1928: The rise of giant merchants

Throughout October, big news emerged one after another.

The Japanese invaders planned to establish the "nm autonomous government" and wanted to replicate the puppet Manchukuo in Inner Mongolia.

A failed art student announced his withdrawal from the League of Nations, and Germany became another power to withdraw from the League of Nations after Japan.

However, these news were relatively far away. In the Jinling City of the Republic of China, there were only two news that the citizens were most concerned about.

One was that the news that Chu Minyi was madly pursuing Yang Xiuqiong was exposed by the newspaper under the Yeh Newspaper Group. The newspaper published a photo of Secretary-General Chu driving a carriage in person, which instantly became a laughing stock in Jinling.

A newspaper commented: "Chu Minyi was very attentive and didn't care about his face. It was too embarrassing for his status as a senior official of the government and it was not decent!"

Chu Minyi didn't care about other people's opinions, and even regarded such things as a romantic and interesting talk. But there was a tigress in his family. After the news was exposed, Chu Minyi immediately encountered the roar of the Hedong Lion. It was said that he knelt on the washboard for several consecutive nights.

Another piece of news is the hot performance of the Peking Opera "Lady Flower Brilliant". Meng Xiaodong performed for three consecutive days at the World Theater, and every show was sold out. Many patriotic students even organized group purchases to watch the show.

Originally, Meng Xiaodong wanted to continue performing, but the theater suddenly received a warning, and "Lady Flower Brilliant" was immediately banned by the Nanjing National Government.

The reason for the ban is simple: this play does not respect history and misleads the audience.

According to this standard, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Water Margin" should also be banned.

Hua Xiong was killed by Sun Jian, and has nothing to do with Guan Erye; Fang La was captured by Xin Xingzong, and has nothing to do with Lu Zhishen and Wu Song.

So "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Water Margin" both distort history, and it is reasonable to ban them.

In any case, "Lady Flower Brilliant" can no longer be performed in Nanjing, and perhaps it can continue when it returns to the north.

Although the new play was banned, Meng Xiaodong's reputation in Nanjing soared, and the title of "Winter Queen" is well deserved.

The play was directly banned by the Jinling National Government, but they did not dare to slap the second young master in the face. Therefore, after the play was banned, the KMT Propaganda Department immediately praised Meng Xiaodong for her postpartum comeback.

It was an explanation to Ye Luo.

Even the KMT’s official publication, the Central Daily News, reported her debut on stage, praising her as the most famous Peking Opera actor in the 1930s, and the best among the old actors.

After the official stepped down, other newspapers followed suit, wishing to make Meng Xiaodong a world-renowned Peking Opera star.

At this time, Meng Xiaodong was only 26 years old. Although she had a solid foundation, she was far from being a Peking Opera star. These paper media praised her so much that she and Ye Luo could not help laughing and crying.

Many newspapers that followed suit reported even more messy things. Nine out of ten sentences were false, but they caused a huge response in society.

Various newspapers competed to reprint the report, Meng Xiaodong became a celebrity in a minute, and even the women's magazines in Shanghai came to invite her to take photos, saying that they wanted to make Meng Xiaodong the cover girl of the next issue.

This made Meng Xiaodong unable to do anything.

She was an opera singer. The status of opera actors in the Republic of China at that time was slightly higher than that of film and television stars and singers and dancers. In essence, they were still second-rate actors. She always felt extremely inferior in her heart and felt that she was not worthy of Ye Luo.

Now, these paper media praised her to the sky, which was not the treatment that an opera singer could have.

Bai Xiuzhu didn't care about this at all. She said frankly that this was a good thing for the Ye family and Ye Luo. After all, many people criticized Ye Luo's concubines for being either opera singers or actors, which meant that they were not worthy of their positions.

A daughter is honored by her mother. The little girl Ye Dongdong, who was just born not long ago, also appeared on the cover of the magazine with her mother. Ye Zhuohua, the third-generation young master of the Ye family, was not happy. He insisted on following Aunt Meng. Bai Xiuzhu picked him up and beat him up!

"Woo! Boom~~~~"

The train was running on the rails, and half of the high-end carriage was booked, becoming the exclusive space for Ye Luo, his wife and children.

This trip back to Shanghai, Ye Luo was ready to clean up the business community in Shanghai.

It is now 1933, and the time node of 37 is getting closer and closer. He must clear out all Japanese businessmen before the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, and then transfer most of Ye's investment assets overseas.

Otherwise, by that time, Ye's investment will at least shrink by half.

At this time, a big news suddenly broke out in Peking-when the five batches of hundreds of thousands of treasures from the Palace Museum arrived in Shanghai, Zhu Shusen, the prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Jinling, suddenly took action and took people to the Palace Museum by train to seal up the accounting department because someone accused Yi Peiji and Li Zongtong of appropriating and stealing cultural relics.

Who is making trouble?

Of course it is Zhang Ji, and his wife Cui Zhenhua.

Although Cui Zhenhua is a woman, she serves as a member of the Central Supervisory Committee of the Kuomintang, and her position is not inferior to her husband.

If Chu Minyi, the Secretary General of the Executive Yuan, is just henpecked, then Zhang Ji is terribly afraid of his wife.

Once, Zhang Ji's good friend Peng Jiqun came to visit. Because the two had a good personal relationship, Peng Jiqun went straight into the house without waiting for the servant to inform him. As a result, he found Zhang Ji kneeling in the living room, surrounded by his children, and his wife Cui Zhenhua was beating her husband with a whip. The children were so scared that they didn't dare to persuade him.

Cui Zhenhua, who beat him, was a little embarrassed, but Zhang Ji, who was beaten, didn't care at all and said, "Brother Peng, please don't worry about it. My wife is a good person, let her beat her to vent her anger." Even though Peng Jiqun was knowledgeable, he had never encountered such a scene before, and he turned around and left in embarrassment.

Another time, Ju Zheng, the executive member of the Kuomintang and the president of the Legislative Yuan, went to Zhang Ji's house to pay New Year's greetings. When he arrived at the front door of Zhang's house, he found a toilet at the door. Ju Zheng felt very strange. The people accompanying him said: It must be that Mrs. Zhang punished her husband to clean the toilet again.

Ju Zheng walked in curiously and saw Zhang Ji kneeling in the living room. He hurried to support him. Zhang Ji waved his hand and said, "This is my family's business. Please don't ask."

Ju Zheng had to exchange a few words and left in a hurry. After leaving, he said to his companions, "Zhang Ji's good temper is all used at home, but he quarrels with me."

Cui Zhenhua is actually very kind to others, graceful and dignified, and looks like a lady from a noble family. Those who don't know her think she is a good woman.

However, the case of falsely accusing Yi Peiji of stealing and selling cultural relics was instigated by Cui Zhenhua, the tigress.

She felt that her husband, who was the vice president of the Judicial Yuan and the chairman of the National Cultural Relics Management Committee, could not control the power of the Forbidden City, which was simply unforgivable.

Not only that, Yi Peiji had offended Cui Zhenhua before.

At the beginning, Yi Peiji was not appointed to the Palace Museum due to illness. According to reason, the work should be presided over by Vice President Zhang Ji, but Yi Peiji disagreed and said to others: "Puquan (Zhang Ji) is crazy and has to listen to the crazy wife (Cui Zhenhua). We can't let him be the master of the Palace Museum."

Yi Peiji offended Zhang Ji and Cui Zhenhua because of this. Cui Zhenhua is going to settle old grudges and prepare to punish Yi Peiji to death.

The current Chief Prosecutor Zheng Lie of the Supreme Court was promoted by Zhang Ji. Cui Zhenhua colluded with Zheng Lie, secretly connected with many parties, and bribed witnesses. He immediately accused Yi Peiji of stealing and selling cultural relics, and sent prosecutors to the Palace Museum to detain relevant personnel.

After the incident, Yi Peiji resigned angrily and submitted a letter to the Central Supervisory Committee of the Kuomintang, the Executive Yuan and the Ministry of Justice, counter-suing Cui Zhenhua and Zheng Lie for joint false accusation.

Cui Zhenhua is a real vicious villain. They bribed newspapers to report that Yi Peiji embezzled cultural relics and his whereabouts are unknown. It is possible that he fled for fear of punishment.

The national public opinion was in an uproar, and Yi Peiji and his son-in-law Li Zongtong (Secretary-General of the Palace Museum) were instantly criticized by thousands of people.

When Yi Peiji resigned and counter-sued Cui Zhenhua, Cui Zhenhua bribed the newspapers to report that "Yi Peiji was ordered to resign", distorting "voluntary resignation" into "forced suspension".

Major newspapers followed up with reports, and the people saw that Yi Peiji was "dismissed", and they were more convinced that Yi Peiji and Li Zongtong were stealing from the company.

Yi Peiji was speechless and fell ill with anger. Now he is just waiting for the court to open the trial. However, Cui Zhenhua played a conspiracy again. She used her position to transfer the case from the Supreme Court to the Nanjing District Court. The Nanjing District Court was full of Zhang Ji's confidants. This is equivalent to being both the plaintiff and the referee.

Because the transportation of cultural relics has always been handled by the Ye Charity Foundation, these bad guys dare not trouble Ye Qingqing and Ye Luo, so they had to torture Yi Peiji all the way.

Someone went to find Yi Peiji and told him that he could ask the second young master and the people who invested in the Ye family for help.

Yi Peiji waved his hand and said: "The innocent will be innocent, I believe that the law will give me justice."

He, a literati, really thought that the Kuomintang politicians were too simple.

Sure enough, after the trial, although the barrister invited by Yi Peiji was very powerful and refuted the plaintiff's lawyer speechless, the Jinling District Court did not let Yi Peiji go easily. It only announced a postponement of the trial on the grounds that the case was complicated, and did not declare Yi Peiji not guilty on the spot.

Afterwards, Zhang Ji and Cui Zhenhua bought newspapers again and made a big fuss that Yi Peiji was guilty and dared not appear in court.

The situation has developed to such a point that even if Yi Peiji finally won the lawsuit, his reputation has been so bad that his political future has almost been completely ruined.

However, Zhang Ji and Cui Zhenhua did not intend to let him go. They wanted to kill Yi Peiji completely. They secretly ordered officials from the Procuratorate to seal up the cultural relics that were moved south and invited cultural relic experts to identify them one by one.

This is a very large project. It will take at least several years to complete the identification.

If a few fakes are found, Yi Peiji will be finished.

Even if no fakes are found, Yi Peiji will not be able to become an official in the next few years because he is "guilty".

What's more terrible is that after a few years, everyone has forgotten about this matter. Even if Yi Peiji can prove his innocence, he is still a cultural relic thief in the eyes of the people. Due to negative public opinion, the Jinling National Government will never reuse Yi Peiji.

The villain's revenge is bloody.

But the identification of the cultural relics has completely angered Ye Qingqing, who is closely related to this matter! (End of this chapter)