1928: The rise of giant merchants

The issue of the relocation of cultural relics to the south finally got to Ye Qingqing.

However, Ye Qingqing was accompanying her sister-in-law Xiao Aqiao in the United States at this time, and she was too busy to fight with the troublemakers. This shit pot was inexplicably put on her, which made her, the general person in charge of the "relocation of cultural relics to the south", very angry. She called home overnight and asked her husband Lin Yuan to come forward and go directly to Jinling to help Yi Peiji fight the lawsuit.

Zhang Ji and his wife Cui Zhenhua really kicked the iron plate this time.

They just wanted to kill Yi Peiji, but they didn't alarm the tigress.

Lin Yuan went to Jinling in person, just in time to stagger with Ye Luo and his group who were returning home.

Ye Luo was naturally too lazy to manage such a small matter personally, so he let Lin Yuan play freely.

Lin Yuan is now the big boss of Ye's newspaper industry and the only son-in-law of the Ye family. When he walks in the south, no matter which side of the road, he has to give him face.

He spent 100,000 yuan to hire several lawyers to defend Yi Peiji, and then went to Song Ziwen and others to plead for him.

Song Ziwen knew about the mess, but since the matter had already touched the Ye family, Zhang Ji and his wife could only blame themselves for not having eyes.

Look at Chu Minyi, the secretary general who had just provoked Ye Luo. This guy is now notorious because of Ye's newspapers, and even Wang has begun to distance himself from him.

Ye's newspapers are a sharp weapon in Lin Yuan's hands. He directly used this big killer and reversed the situation in public opinion.

With the help of Song Ziwen and others, Yi Peiji won the lawsuit!

Yi Peiji was spared the stain of his life and realized the power of the Ye family in the south.

Zhang Ji and his wife were miserable. They were dismissed by the principal in an oral order, and then they began to frantically find connections, send gifts, and please the Ye family.

While the matter was still entangled, Ye Luo and his party had already taken the train back to Shanghai.

On the way, Ye Luo met Fairbank and Weime who were also going to Shanghai.

The two foreigners were going to travel around the Republic of China. Fairbank was going to get familiar with the customs and people, while Fairbank was going to investigate folk architecture.

Their first stop was Shanghai, and then they were going to continue south to Jiangcheng, Hong Kong and other places. They didn't dare to go to the north, where there were Japanese invaders and puppet troops, and even foreigners could die suddenly.

These cities were all trading ports in the late Qing Dynasty. Fairbank was very hard-working in order to write his doctoral thesis. He had to travel to all the trading ports, look for and read the customs historical materials of the year, and also check the local chronicles of various cities.

We have to admit that Fairbank's research on modern history has left a valuable treasure for the historical community.

He worked tirelessly to travel around the country all year round and collected many precious historical materials.

Many of these materials were destroyed in the Anti-Japanese War. It was only thanks to Fairbank's efforts that future historians could get a glimpse of them.

This has created a very helpless phenomenon. When scholars study modern history, they often have to read the works of Fairbank, an American.

Ye Luo took Fairbank and his wife back to the Ye Mansion to fulfill his duties as a host.

Except for Xiao Aqiao and Huixin who went to the United States, the other women were at home.

Although "Madame Huarui" was banned in Jinling, it was particularly popular in the north. These days, "Madame Huarui" has almost become Meng Xiaodong's representative work, widely circulated in North China, and even adapted into a drama by patriotic young people.

There is no way, the allusion of this Peking opera is too strong, and the audience with a little bit of brains knows that it is a satire on the policy of non-resistance.

As a result, Meng Xiaodong's fame has become more and more, almost as famous as Mei Lanfang.

Even Han Fuju in Shandong sent a telegram to invite Meng Xiaodong to perform, saying that he wanted to sing for his wife's birthday party.

Ji Hongchang seemed to want to win over Han Fuju to fight against Chiang Kai-shek and Japan together, and also disguised himself in the opera troupe, but Ye Luo was not optimistic about Ji Hongchang's action.

Han Fuju was the first fierce general of the Northwest Army to betray Feng Yuxiang. During the Central Plains War, he hung up and beat Yan Xishan. This man was a selfish old-fashioned warlord. If you want him to oppose Chiang Kai-shek and resist Japan, it is useless to persuade him unless you can show him huge benefits that can be seen and touched.

Now Han Fuju has become the local emperor of Shandong Province. The whole province is under the control of Han Fuju. Even the principal can't reach out to seize power.

Two years ago, Zhang Zongchang wanted to make a comeback and secretly made trouble with the support of the Japanese. As a result, he was killed directly by Han Fuju.

Shandong Province has experienced years of war and famine, bandits are rampant, and warlords are everywhere, all because Han Fuju did not suppress them.

According to statistics, from the late Qing Dynasty to the early 1930s, there were 84 counties in the 107 counties in Shandong Province that were plagued by bandits, including more than 370 large bandit gangs. Some bandit forces had tens of thousands of people at their peak.

But after his territory was stabilized, he changed his usual behavior. The first thing he did was to recruit small warlords. Those who disagreed with the recruitment were directly treated as bandits. The second thing he did was to suppress bandits, integrating the army, police and militia forces to jointly suppress bandits in various counties.

The principal ordered warlords in various places to "clean up the countryside", which was actually to arrest members of underground organizations in the name of "cleaning up the countryside".

After Han Fuju received the order from the Jinling government, he really "cleaned up the countryside", specifically eliminating bandits and bullies, and also linked the suppression of bandits with the political achievements of officials.

He successively promoted more than a dozen local officials who were effective in suppressing bandits, so that the grassroots officials in Shandong Province were like chicken blood, and they would pick up weapons when they saw bandits. Every bandit was a living political achievement.

Banditry in Shandong Province has become a disaster. In some places, entire villages are full of bandits, and they can fight against the army with the help of earthen buildings and earthen forts.

Han Fuju's methods of suppressing bandits were extremely bloody. Faced with such a bandit village, his order was: Except for women and children, all men between the ages of 15 and 50 in the bandit area who did not have "environmental protection" would be shot. Villages hiding bandits were directly Burn.

The big bandit leader Liu Heiqi took advantage of the danger and fought with Han Fuju's army for more than 40 days.

In anger, Han Fuju actually applied for aircraft support from the National Army and beat Liu Heiqi until he fled to Tianjin to live in an apartment.

This was not over yet, Han Fuju hired an assassin to go to Tianjin for assassination, and shot Liu Hei seven or three times, but he did not kill the bandit leader.

With the help of Qingxiang to suppress bandits, Han Fuju, a warlord with a background in the Northwest Army, has completely controlled the entire province of Shandong, and his power has even penetrated into various counties, towns and towns.

"This is my wife Bai Xiuzhu."

"This is my wife Ruan Lingyu."

"This is my wife."

Following Ye Luo's introductions one by one, Fei Zhengqing and Fei Weimei were dumbfounded.

After everyone chatted for a while, Fairbank followed Ye Luo to the study.

His study is very large.

The cabinets on the bottom floor contain famous calligraphy and paintings, antique cultural relics, and unique ancient books. The middle shelf contains various important local historical materials, and the upper shelf contains densely packed Chinese and foreign masterpieces.

If we move in the future, we will need more than a dozen large boxes to pack the things in the study.

Fairbank's eyes shone brightly when he saw it, especially the local chronicles and customs chronicles on the middle shelf of the bookshelf, which were the materials he wanted to get in touch with most. At that moment, he couldn't help but rub his hands and said, "Second Young Master, I would like to borrow some of your books."

"Of course," Ye Luo said with a smile, "You and your wife can stay here first, and it won't be too late to go south after checking the information."

"Thank you so much!" Fairbank said excitedly, holding Ye Luo's hand.

Fairbank was just a Ph.D. student in the United States. After he came to the Republic of China, he received selfless help from a large number of top scholars including Ye Luo, Liang Sicheng, Lin Huiyin, Hu Shi, Jiang Tingfu, etc.

This made Fairbank very emotional, and it also made him fall in love with the Republic of China. He felt that this was a country full of humanity.

More than fifty years later, "Fairbank China Memoirs" was published. Chapter 9 of the second part, "Our Friends of the Republic of China," contains more than 6,000 words about Ye Luo.

Fairbank wrote in his memoirs——

"Mr. Yeluo is an interesting man. He has an open mind, a broad vision and a keen eye. It can be seen from his family relationships. When I first came to visit, he introduced me to four wives . One is the sister of a politician, two are movie stars, and one is the female boss of a film and television company.

It's hard for me to imagine how these beautiful women can live in peace. It's probably as difficult as managing a city. This situation was very common in the Republic of China at that time. Men with power and money often had many wives at home. One is a legally recognized wife, and the others are called concubines, equivalent to concubines in the Qing Dynasty.

However, progressive scholars in the Republic of China would not marry their aunt so blatantly. For example, my friend Mr. Hu Shi, I know that he had several lovers, but he only had one wife from beginning to end. This seems to be related to reputation. Taking concubines and marrying concubines is a sign of backwardness and reaction, and should be condemned by progressive intellectuals.

Mr. Ye Luo has no scruples about this. He never cares about other people's opinions, nor does he deliberately hide the fact that he married his concubine. "(End of chapter)