Sky Curtain: The opening scene explains the four major cases of the Ming Dynasty plus the early Ming

"Family members, aren't you feeling frustrated reading this?"

Judy Jun stood in front of the whiteboard, toying with the blackboard eraser in his hand, his eyes filled with extreme mockery.

"It was clearly the local border troops who were arrogant and self-important, and refused to come to the rescue, but instead, the imperial court was made the scapegoat! Not only did they do all the work for nothing, but Jiajing also had to swallow the treasury's money to clean up these bastards' messes, and bear the infamy!"

Inside the modern live stream room, the barrage of comments scrolled wildly, with many netizens nodding in agreement.

"This is so damn frustrating! Being an emperor is like being a doormat!"

"Why not kill them? Are there really no ways to deal with these thugs?"

"The Ming Dynasty's border defenses are rotten from top to bottom!"

Zhu Dijun snorted and threw the blackboard eraser on the podium.

"Alright, since everyone feels aggrieved and believes these border guards deserve to die, let's get to the bottom of this and see where the crisis in the border army really comes from!"

He picked up the mouse and opened a pre-made Excel spreadsheet on the computer.

Let's turn our attention back to the reign of Emperor Yingzong of Ming! Look at the Three Yangs Cabinet, which is so wildly praised by later generations, and figures like Yang Hong, who are hailed as famous generals—what despicable things did they actually do?

On the big screen, an extremely intricate web of interests was suddenly revealed.

"Back in the Zhengtong era, those old scoundrels in the court, to satisfy their bottomless greed, forcibly opened up the border smuggling industry, reaping enormous profits! But my family, think about it. Can you really use ordinary border soldiers, who are part of the Ming Dynasty's official staff and receive state salaries, to do this kind of head-on, shady business of smuggling?"

Zhu Dijun frantically tapped the screen with his finger.

"Absolutely not! Because the regular army is full of people and gossips, and no one can guarantee that there aren't any spies from the Embroidered Uniform Guard among them, or that some hothead might run to report us to the censor. Smuggling must be done with our own people! It must be done with those absolutely loyal men whose lives and fortunes are entirely in the hands of their commanders!"

Four red characters, reeking of blood, were hammered onto the center of the whiteboard like a branding iron.

Armed Retainers!

"This is the root of all evil that led to the complete militarization and privatization of the Ming Dynasty's border troops! A highly deformed yet incredibly deadly profession was born!"

The era of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang sat behind his desk in the Fengtian Hall, staring intently at those four characters, the veins on the back of his hand bulging like the roots of an old tree.

"Armed servants..."

Zhu Yuanzhang gritted his teeth, his voice like a chilling wind blowing from hell.

"Our established system of hereditary military garrisons ensures that our million-strong army is the emperor's personal guard. How dare these treacherous officials raise troops within our ranks?!"

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's scalpel relentlessly plunged deeper.

"I've created a table here that exposes the true nature of the Ming Dynasty's army's reliance on private servants, from beginning to end! Take a close look!"

On the screen, the Excel spreadsheet is magnified and clearly divided into three stages.

"Phase One: The Budding Stage! Timeframe: From the Zhengtong to the Jingtai periods!"

Zhu Dijun pointed to the first line with his pointer.

"Where does the earliest explicit record appear? It appears in a memorial submitted by Luo Hengxin, the Governor-General of Xuanfu and Datong during the Zhengtong era! He put forward fourteen characters that sound terrifying to modern ears—'In times of peace, lead your household servants to farm; in times of alarm, drive your household servants to fight!'"

"See that? At this time, border generals have already begun to privately raise their families and strong men as personal guards and soldiers! Typical examples are the famous generals Yang Hong and Shi Heng of the Jingtai era! Yang Hong alone has sixteen retainers who have risen to official positions in the court through military merit! Shi Heng even brought a group of so-called family members with him on campaigns! The private armies of Ming generals have quietly taken shape at this time!"

A flurry of exclamations flashed across the screen.

"Good heavens, they're using the country's resources to support their own thugs!"

"Isn't this just the prelude to the separatist warlordism of the Tang Dynasty?!"

Zhu Dijun's pointer slammed down, striking the second row.

"The second stage: the formative period! From the Hongzhi to the Zhengde reigns!"

"By this time, the system of retainers had become completely widespread. Border generals began to do extremely shameless things—conscripting the strongest soldiers and placing them under their command! What does that mean? It means directly selecting the most capable and strongest elite soldiers from the imperial guard posts and incorporating them into their own private guards!"

"These elite troops henceforth only recognized their commander, not the imperial court! The commander used his own money to support them, using them for personal protection and siege warfare. By the Zhengde era, this had become an unspoken rule in the northern border towns and some inland armies!"

The era of the Zhengde reign of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Houzhao remained silent with a cold expression. Of course he knew about these things; he even kept a large number of similar personal guards in the Leopard House himself. Jiang Bin's group was essentially a group of high-ranking retainers kept by him, the biggest landlord in the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Dijun slammed his hand on the table, the sound shaking the entire room.

"Next comes the most thorough, and also the most absurd, third stage: institutionalization! From the Jiajing to the Wanli reigns!"

"In the forty-second year of the Jiajing reign! The Ming Dynasty finally surrendered completely to these border generals who held their own armies! The court officially issued an official document approving that officers at all levels, including deputy generals, brigadier generals, guerrilla commanders, and garrison commanders, could legally recruit their own personal guards!"

"What's even more outrageous is that they pay everyone! That means the court will pay the salaries of the private soldiers you recruit! They're using the national treasury's money to support the guard dogs that your generals employ!"

Zhu Dijun laughed maniacally.

"By the Wanli reign, household guards had become a permanent force within the Ming army! There were countless households with hundreds or even thousands of guards! The core fighting force held by Li Chengliang in Liaodong and Zu Dashou on the Guan-Ning defense line was not the regular army of the Ming garrisons at all, but their private army!"

The Hongwu reign of the Ming Dynasty.

boom!

Zhu Yuanzhang kicked over the imperial desk in front of him, scattering memorials all over the floor. He was so angry that his eyes were bloodshot, like a raging lion.

"They'll all be paid! The imperial court is spending money to support their private armies!"

Zhu Yuanzhang roared, pointing at the sky and cursing loudly.

"That beast Zhu Houcong! He's handing the reins of the Ming Dynasty to those soldiers and officials! He's using the Ming Dynasty's territory to curry favor with them!"

The officials in the entire Fengtian Hall knelt on the ground, trembling with fear.

Meanwhile, Zhu Di, Zhu Shuang, and other princes remained silent. As princes of the frontier, they naturally knew about the shady dealings involving armed guards. Not to mention the border generals of later generations, which of those armed smugglers didn't have armed guards protecting them? Was this all Zhu Houcong's fault?

No, because the root of the problem wasn't him. Even if Zhu Houcong wanted to salvage the situation, it was too late; he could only try to patch things up.

In modern live-streaming rooms, viewers were equally astonished by this surreal phenomenon.

"I've only ever seen the imperial court fund private armies during the warlord era."

"No wonder those generals at the end of the Ming Dynasty were so unruly; they were all private soldiers. Why would they risk their lives for your emperor?"

"The Ming Dynasty is digging its own grave!"

Zhu Dijun's smile vanished, his face turning as cold as iron. He drew three heavy circles on the whiteboard with a red pen, thoroughly dissecting the origins of the servant system.

"Family members, why has this utterly absurd system been able to be implemented so smoothly? Because the very foundation of the Ming Dynasty is rotten to the core!"

"First point! The garrison system has collapsed!"

"The core of the garrison system established by Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, was military farming. This meant soldiers were supposed to cultivate their own land to support themselves. However, later on, these military farms were all annexed by local powerful families, civil officials, and even border guards! Soldiers lost their land, couldn't receive their pay, and were forced to desert in large numbers! The fighting capacity of the regular army plummeted. To save their own lives and to be able to fight, generals had to pick a few elite soldiers from the mud and use them as their private armies!"

"Second point! Financial exhaustion and the transformation of recruitment!"

"The border troubles were getting worse, but the imperial treasury was running out of money year after year. There simply wasn't enough money to support the massive army at full strength. What to do? The generals started raising money themselves to recruit their own retainers to supplement the fighting force. The imperial court saw this as an easy way to manage, and in order to keep these warlords with their weapons at their disposal, they simply went along with it and institutionalized it!"

"The third point, and the most crucial one, is the complete privatization of military power!"

Zhu Dijun moved closer to the camera, each word dripping blood like blood from a knife's edge.

"The relationship between the servants and their generals was one of extreme personal dependence. The servants ate the food of their commanders, wore the clothes of their commanders, and received the silver rewards from their commanders. In their eyes, there was no Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, only the generals who fed them! This was the ultimate manifestation of the privatization of military power in the Ming Dynasty!"

"In short! From the Zhengtong to the Jingtai reigns, it began to take shape; during the Hongzhi and Zhengde reigns, it gradually took shape; during the Jiajing reign, it gained official recognition; and during the Wanli reign, it was fully institutionalized! By this time, household retainers had become the backbone of the Ming army and the absolute main body of private armies!"

Zhu Dijun threw the marker on the podium and braced his hands on the edge.

"Do you understand now? Why did Zhu Zhen and Ye Zong dare to cower in the city and refuse to come out after Wang Jing, the military commander of Xuanfu, died in battle?"

"Because if they rush out to fight, it will be their own retainers who die! They will be the very foundation upon which they built their power in the court, through corruption and smuggling, and by maintaining their military might! Once they've lost all their retainers, they'll be toothless tigers, and the civil service will make them scapegoats and chop them down in no time!"

"In their calculations, the death of ten thousand civilians or ten imperial generals wouldn't be as painful as losing ten of their own personal guards!"

The myriad realms and timelines were deathly silent.

All emperors who attempted reforms or military overhauls felt a profound sense of despair. This was no longer a problem that could be solved by killing a few corrupt officials or beheading a few generals. It was a whole ecosystem of vested interests that was parasitic on the very marrow of the empire.

As Zhu Dijun looked at the quiet live stream, a cruel sneer curled up at the corner of his mouth once again.

"The Jiajing Emperor compromised in the face of this ecosystem. He spared Zhu Zhen and Ye Zong from the death penalty, thinking that this would keep the big shots at the border in check."

The lights suddenly dimmed, leaving only the large screen behind Zhu Dijun glowing with an eerie red light.

"However, constant compromise will not be met with gratitude, but rather with extremely arrogant demands for more."

He pointed to a map of Datong's city defenses that was gradually appearing on the screen.

"Jiajing will soon discover just how lawless the warlords he left behind truly are. The Datong defense line is about to face an internal explosion ten thousand times worse than the Tatar invasion."

"That vicious mutiny that directly tore Jiajing's face off."

Zhu Dijun lowered his voice.

"Guess who the next governor will be, driven to desperation by these servants and warlords?"