Chen Yixuan, dressed in an all-white guard trainee officer's uniform, a silver collar, a silk on his chest, and gold thread pattern in his sleeves. Chen Yixuan, who was more handsome, stood behind his mother, but he took the lead in stepping on the red carpet in front of the main door.

Ji accompanied her son into the hall. At this time, she wore a tailor-made white gauze chest-length Confucian skirt, but at this time, people's eyes turned to the crown prince in a snow-white navy trainee officer uniform, full of fresh and strong breath. It is known that the emperor's behavior is undoubtedly a signal that the royal family has begun to prepare to choose a concubine for the crown prince.

This is a tradition that China has just formed after the empire. The princes and ladies of each family officially attend the dance for the first time, which often means that their wives and sons-in-law begin to seek the future. Although they are notified temporarily, the families in Beijing are still in the first place when they get the news. By phone, they invite their school-age ladies to join. Add a dance party.

For a while, the high-end ready-to-wear stores and jewelry stores in Nanjing were even more chaotic. However, as the capital of a big country and a country with a "luxury tradition", in just one hour, those "little ladies around 11 or 12 years old" who were originally scheduled not to attend the dance party Then he appeared in the Juren Hall.

However, what disappoints them is that the very handsome crown prince does not seem to have much interest in it. More often, he chats with the marshals and generals of the army and navy. If you put aside his age of 12 years old, these are very suitable for his identity as a royal junior military school. It's normal for the school to like to stay with the generals.

However, as his mother, Ji Li needs to meet the little girls, and then write down the names and families of some little girls with good impressions.

"The emperor only cares about the military affairs, and this kind of small thing is handed over to this palace."

Since she had said so before, Ji Li naturally had to make all the preparations. Although she felt that it was too early for her son to be engaged when she was less than twelve years old, she still enthusiastically chose her fiancee for her son.

However, it seems that the emperor is not interested in this, although it was started by him. This year, the prince presided over the dance, which has shown the royal attitude to the outside world. According to normal habits, you should consider the engagement after the crown ceremony, that is, after the age of 15.

However, the minister of the palace seems to have explained that "the princes are twelve and crowned. If the emperor is the same as the princes, he will be crowned twelve, so it is appropriate for him to preside over the New Year's banquet this year. If you are twelve years old and ceremonial, you must consider the engagement after the ceremonial.

"This is Zhang Wanxuan, the sixth lady of Nanpi's family..."

Looking at the pink little girl in front of her, Ji Li immediately fell in love with this little girl, but when she saw that her son was still chatting with several young officers, she was suddenly discouraged. Yixuan didn't seem to pay much attention to this matter.

At this time, she even regretted that she recommended herself, thinking that her father-in-law was insipid at that time. Did he have a plan for a long time? At this time, she saw her son take the initiative to leave the officers and walk towards a group of girls. Seeing her son's behavior, Ji Li was only happy.

This small group of people are all girls of the same age who are less than eleven or twelve years old. They are all wearing the same light blue or rose dresses. Such a group of little girls are shouting like birds at this time. They are mostly classmates of girls' school. In the eyes of ignorant people, this seems to be just a place for friends to gather. At the same time, they looked at the royal ball with curious eyes, looking at those familiar or strange people.

But among these little girls, there is a girl in a Western-style white gauze skirt, but she looks very lonely. She has no friends here. Originally, she did not want to attend this kind of dance, but curiosity drove her to come here. However, when she stayed with these girls, she did not know that she should Say something.

Just when she was in the middle of nowhere, a naval officer came quietly from nowhere. The officer lowered his hands, politely and bowed gently. At the moment of seeing him, for some reason, Nasha's heart did not resist the past. She became very docile, and she only felt a red cloud quietly climbed up her pink cheeks.

Looking at the docile girl in front of him, a smile appeared on Chen Yixuan's face, and then said clearly:

"Miss, can you enjoy a dance?"

Should I refuse him?

If it were before today, she might have rejected this guy who was always serious and like a little adult, but today, on this occasion, for some reason, she was unwilling to refuse him. She nodded and accepted Chen Yixuan's invitation under the attention of everyone.

Soon, Nasha and Chen Yixuan stepped on the beat of Blue Danube and waltzed. As a student of the young military academy, Chen Yixuan's face had already been tanned by Lie Yu, but this made him look a little more handsome. Nasha put her hand on the left shoulder of the dance partner's military uniform. Her head was very close to him, so she cooperated tacitly. The two of them danced relaxedly in the crowd.

"Little girl, why are you so well-behaved today!"

After half a song, I felt that the girl's mood today seemed to be better than usual, so Chen Yijian asked with a smile.

With thorny words, Nasha was not unexpectedly disgusted. She just said softly and semi-provocatively.

"In front of others, I always give you a little face for this crown prince!"

However, when she was talking, she looked around the ballroom from time to time. In addition to a small national flag, the royal badge is printed on the purple crede. It is a dragon with teeth and claws. The Chinese royal badge is perhaps the most fierce in the world. The dragon has no "cute" meaning, but this seems to be what China needs. Under the mantle and flag, a bottle of **, in the undulating sea of people, sometimes reveals bright silver, and then reveals gloomy gold.

However, the undulating sea of people here is as jubilant as champagne. Under the gorgeous German orchestra, it keeps ringing around for a moment, which is dazzling. At this moment, she met a girl who was dancing. In the hurry, she still felt the hostility of the other party. At this moment, she seemed to feel that she seemed to have become the focus. She was not only concerned, but also some hostility.

After accepting the invitation of the crown prince, she knew that after she accepted the invitation, all the eyes here would be on her, and everyone would pay attention to her every move. This means that a foreigner who knows nothing about China will attract everyone's attention from now on.

But I think they will have such and such questions. Nasha felt funny and proud for a while. Therefore, although the attention did not make her feel nervous, she just slid and danced more and more briskly on the smooth floor.

But soon, Chen Moran felt that the girl was exhausted, so he stared at her face with pity and asked:

"Do you want to continue dancing?"

"Let's take a break"

After dancing two songs in a row, Nasha, who was already a little tired, gasped and answered frankly.

Therefore, Chen Yixuan continued to walk the waltz step while taking her through the flowing flow of lace and flowers that rotated back and forth, and calmly leaned against a bottle of ** placed along the wall. After the last lap, she was beautifully placed on a chair, straightened her chest under the military uniform, and then was as respectful as before.

Later, they skipped Polka and Mazurka. Then, she took the attention-catching crown prince and walked through the white, yellow and light red three-layer chrysanthemum fence to the hall downstairs.

Here, the tuxedo and the pink shoulders of ** keep coming and going. On the large table full of silverware and glassware, there are mountains of meat and truffles; towering sandwiches and ice cream; and pyramid-like pomegranates and figs. Especially on the side of the house, on the wall that has not been buried by **, there is a beautiful gold shelf. On the shelf, the green artificial vines are entangled with ingenuity. In front of the golden shelf, Mingzi met the Russian ambassador who was slightly Xie Ding. He held a cigar and stood with a group of gentlemen of the same age. When the Russian ambassador saw her, he saw the young officer beside her again, and his face was full of surprise, but then he turned to his companion and smoked a cigar.

After the two walked downstairs, looking at Chen Yixuan, who seemed to be thoughtful in the garden, she deliberately sighed and said:

"I didn't expect that there would be such a grand dance in China!"

Hearing this, Chen Yixuan shook his head seriously.

"To be honest, I don't like dance..."

"Why?"

At this time, Nasha became curious. In her memory, the royal family and nobles are always associated with all kinds of dances. In Russia, a nobleman's dinner may cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of rubles, but they are still happy. Her mother is like this and always likes to hold all kinds of If it weren't for the fact that her mother had the agency of many Chinese products, her father wouldn't have been able to afford those dances at all.

At this time, she could feel that when Chen Yixuan said this, there was a strong dissatisfaction in his tone. She stirred the ice cream spoon while keeping silent.

"Actually, all dance parties are the same here."

With that, Chen Yixuan glanced at the crowd and ** around him. Suddenly, a sarcastic smile appeared in his eyes and stopped the spoon that stirred the ice cream.

"It's not just China, the dance, it's the same everywhere."

He half said something to himself, and then he was helpless again.

"All dances are just the luxury performance and huge expenses of the upper class in the end. The annual dance expenses like this can build at least one capital ship!"

Boys always like gunboats!

His words reminded Nasha of the boys in the Imperial Village School. If they throw away their skin color, it seems that they are no different.

"However, perhaps it is more appropriate to set up a relief home!"

Suddenly, another sentence came out of Chen Yixuan's mouth. Nasha looked at the boy in front of her in surprise and seemed to be extremely puzzled by his idea, but in the end she asked quietly.

"So..."

Looking at this "little boy" who regained the appearance of the annoying little adult, somehow Nasha didn't have the previous resentment.

"So are you willing to build a capital ship or run a relief home?"

Silence, the girl's question made Chen Yize slightly stunned. He thought for a moment before answering.

"My father is more willing to build a capital ship!"

(to be continued)