Chapter 392: A Secret Meeting in the Cui Family Courtyard (Thanks to the book friend Fengying for the reward!)
As a small family that depends on the Yun family for survival, the Bai family has always kept pace with the Yun family when facing major issues. When Song Wenhui was powerful, they stood on Song Wenhui's side. When Song Wenhui failed, they joined the Zhenwu Army. When the Zhenwu Army failed, they joined Ye Mingsheng's side.

Although this fence-sitter behavior resulted in the Bai family not being valued, it also ensured the family's strength to the greatest extent...

Today, Bai Changrong, the eldest son of the Bai family, is not a leading figure among the local generals, but as the commander of more than 2,000 soldiers, he is also considered the backbone of the local generals. The second son, Bai Changjiu, is the magistrate of Yulong County. Although his official position is not high, he is still a seventh-rank official. If Ye Mingsheng is willing to promote him, he can promote him to the sixth-rank position of a prefectural co-governor or a magistrate.

Considering the Bai family's past behavior of being loyal to their children, although Ye Mingsheng did not believe in their loyalty to him, he was still very happy about their surrender.

Ye is not worried about the localists. What he is worried about is the united localists. So he wants to win over the moderate and appeasing part of the localists, and then suppress those extreme resistance elements. Therefore, he now needs a role model to play the role of buying a horse with a lot of money, so that people can realize that there is meat to be eaten by following Ye.

Therefore, for Ye Mingsheng, the Bai family's surrender now is like a pillow appearing when he is sleepy, which is exactly what he wants!

In terms of family size and influence in Liaoyang, the Bai family is naturally no match for the Liaoyang Three Clan. However, this is just in the favor of Ye Mingsheng in supporting and controlling them. He uses the changes he brings to them to lure the appeasers in the localist camp and disintegrate the localist camp dominated by the Liaoyang Three Clan.

Although he intends to support the Bai family and make them a dog for him to bite the three valves of Liaoyang, this does not mean that Ye Mingsheng will accept anyone...

If the Bai brothers were the kind of brainless people with a very bad reputation, willing to stir up trouble, and easily give others a handle, Ye Mingsheng would naturally not give them the opportunity to drag him down and affect his image. So in order to avoid this risk, Ye Mingsheng asked Wang Xuecheng to investigate the Bai family before deciding to meet Bai Changjiu.

Wang Xuecheng naturally did not dare to neglect Ye Mingsheng's instructions, and quickly took out a report and handed it to Ye Mingsheng.

In Wang Xuecheng's report, the Bai family, like most official and landlord families of that era, had some problems, such as concealing land properties, tax evasion, and bribing superiors. However, what surprised Ye Mingsheng was that according to Wang Xuecheng's report, the brothers Bai Changrong and Bai Changjiu, although their abilities were average and they had no special achievements while in office, were relatively clean when it came to accepting bribes.

As a bureaucrat, Ye Mingsheng had seen many things in this era, such as military officers drawing salaries without doing any work, stealing and selling military equipment privately to report losses due to wear and tear, civil officials accepting bribes, issuing illegal approvals, illegally reducing sentences for others, etc. However, according to Wang Xuecheng's report, none of the Bai brothers had done such things.

Ye Mingsheng was curious and ordered Wang Xuecheng to investigate carefully to see if the two brothers were really clean or were doing something covert. Wang Xuecheng found out that it was Bai Wanhao, the father of the Bai brothers, who hoped that the Bai brothers could make achievements in the officialdom and rise to prominence.

Therefore, the family did not want the two brothers to leave too many handles that would affect their future careers during their tenures, so they had always used the family's money to support the two brothers in their daily official duties and their decent lives. This also led to the fact that although the two brothers had no ability, they had a good reputation among their colleagues, subordinates, and the people...
After getting such an answer, Ye Mingsheng actually had some favorable impression towards the Bai family. In today's feudal society, and at the end of a dynasty where order was collapsing, there were honest and good officials, but they were too few. Especially in those official and landlord families, they basically had problems, and there were many cases of abusing their power.

Although Ye Mingsheng has achieved some success now, he cannot completely change the overall environment with his current strength. Therefore, he can only choose the tallest one among the short ones, and the general among the short ones, and try to choose the one with bottom line. Although the two brothers of the Bai family are a little lacking in ability, they more or less meet his requirements.

In addition to these, after learning that the two brothers of the Bai family were Bai Yuanyuan’s biological brothers, to be honest, Ye Mingsheng also had some selfish motives...

He, Ye, is not a foolish boy. Although Bai Yuanyuan didn't say anything, Ye Mingsheng had some idea of ​​what she was thinking.

But unfortunately, Ye Mingsheng cannot satisfy Bai Yuanyuan's request, at least for now!

He has just pacified Liaoyang, where there is a lot of work to be done. He needs to establish an image of himself as smart, capable, great and upright in the hearts of the people so as to lead the people onto the right path. Therefore, he cannot marry a widow who has just lost her husband, thereby letting his romantic affairs become the topic of conversation among all walks of life in Liaoyang and affect his image.

Although Ye Mingsheng avoided talking about Bai Yuanyuan's thoughts, looking at Bai Yuanyuan who served him wholeheartedly, he, Ye, was not a heartless person. He had kind hearts, so he felt apologetic and wanted to give Bai Yuanyuan some compensation.

But Bai Yuanyuan has no worries about food and clothing, and lacks nothing, so these compensations can only fall on her family...
Ye Mingsheng has already decided to meet Bai Changjiu. If Bai Changjiu can satisfy him, then it is not impossible for him to cultivate the two brothers of the Bai family!
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While Ye Mingsheng was hiding his mistress and fooling around with Bai Yuanyuan, a banquet was held in the Cui family compound in Guangning Prefecture. A large group of people were toasting and greeting each other. Today was the birthday of Cui Tonghe, the elder of the Cui family, and some old friends of the Cui family in Liaoyang came in person or sent people to celebrate the birthday.

After three rounds of wine and five dishes, some important figures at the banquet pretended to be drunk and left the banquet. Since this kind of thing is very common at banquets, not many people paid attention to it.

However, what was surprising was that after leaving the banquet, these important figures appeared in a very secret and antique room in the Cui family compound.

"I say, everyone, do we really need to hide from each other when we meet? It's true that the older you are, the less courageous you become!" A middle-aged scholar with a very wealthy appearance and bright eyes in the room looked around at everyone present and said with a hint of sarcasm:
Hearing what the middle-aged scholar said, Yun Xiuwei, the fourth master of the Yun family who was sitting opposite him, smiled and said:
"Brother Gongsun, you'd better be cautious now. Ye Mingsheng's lackeys are omnipresent!"

After hearing Yun Xiuwei's words, Gongsun He said indignantly:
"If I had known that Ye Mingsheng was such a wolf cub, with such a ruthless heart and wanted to bite back after taking Liaoyang, I would have fought him to the end..."

As soon as Gongsun He finished speaking, a cold voice came from outside the door. "Gongsun He, if you are so brave, it's not too late for you to fight Ye Mingsheng to the end now!"

As soon as these words came out, Gongsun He subconsciously wanted to open his mouth to argue with the other party, but as soon as he opened his mouth and before he could say anything, he realized who was speaking, and the next second he quickly shut his mouth obediently.

At this moment, Cui Shao, with a cold face, also walked into the room, and his cold eyes swept over Gongsun He. Under Cui Shao's powerful aura, Gongsun He hesitated for a moment, but still made a rational choice and bowed to Cui Shao and said:

"Master Cui, I spoke out of turn!"

Seeing that Gongsun He had admitted his mistake, Cui Shao also gave some face to the Gongsun family behind him. He did not embarrass Gongsun Heng, but looked around at everyone present and said very seriously:

“I know that everyone here is resentful towards Ye Mingsheng. To be honest, I also feel resentful towards Ye Mingsheng in my heart…”

"I, Cui, worked hard to help him take Liaoyang and made him the governor of Liaoyang, but now he wants to strike back at our Cui family!"

At this point, Cui Shao patted his left chest vigorously and said word by word:

"I am just like you. I am also disappointed and angry!"

After saying this, Cui Shao glanced at everyone present. Seeing that everyone's eyes were focused on him, he changed the subject and continued:
“In fact, everyone knows very well that the person sitting in that position is not Ye Mingsheng, but Wang Mingsheng, Li Mingsheng, and Liu Mingsheng. As long as he is unwilling to share the power in his hands with you and me, he will do the same...”

"Everyone, don't forget what the Zhenwu Army wants to do! If the Zhenwu Army was in power now, given the current situation in Guanzhong, they would have already gone to support their Prime Minister. Then we would not be facing Ye Mingsheng, but the Shiwei people! The Khitan people! The Luobei people!"

"Although Ye Mingsheng's style of doing things is strong and ruthless, he still abides by the rules. If you let those wolf-like and tiger-like foreign races in, how can we survive in Liaoyang?"

"The current Ye Mingsheng is the Song Wenhui of 20 years ago. 20 years ago, our fathers could make Song Wenhui acquiesce to our existence. 20 years later, as long as we are united and have one mind, we can also make what happened to Song Wenhui happen to Ye Mingsheng!"

Cui Shao's impassioned speech immediately aroused the fighting spirit of everyone in the room, and everyone agreed and said:
"Master Cui is right! Compared with those beasts, I still choose Ye Mingsheng. Ye Mingsheng only wants money and power, but those beasts of the alien race want our lives!"

"Although Ye Mingsheng looks fierce, he is no match for Song Wenhui 20 years ago. In order to make us hand over power and land, Song Wenhui pretended to confiscate our family and exterminate our clan, but what happened in the end? Didn't he just withdraw his troops obediently? Wasn't he the first to perish?"

"We are all outstanding people in Liaoyang. As long as we unite together, what can Ye Mingsheng and those illiterate peasants around him do? Aren't they just fools being played around by us?"

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Looking at the excited and high-spirited crowd, Cui Shao nodded slightly. This was exactly the effect he wanted. Although Ye Mingsheng's disarmament plan had not been officially announced, any news in Liaoyang that the aristocratic families wanted to know could not be hidden from these local tyrants who had taken root and multiplied in Liaoyang for hundreds of years.

Although he had anticipated that Ye Mingsheng would spare no effort to suppress the power of their family, Cui Shao had not expected that a military commander like Ye Mingsheng, who had made his fortune through the army, would take the initiative to retreat and adopt the tactic of disarmament in such a chaotic world.

If Cui Shao looked at Ye Mingsheng's disarmament move from the perspective of the Liaoyang governor, the parent official of more than one million people in Liaoyang, instead of the head of the Cui family, then he would definitely raise his hands and strongly agree with Ye Mingsheng's decision.

He was clearly aware that the war over the past six months had made Liaoyang, which was located in the frontier and had a weak financial situation, even poorer and more difficult. The people were so poor that they could hardly afford to eat. After two rounds of exploitation by Song Wenhui and the Zhenwu Army, they no longer had any money...
If we transfer the pressure of supporting an army of nearly 150,000 to them at this time, we will be pushing them to death!
In such a very difficult situation, if Ye Mingsheng coveted the hundreds of thousands of troops and used aggressive means to retain all of them, Liaoyang would be completely finished. There would not be enough labor in the farmland to produce and work, and food production would undoubtedly be greatly reduced. Then, the tragedy of starving people everywhere and cannibalism would be staged in Liaoyang!

If Cui Shao was just the governor of Liaoyang, he would definitely appreciate Ye Mingsheng's actions. Ye Mingsheng's disarmament would save countless people in Liaoyang, allowing them to reunite with their families and bring hope to their lives!

Unfortunately, before Cui Shao became the governor of Liaoyang, he was the head of the Cui family in Liaoyang!
In the eyes of aristocratic people like him, the interests of the family always come first, and family always comes before the country!
Decades of experience in political struggles immediately made Cui Shao sense a conspiracy in Ye Mingsheng’s disarmament plan...

(End of this chapter)