Chapter 1210: An Miaoyi is crippled?
In Shouchun, in a heavily guarded and luxurious mansion,

Ye Mingsheng was eating a pear while looking at the memorial sent from Yijing to see what important things had happened in the court recently. Although they were thousands of miles apart, Ye Mingsheng was still very concerned about what was happening in the court of Yijing...
Although Ye Mingsheng had led his troops on a western expedition and visited other places before, there was some chaos in the operation of the Yijing court when Ye Mingsheng first left. However, it soon operated normally as Ye Mingsheng had planned. The General Staff was in charge of military affairs, and government affairs were jointly discussed and decided by Cui Shao, Gu Sansi, and Li Jian!

And An Miaoyi, the eldest lady of the Ye family, the mistress of the Fengwu Army, and the de facto queen of the Yijing court, was granted the right to know by Ye Mingsheng, which served as a supervisor of all parties!
Ye Mingsheng was not actually very worried about the operation of the imperial court. After all, he had just been on a western expedition not long ago, and the operation of the imperial court was normal at that time. The only thing Ye Mingsheng was worried about was whether An Miaoyi would take advantage of his absence from Yijing to cause trouble!
After all, An Miaoyi had a precedent in this regard. If Cui Shao hadn't stopped her, this woman would have sent assassins to kill Murong Zhengshan!
Precisely because of this previous experience, Ye Mingsheng gave Ye Cheng a special task during this southern tour, which was to monitor An Miaoyi's every move!
Perhaps because she had been warned by Ye Mingsheng before, An Miaoyi really did not do anything this time. In Ye Cheng’s report, An Miaoyi at most secretly messed up the Bai family, and then killed Feng Yuliang, the bootlicker, and then used the Ye Mansion’s assets to help her brother An Tianyu...

However, what disappointed Ye Mingsheng was that Ye Cheng messed up this little thing and let An Miaoyi know that she was being monitored!
An Miaoyi soon realized that the person who was monitoring her was Ye Cheng. At the same time, she also understood that Ye Cheng did this under the order of Ye Mingsheng, so she did not make a big deal out of it, but she severely made things difficult for him and humiliated Ye Cheng!
Ye Mingsheng was very clear that An Miaoyi's move was ostensibly directed at Ye Cheng, but in fact it was directed at him to express her dissatisfaction with him!

Ye Mingsheng did not intend to respond to this. After all, An Miaoyi was his legally married wife, and sending someone to monitor her was not a good idea!

This means that he doesn't trust her. Although Ye Mingsheng does not have enough trust in An Miaoyi in his heart, what he thinks in his heart and what he says on the surface are different!

Ye Mingsheng had complicated feelings towards his wife. He did have the idea of ​​destroying An Miaoyi, but he never gave this idea any deeper thought!
As a man, Ye Mingsheng had also hoped that he would have a perfect wife, with whom he and his wife would have a deep affection and spiritual connection, and who would be kind, beautiful, generous, able to tolerate his shortcomings, and able to comfort him physically and mentally, encourage him, and help him in his career development when he was in a low point. She would become his good wife.
But unfortunately, this is the real world. Although men all hope to have such a perfect wife, unfortunately, it is difficult for them to realize such a wish.

As the de facto ruler, even though Ye Mingsheng controls the entire world, it is still difficult for him to meet the perfect girl!

Although Bae Ji-soo meets most of the above requirements, her past makes her undoubtedly not meet the definition of perfection.

Although Ye Mingsheng also tried to block everything and completely erase Pei Zhixiu's past, as the old saying goes, there is no impenetrable wall in this world. Ye Mingsheng knew very well that although no one mentioned this matter, everyone who should know it knew it!
An Miaoyi may not be a perfect wife, but Ye Mingsheng has to admit that An Miaoyi has done an excellent job as the mistress of the Fengwu Army!

In the early stages of the Fengwu Army's career, in order to protect itself from invasion and to expand outward to seize territory, Ye Mingsheng also invested a lot of money in armaments to enhance his own strength!
And how to get money becomes the key to the matter!
If you want to make money, the simplest way is to increase revenue and reduce expenditure!

In terms of increasing revenue, Ye Mingsheng did not exploit the people to obtain money like traditional feudal lords did, but chose to target the gentry and landlords represented by the aristocratic families!

Although this move won Ye Mingsheng the support of the general public, it also caused Ye Mingsheng to have a bad relationship with the gentry and landlords represented by the aristocratic families. Although Ye Mingsheng held military power, force could not solve everything!
If the threat of force is used blindly, it will inevitably lead to a backlash. Even if Ye Mingsheng can suppress it by force, the unrest caused by the backlash will inevitably involve a lot of Ye Mingsheng's energy, making the Fengwu Army unable to expand outward...
Therefore, Ye Mingsheng chose a path of combining hardness and softness. On the one hand, he threatened with force, and on the other hand, he tried to win over the aristocratic families and let them integrate into the Fengwu Army. In this process, An Miaoyi also made a lot of contributions. Because she was also from an aristocratic family, she used this as a starting point to do a lot of work for the wives of the aristocratic families. She tried to use the wife route to make those aristocratic families accept Ye Mingsheng's enticement and make certain compromises!

However, it is easy to eat meat, but it is extremely difficult to spit out the meat in your mouth. Although these noble families were forced to make many compromises and concessions under Ye Mingsheng's threat of force and handed over some industries and fields, they also had a lot of resentment and even hatred towards Ye Mingsheng in their hearts!
This also led to An Miaoyi receiving some cold stares and hearing some sarcastic remarks from some noble ladies when she was working on the role of a lady. At first, An Miaoyi was so angry that she even cried. But even so, she did not choose to give up and continued to work hard without giving up!

And her efforts did bring some results to Ye Mingsheng. With An Miaoyi's efforts, some noble ladies changed their attitude towards the Fengwu Army and persuaded their husbands to gradually soften their attitudes. They accepted Ye Mingsheng's solicitation and became members of the Fengwu Army military group...

An Miaoyi's performance in saving money also made Ye Mingsheng very satisfied and even admired his wife!
You have to know that as the daughter of a noble family and a rich lady, An Miaoyi's life since childhood was, if not luxurious, at least very superior. It can be said that she has basically never worried about money in her mother's family, and her annual expenses are basically in the unit of thousands of taels!
However, during the period when Fengwu Army was in financial difficulties, Ye Mingsheng also took the lead in cutting his own expenses, and although An Miaoyi did not exaggerate to the point of weaving cloth and making clothes by herself,
But he also responded to Ye Mingsheng's call. For a long time, he did not buy new clothes or jewelry. He only ate two or three dishes for each of his three meals a day. Then he took the initiative to give Ye Mingsheng the tens of thousands of taels of silver that were left in the Ye Mansion to invest in the war.

Even so, when in front of Ye Mingsheng, An Miaoyi never complained about things like "I married you, I've never had a good day, why my life is so hard". Such words have no practical meaning and are just to vent emotions.
This may be a normal thing for an ordinary family, but for a noble lady like An Miaoyi, it is still very rare and precious!
It was precisely because of this kind of frugality that the Fengwu Army was able to persist in external expansion and win one war after another without overly exploiting the people!
In addition, An Miaoyi also came forward on behalf of Ye Mingsheng to comfort the wives and children of some fallen soldiers, and sent them some daily necessities to let them know that Marshal Ye had not forgotten them. These actions also made An Miaoyi very popular in the army and had a high prestige...

Within the Ye clan, although the vast majority of people are Ye Mingsheng's supporters, they also have some opinions about the fact that Ye Mingsheng did not give excessive special care to the Ye clan's relatives, allowing the Ye clan's relatives to become the de facto special existence of royal relatives within the Fengwu Army.

In this regard, An Miaoyi did a lot of work for Ye Mingsheng, allowing the Ye clan members to understand Ye Mingsheng's difficulties and intentions, and still firmly support and be loyal to Ye Mingsheng. There are many actions like this, and Ye Mingsheng has seen and remembered all of An Miaoyi's contributions. He always believes that An Miaoyi's overall view is still very good, and he can still make the right choices at critical moments, such as handing over the surplus silver of the Ye Mansion and taking the initiative to report Ye Baode's rebellion!
Ye Mingsheng was very pleased with these. If An Miaoyi did not have such a strong desire for power, then even if the relationship between Ye Mingsheng and her was not deep and the two of them did not have a mutual understanding, then she would be a perfect virtuous wife, or even a perfect wife!

The reason why Ye Mingsheng did not consider abolishing An Miaoyi was not only because of An Miaoyi's contributions, but also because of external reasons!
First of all, An Miaoyi gave birth to a legitimate son, Jingren, and had the support of Cui Shao and a group of people in the court. Even someone like Gu Sansi who did not support An Miaoyi would probably not agree with Ye Mingsheng's decision to depose An Miaoyi. At the same time, there were many supporters of An Miaoyi in the Ye clan, and it was difficult for them to agree to An Miaoyi being deposed.

In the army, An Miaoyi was also loved for her previous act of sending warmth to the families of fallen soldiers. Everyone respected this lady very much...
Therefore, the resistance to deposing An Miaoyi was very great, whether in the court, in the clan, or in the army. It could even shake the foundation of the country. It was easy to cause irreconcilable divisions and contradictions!

This is a fatal danger for a brand new imperial regime, and even Ye Mingsheng is unwilling to try easily on such an issue.

In addition to the great resistance and the lack of a suitable successor, these were also important external reasons why Ye Mingsheng did not give too much thought to abolishing An Miaoyi!

After deposing An Miaoyi, Ye Mingsheng faced an important decision, which was whether to establish a queen or not!

If we choose to establish, who will take over?

Jinyu, the Su sisters, Shen Yutong, Bai Yuanyuan, and several other concubines were not within Ye Mingsheng's consideration at all. The only two left were Pei Zhixiu and Murong Qingwu!
If possible, Ye Mingsheng would like to make Pei Zhixiu his wife. Although Pei Zhixiu's initial motives were impure and she wanted to use him to escape the pursuit of the Inspectorate, she had indeed been with him since his humble days, accompanying him from a middle-level military officer to the powerful Marshal Ye!
I have feelings for her, we understand each other and are deeply in love with each other. When I am in a low mood, she is the one who encourages and comforts me!

Ye Mingsheng thought that if he were an ordinary person, he would definitely marry Pei Zhixiu, he would definitely do so!

But unfortunately, there is no "if" in this world. He, Ye Mingsheng, is not an ordinary person. He is Marshal Ye and he is the man who is about to become the emperor!
He, Ye Mingsheng, enjoys the glory of this position and the power of life and death, so he must also bear the corresponding responsibilities and obligations of this position····················

Therefore, it is simply unrealistic to make Pei Zhixiu the legal wife. Once Ye Mingsheng does this, I am afraid that everyone in the court, the army, and even the clan will oppose Ye Mingsheng's actions. Pei Zhixiu's past will also be completely exposed and criticized by the world!

Even so, Ye Mingsheng is confident that he can stabilize the situation, but if that happens, the entire court will fall into division, and many people will become alienated from him. Not only will Ye Mingsheng's wish to create a peaceful and prosperous era where all nations will come to pay tribute will not only be impossible to achieve, but the country's strength may also decline!

Pei Zhixiu's personal wish is not to do so. Compared to becoming the first lady, she prefers to accompany Ye Mingsheng peacefully!
Therefore, the only suitable candidate left is Murong Qingwu!
In a sense, An Miaoyi and Murong Qingwu are very similar women. They are both of noble birth, beautiful, and highly talented. These commonalities also lead to the same problem for both of them, which is that they have a strong desire to control power!

The only difference between the two is that An Miaoyi is the eldest lady and gave birth to the eldest son Jingren, so some of her behaviors on some issues have a certain rationality. However, Murong Qingwu is nominally a concubine, so her actions lack rationality, so she must hide her desire for control of power!

Moreover, compared to An Miaoyi, Murong Qingwu has a stronger sense of belonging to her mother's family, the Murong family, which leads to her bearing more of the mark of a daughter of the Murong family than a daughter-in-law of the Ye family!

Therefore, Ye Mingsheng thought that Murong Qingwu might play some role in the eldest lady's work, but she would definitely not do better than An Miaoyi, so it would be better for An Miaoyi to continue doing it instead of her·························
(End of this chapter)