1928: The Rise of Giants

The issue of the relocation of cultural relics to the south finally came to Ye Qingqing's attention.

However, at that time Ye Qingqing was accompanying her sister-in-law Xiao Aqiao in the United States, and was unable to spare the time to fight with those troublemakers. This shit pot was inexplicably put on her, which made her, the person in charge of the "Cultural Relics Southward Migration", very angry. She called home overnight and asked her husband Lin Yuan to come forward and go directly to Jinling to help Yi Peiji with the lawsuit.

Zhang Ji and his wife Cui Zhenhua really hit a wall this time.

They just wanted to kill Yi Peiji, but they failed to alert 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 take care of such a small matter personally, so he just let Lin Yuan do it freely.

Lin Yuan is now the big boss of Ye’s newspaper company and the only son-in-law of the Ye family. Whenever he travels in the south, people from all walks of life have to give him face.

He spent 10 oceans to hire several lawyers to defend Yi Peiji, and then went to Song Ziwen and others to plead for mercy.

Song Ziwen knew about the mess long ago, but since the matter had already affected the Ye family, he could only blame Zhang Ji and his wife for being blind.

Look at Secretary-General Chu Minyi who just offended Ye Luo. This guy has now become notorious because of Ye’s newspapers, and even Mr. Wang has begun to distance himself from him.

Ye’s Press was a powerful weapon in Lin Yuan’s hands. He used this powerful weapon to reverse the situation in terms of public opinion.

With the help of Song Ziwen and others, Yi Peiji won the lawsuit!
Yi Peiji was spared the stain of his future life, and only then did he realize the influence of the Ye family in the south.

Zhang Ji and his wife were in a miserable situation. They were issued an oral order by the principal to dismiss them from their posts. Then they began to frantically try to find connections, give gifts, and curry favor with the Ye family.

While this matter was still being debated, Ye Luo and his group had already returned to Shanghai by train.

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

The two foreigners were planning to travel around the Republic of China. Fairbank wanted to familiarize himself with the local customs and people, while Wilma Fairbank wanted to study folk architecture.

Their first stop was Shanghai, and then they planned to continue southward to Jiangcheng, Hong Kong and other places. They did not dare to go to the north because it was full of Japanese invaders and puppet troops, and even foreigners could easily die suddenly.

These cities were all trading ports in the late Qing Dynasty. Fairbank worked very hard to write his doctoral dissertation. He had to visit all the trading ports, search and read the customs historical materials of the time, and also check the local chronicles of each city.

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

He traveled tirelessly to various places all year round and collected many precious historical materials.

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

This has created a very frustrating phenomenon: when scholars study modern history, they often have to read the works of American John King Fairbank.

Ye Luo brought Fairbank and his wife back to Ye Mansion to fulfill his duty as a good host.

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

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

There is no way around it. The allusion of this Peking opera is too strong. Any audience with a little bit of common sense knows that it is satirizing the policy of non-resistance.

As a result, Meng Xiaodong became more and more famous, 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 at a birthday party for his wife.

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

Han Fuju was the first Northwest Army general to betray Feng Yuxiang. He beat Yan Xishan during the Central Plains War. He was a selfish old-fashioned warlord. If you want him to oppose Chiang Kai-shek and resist Japan, it will be useless 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 entire province is under Han Fuju's control. Even the principal cannot seize power.

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

Shandong Province experienced years of war and famine, with rampant bandits and warlords, all because Han Fuju did not suppress them. According to statistics, from the late Qing Dynasty to the early 30s, 107 of the 84 counties in Shandong Province were plagued by bandits, including more than 370 large bandit gangs, and some bandit forces had tens of thousands of people at their peak.

But after his territory was consolidated, he changed his usual behavior and 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 the bandits, integrating the army, police and militia forces to jointly eliminate the bandits in various counties.

The principal ordered warlords in various places to "clean up the countryside", but in fact he was arresting members of underground organizations in the name of "cleansing the countryside".

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

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

The bandit problem in Shandong Province has become a disaster. In some places, entire villages are filled with bandits who can fight the army with their 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 aged 15 to 50 in the bandit area who did not "contain environmental protection" would be shot, and the villages hiding bandits would be burned down directly.

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

In anger, Han Fuju even requested aircraft support from the National Army, and defeated Liu Heiqi, forcing him to flee to Tianjin and live as a private citizen.

This was not the end. Han Fuju hired an assassin to go to Tianjin for an assassination attempt. He shot Liu Heiqi three times but failed to kill the bandit leader.

By clearing up the countryside and suppressing bandits, Han Fuju, a warlord from the Northwest Army, has completely controlled the entire province of Shandong, and his influence has even penetrated into every county, town and village.

"This is my wife Bai Xiuzhu."

"This is my wife, Ruan Lingyu."

“This is my wife.”

As Ye Luo introduced each person one by one, John King Fairbank and Weime Fairbank were stunned.

After a brief exchange of greetings, Fairbank followed Ye Luo to the study.

His study is very large.

The cabinets on the bottom shelf contain famous paintings and calligraphy, antiques and rare ancient books. The middle shelf contains various important local historical materials, while the upper shelf is filled with famous Chinese and foreign classics.

If I were to move in the future, I would need more than a dozen large boxes just to pack the things in this study.

Fairbank's eyes lit up when he saw the local chronicles and customs chronicles on the middle shelf, which were exactly the materials he wanted to get his hands on. He couldn't help rubbing his hands and said, "Second Young Master, I want to borrow some of your books."

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

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

Fairbank was just a doctoral 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, and Jiang Tingfu.

This made Fairbank deeply moved and also made him fall in love with the Republic of China. He felt that it was a country full of human touch.

More than fifty years later, "John Fairbank's Memoirs of China" was published. In the second part, Chapter 9, "Our Friends in the Republic of China", the content about Ye Luo is more than 6000 words.

Fairbank wrote in his memoirs:

"Mr. Ye Luo is an interesting man, he has an open mind, a broad vision and a keen eye. This can be seen from his family relationship. When I first visited him, he introduced me to his four wives. One is a politician's sister, two are movie stars, and one is the female boss of a film and television company.

It is hard for me to imagine how these beautiful women can live in peace. The difficulty is probably no less than 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 was a legally recognized wife, and the others were called concubines, which was equivalent to concubines in the Qing Dynasty.

However, the progressive scholars of the Republic of China would not openly take concubines. For example, my friend Mr. Hu Shi, I know he had several lovers, but he only had one wife from beginning to end. This seems to be related to reputation. Taking concubines is a manifestation of backwardness and reaction, and it is condemned by progressive intellectuals.

Mr. Ye Luo had no scruples about this. He never cared about other people's opinions, nor did he deliberately hide the fact that he had married a concubine." (End of this chapter)