1928: The Rise of Giants

Throughout October, big news came out 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. Germany became another major power to withdraw from the League of Nations after Japan.

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

First, the news of Chu Minyi's crazy pursuit of Yang Xiuqiong was exposed by a newspaper under Ye's Newspaper Group. The newspaper published a photo of Secretary-General Chu driving a horse-drawn carriage himself, which instantly became a laughing stock in Jinling.

A newspaper commented: "Chu Minyi is being too attentive and disrespectful. This is unbecoming of a senior official of the government and is not appropriate!"

Chu Minyi didn't care about other people's opinions, and even regarded such things as a romantic and interesting story. However, there was a tigress in his family. After the news was exposed, Chu Minyi was immediately roared by the lions. It is said that he knelt on the washboard for several nights in a row.

Another piece of news was the popularity of the Peking Opera "Lady Huarui". Meng Xiaodong performed for three consecutive days at the World Grand 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 Huarui" was banned by the Nanjing National Government.

The reason for the ban is simple: the play disrespects history and misleads the audience.

According to such standards, we might as well ban "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Water Margin".

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

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

No matter what, "Lady Huarui" can no longer be performed in Jinling, but perhaps it can be continued in the north.

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

The play had the shadow of Ye's investment behind it. Although it was directly banned by the Nanjing National Government, they did not dare to really offend the second young master. Therefore, after the play was banned, the Kuomintang Propaganda Department immediately touted Meng Xiaodong's postpartum comeback.

It can be regarded as an explanation to Ye Luo.

Even the Kuomintang's official publication, Central Daily News, reported her debut with great fanfare, praising her as the most famous Peking Opera actor in the 30s, and the best among the old male actors.

After the official stepped down, other newspapers followed suit, eager to hype Meng Xiaodong up as a world-renowned opera star.

At that time, Meng Xiaodong was only 26 years old. Although she had a solid foundation, she was still far from being a famous opera star. The flattery of these print media made her and Ye Luo laugh and cry.

Many newspapers that followed suit reported even more chaotically, with nine out of ten sentences being false, but it still caused a huge social response.

Various newspapers competed to reprint the report, and Meng Xiaodong became a celebrity in minutes. Even 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.

Now Meng Xiaodong has no idea what to do.

She was an opera singer. At that time in the Republic of China, the status of opera actors was only slightly higher than that of film and television stars, 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, the print media are praising her to the skies, a treatment no actress could ever get.

Bai Xiuzhu didn't care about it at all, and said frankly that it was a good thing for both the Ye family and Ye Luo. After all, many people criticized Ye Luo's concubine for being either an actress or an actor, which seemed a bit unworthy of her position.

A daughter's status is determined by her mother's. The little girl Ye Dongdong, who was just born not long ago, also appeared on the cover of the magazine with her mother. This made Ye Zhuohua, the third-generation young master of the Ye family unhappy and insisted on going with Aunt Meng. He was picked up by Bai Xiuzhu and beaten 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 time when he returns to Shanghai, Ye Luo plans 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 businesses 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 would at least shrink by half.

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

Who is causing trouble?

Of course it’s 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 is not inferior to her husband in terms of position. If Chu Minyi, the Secretary-General of the Executive Yuan, is just henpecked, then Zhang Ji is afraid of his wife to death.

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. He found Zhang Ji kneeling in the living room, surrounded by his children. His wife Cui Zhenhua was beating her husband with a whip, and the children were so scared that they dared not persuade him.

Cui Zhenhua, who beat the man, felt 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 vent her anger." Even though Peng Jiqun was knowledgeable and experienced, he had never encountered such a situation. 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, and 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 ran over to help him. Zhang Ji waved his hand and said, "This is my family's business. Please don't interfere."

Ju Zheng had no choice but to exchange a few pleasantries and hurried away. After leaving, he said to his companions, "Zhang Ji's good temper is all used at home, but he keeps arguing with me."

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

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

She felt that it was unforgivable that her husband, who served as vice president of the Judicial Yuan and chairman of the National Cultural Relics Administration Committee, was unable to control the power of the Forbidden City.

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

At the beginning, Yi Peiji was unable to take up his post at the Palace Museum due to illness. According to the rules, the work should have been taken over by the Vice President Zhang Ji, but Yi Peiji disagreed and said to others: "Puquan (Zhang Ji) is crazy and has to listen to the orders of his crazy wife (Cui Zhenhua). We cannot let him be the head of the Palace Museum."

It was because of this that Yi Peiji offended Zhang Ji and Cui Zhenhua. This time, Cui Zhenhua settled all the new and old grudges together and prepared to beat Yi Peiji to death.

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

After the incident, Yi Peiji resigned in anger and submitted a petition 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 had embezzled cultural relics and his whereabouts are unknown. It is possible that he fled for fear of being punished.

Public opinion across the country 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 offered to resign and filed a counter-suit against Cui Zhenhua, Cui Zhenhua bribed the newspapers to report that "Yi Peiji was ordered to resign", distorting "voluntary resignation" into "forced suspension".

All major newspapers followed up with reports, and when the people saw that Yi Peiji had been "dismissed from his post", they became even more convinced that Yi Peiji and Li Zongtong had committed embezzlement.

Yi Peiji was speechless and fell ill due to anger. Now he just had to wait for the court to open the trial. However, Cui Zhenhua 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 cronies. This was like being both the plaintiff and the referee.

Because the transportation of cultural relics has always been the responsibility of the Ye Charity Foundation, these bad guys did not dare to cause trouble for Ye Qingqing and Ye Luo, so they had to torture Yi Peiji to death.

Someone went to find Yi Peiji and told him that he could ask the second young master and Ye’s investors for help.

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

As a intellectual, he really thinks too simply of Kuomintang politicians.

As expected, after the trial, although the barrister hired by Yi Peiji was very powerful and refuted the plaintiff's lawyer speechless, the Jinling District Court did not let Yi Peiji off 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 once again bribed newspapers to spread the rumor that Yi Peiji was guilty and dared not appear in court.

The situation had developed to such an extent that even if Yi Peiji eventually won the lawsuit, his reputation would have been so bad that his political future would have been almost completely ruined.

However, Zhang Ji and Cui Zhenhua were not going to let him go. They wanted to kill Yi Peiji completely and 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 and it will take at least several years to complete the entire appraisal.

If a few fakes were identified, Yi Peiji would be finished.

Even if the fake had not been discovered, Yi Peiji would not be able to become an official in the next few years because he was a "criminal."

What is even more frightening is that after a few years everyone has forgotten about the incident. Even if Yi Peiji could prove his innocence, he would still be seen as a cultural relic thief in the eyes of the people. Due to the negative public opinion, the Nanjing National Government would never re-employ Yi Peiji.

When a villain takes revenge, every stroke of his sword draws blood.

However, the identification of the cultural relics sent by the emperor completely offended Ye Qingqing, who was closely related to this matter! (End of this chapter)