Born in Panyu County, Guangdong, to the family of a Qing dynasty official, Ye passed the imperial examination and joined the Ministry of Posts and Communications.

[7] He ultimately sided with the anti-Qing movement led by Sun Yat-sen,[3] and was tasked with facilitating negotiations between the Qing-allied North and the Sun-allied South.

[6] During the First World War, he worked with Liang to organize the Huimin Company, which sent Chinese labourers to Europe to support the Allies.

[2] Following the death of Yuan Shikai, Liang – who had strongly supported the president and self-proclaimed emperor – lost favour and was removed from the government.

He held this position until October 1918, and in January 1919, he was dispatched to Europe as a special commissioner tasked with studying post-war industry and communications.

[6] Ye soon returned to China, and during the First Zhili–Fengtian War he backed the Fengtian clique, having gained the confidence of General Zhang Zuolin.

Following the Second Zhili–Fengtian War, at which time the Fengtian clique assumed control of Beijing, Ye again became Minister of Communication in the north,[9] serving under Premier Yan Huiqing.

He used his influence to ensure the protection of several Buddhist statues from the Northern Wei dynasty that had been found in the Yungang Grottoes near Pingcheng, Shanxi.

[2] When Cai Yuanpei sought to establish the National Music Conservatory, Ye was involved in the fundraising and served on its board of trustees.

He also organized an exhibition of Japanese painting in Shanghai, worked with Rabindranath Tagore to establish a school for Chinese studies at the Visva-Bharati College in Shantiniketan in India, and helped plan the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing.

He then organized an exhibition of cultural documents, which opened on 1 June 1937 and featured contributions from Gao, Chang Dai-chien, Wu Hufan [zh], and Zhang Kunyi.

[14] Ye oversaw the storage of the exhibits at the Aurora University Museum in Shanghai's French concession,[14] then left for Hong Kong, where he earned a living selling his calligraphy and art.

[1] After that city fell to the Japanese in December 1941, he returned to Shanghai, spending some time in Guangzhou before ultimately moving back to Hong Kong in 1948.

[4] He returned to China in 1949, having been invited by Mao Zedong to assume positions as director of the Academy of Traditional Chinese Painting and as vice-president of the Central Research Institute of Culture and History.

The Guangzhou Art Museum houses approximately 37 items that were donated by Ye, including Bamboo Facing the Wind (迎风竹) by the Ming-era artist Liang Yuanzhu [zh] as well as two late-Ming/early-Qing albums, Scholars of Nanyuan Sending Li Meizhou to the North (南园诸子送黎美周北上) and Li Suiqiu Sending Qu Qi to the North (黎遂球送区启北上).

Ye donated Wang Xianzhi's Duck Head Pills Letter, which dates back to the Jin dynasty, to the Shanghai Museum.

[3] In his calligraphy, Ye emphasised the specific production of individual characters, referring to the scripts produced during the Han and Northern Wei dynasties as exemplars.

Zhu Yongzhai, in his discussion of contemporary ci poets, noted that Ye drew from extensive reading and knowledge of classical Chinese poetry.