1928: The rise of giant merchants

The principal and Mr. Wang were extremely troubled by Sun Ke's repeated jumps. If someone else stood up and sang a different tune, they could just send an assassin to shoot him.

But the other party was Sun Ke, Mr. Sun's son. No matter who killed him, as long as he had an accident, the blame would definitely be placed on the principal and Mr. Wang.

The Kuomintang was still in internal turmoil, while Mrs. Sun, Cai Yuanpei, Lu Yucai and others formally established the Republic of China Civil Rights Protection League in Shanghai.

Mrs. Sun and Cai Yuanpei served as chairman and vice chairman, Yang Xingfo served as secretary-general, and Lu Yucai served as executive member of the Shanghai branch.

They also cordially invited Ye Luo to attend the founding meeting.

However, Ye Luo considered the political issue. Now he was involved in everyone, but he would not join anyone, so he declined Mrs. Sun's invitation.

Even so, he was elected as one of the national executive members and an honorary member of the Shanghai branch.

This organization actually has little political power, and has been surviving like a mascot all the way, but it is better to have it than not. If you can join here, you can at least avoid the butcher knife of the Kuomintang in the later stage.

Throughout December, the gate of Ye Mansion was almost trampled by celebrities from all walks of life.

Since the acquisition of Hongkou Dojo and the construction of a new sound cinema there, the prosperity of the film industry has instantly surpassed the singing and dancing industry. Many singers and dancers have found people to ask for connections to join Ye's Film Company.

As the boss's wife, Lin Ruxian had dinner parties every few days. In the end, she couldn't stand it anymore and simply moved into Ye Mansion. Unexpectedly, this group of people would not give up and sent gifts to Ye Mansion.

Lin Ruxian took advantage of this opportunity to completely step into the door of the Ye family.

She had been living alone at No. 33 Xiafei Road before, but almost everyone in Shanghai knew about their relationship. Now no one dared to call her "a beautiful woman with a vicious face" or "a woman who kills her husband" behind her back.

After all, the man she is with is the second young master Ye Luo, who dares to offend the Ye family?

Ye Yuqiao himself is also a man with three wives and four concubines, so he doesn't care about this.

On the contrary, Li Shuzhen, who has more conservative ideas, is a little bit unacceptable to Ye Luo's behavior of "eating his sister-in-law".

But Lin Ruxian is pregnant now!

She wished that Ye Luo's children were everywhere, and immediately welcomed Lin Ruxian into the house happily, holding her in her hands together with Meng Xiaodong and Ruan Lingyu who were also pregnant.

Ruan Lingyu's due date is February next year, Meng Xiaodong will be four months later, and Lin Ruxian will be in October next year.

After learning about the situation of the Ye family, Yu Fengzhi, who has a good personal relationship with Bai Xiuzhu, went south directly, saying that she came to comfort her good sister, and at the same time came to help Zhang Hanqing as a lobbyist.

"A Luo, Han Qing has been working in Tianjin City recently. He said that you can come to his house more often when you are free." Yu Fengzhi took the initiative to talk to Ye Luo, "Since you helped him quit smoking opium last time, he has cheered up a lot."

"I will definitely go there when I am free, but now there are wars in the north, it is too risky for you to come here, sister-in-law." Ye Luo smiled, "Why not stay here for the New Year and go back."

"I heard that the Japanese target is Rehe this time, but fortunately Han Qing was on guard and was not instantly defeated by them. Alas, is this really going to be a war?"

Yu Fengzhi actually knew that Ye Luo didn't want to work with Zhang Hanqing. She couldn't understand why Zhang Hanqing had this idea again and asked her to be a good lobbyist when she came.

Ye Luo understood it in his heart.

After the secret report of the Japanese plan to invade Rehe was delivered to him, Zhang Hanqing felt the pressure and truly saw the influence of Ye's huge investment in financial resources. This time he sincerely wanted to ask Ye Luo to help.

If the fighting in Rehe had not been so intense, he might have come in person.

Unfortunately, Ye Luo had no intention of doing so, because Zhang Hanqing would resign voluntarily and go abroad to study soon.

Just half a month ago, the Kwantung Army brazenly fired at Shanhaiguan, and recently completed the assembly of the three armed forces of the navy, army and air force.

Perhaps realizing that the northern army was prepared, the Japanese invaders did not hide their intentions and directly ignited the war.

Zhang Hanqing was reviled by the whole country after losing the three northern provinces. He also wanted to do his best to restore his prestige. When he received Ye Luo's secret letter, he immediately deployed troops to arrange the Great Wall defense line, preparing to fight the opponent to the end at Shanhaiguan.

He had no place to retreat. As long as the Kwantung Army successfully occupied Rehe, Zhang Hanqing's northern territory would be completely exposed to the iron hoof of the Japanese invaders.

The principal is the most interesting. Although he sent a part of the national army to support, he generally continued his decision-making of "pacifying the country before resisting foreign aggression". Not only that, he also deliberately suppressed the anti-Japanese and national salvation activities of the people in the south, on the grounds of avoiding angering the Japanese and causing diplomatic disputes.

Now they are going to fight and invade your territory!

You are still avoiding diplomatic disputes.

This is really magical.

When Yu Fengzhi stayed in Ye Mansion with Bai Xiuzhu to take care of Ye Hongdou and Li Siye, Zhang Hanqing, who was defending Shanhaiguan in the north, was scolded again.

Because the Great Wall defense line he arranged was lost one after another, the Japanese troops continued to attack Rehe, and he once again became a national sinner, and there were voices everywhere asking him to get out and step down.

It can be expected that when the entire Rehe area fell, Zhang Hanqing would have to step down.

In fact, he was really forced to take the blame this time. The root cause of the loss of Rehe was not him, but Tang Yulin.

Tang Yulin was the real controller of Rehe, but after the battle, he completely ignored Zhang Hanqing's command. When Zhang Hanqing took Song Ziwen to Rehe to supervise the battle, Tang Yulin instantly got angry, thinking that he had colluded with the principal to completely annex his territory.

The internal strife here continued, and everyone had their own little thoughts, and the Japanese invaders immediately took advantage of the victory and directly broke down all three lines of defense, and entered Rehe like a no-man's land.

Zhang Zuoxiang, the commander of the Rehe Campaign, did not play much. After seeing the defense line fall, he hurried to abandon the troops and take a car to run away, completely ignoring the lives of the soldiers on the front line.

As soon as he ran away, Tang Yulin also ran away. In the end, you run and I run here, and whoever runs slower will be the front row to be beaten!

New Year's Day in 1933 came in this atmosphere.

Ye Mansion is still decorated with lights and spring couplets and red lanterns, retaining traditional Chinese customs. Various celebrities have come one after another in the past few days.

Ming Lou, who was responsible for spying on the Japanese intelligence, successfully overcame the difficulties and completely became a "Japanese puppet". Now he and Feng Jingyao are both friends of the Japanese on the surface, so they are naturally not welcomed by most Chinese businessmen and Chinese, and they can't go to see Ye Luo openly.

Ming Lou provided a lot of useful information along the way, and Ye Luo provided them to those who needed them, which can be regarded as doing a lot of good things.

On January 3, Shanhaiguan was officially breached by the Japanese army! (End of this chapter)