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

"Fellow family members, at the end of the last chapter, I asked you, when the Datong warlord and his servants were driven to desperation, who would be the next governor they wanted to kill?"

Zhu Dijun stood in front of the big screen, watching the barrage of comments pouring down like a waterfall.

"He must have killed his own boss!"

"I'm guessing they're members of the Imperial Party; these warlords specialize in killing officials who work for the emperor!"

"Is it possible they killed colleagues who didn't fit in? Anyone who stood in their way of making money through smuggling was killed!"

"That must be killing ordinary civilians to claim military merit! Killing innocent people to claim credit is a traditional skill of feudal border troops!"

As Zhu Dijun watched the rapidly scrolling speculations, a meaningful smile curved his lips. Instead of immediately announcing the answer as usual, he picked up his teacup, slowly took a sip of water, and smiled without saying a word.

The atmosphere in the entire live stream was kept on edge by his eerie silence.

"My family is right. You've figured out all the shameful and sordid things that happen in feudal armies." Zhu Dijun put down his teacup, grabbed the blackboard eraser, and...

"But we need to contain this second nuclear bomb in Datong for now. Before this bomb explodes completely, we must first shut down the political meat grinder in the Ming Dynasty court!"

He roughly erased the words "Servant System" from the whiteboard, and slammed down four large characters with his red marker: "[Prison of the Frontier]!"

"Do you remember the Ganzhou Incident we talked about earlier? In the third year of Jiajing's reign, Chen Jiuchou, the governor of Gansu, was accused of mishandling the situation and killing the tribute envoy from Turpan, which was believed to have angered Mansur, triggering a hellish storm in the Northwest. In the end, Chen Jiuchou was implicated and exiled."

On the large screen, the map of the northwest defense line went dark instantly, and the scene smoothly switched back to the imperial court in the Forbidden City.

"Family members, did you think this case was closed by the third year of the Jiajing reign? How naive!" Zhu Dijun suddenly moved closer to the camera, his eyes as cold and sharp as knives. "The aftershocks of the Great Rites Controversy continue, because in the eyes of these power-hungry civil officials, the blood on the frontier is always the best whetstone for factional struggles!"

Two figures dressed in crimson official robes with sinister expressions suddenly appeared in the center of the screen.

"In the sixth year of the Jiajing reign! Zhang Cong and Gui E, the newly appointed officials who supported the Great Rites Controversy and rose to power by stepping on the blood of countless colleagues! These two, with a mad dog in their hands, namely Wang Bangqi, a centurion of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, completely turned the old story of Ganzhou into a raging fire!"

Zhu Dijun lashed the pointer in his hand hard across Wang Bangqi's name.

"Wang Bangqi submitted a memorial demanding a thorough reinvestigation of the Gansu incident! Do you really think Zhang Cong and Gui E are concerned about the northwest defense line? Do you really want to hold the border officials accountable for their military responsibilities?"

Judy Jun let out an extremely mocking sneer.

"Bullshit! They don't care at all how Turpan attacked Gansu! This is just a pure political tool! Their real target is Yang Tinghe, the former Grand Secretary who held the Jiajing Emperor by the neck during the Great Rites Controversy!"

A complex web of political relationships suddenly unfolded on the screen, with blood-red lines extending directly from Wang Bangqi's folds, biting at Yang Tinghe's name like venomous snakes.

"Family members, do you understand how these people are carrying out their scheme to wipe out their own descendants? Zhang Cong and Gui E implied in their memorials: What was the root cause of the loss of Hami Garrison and the devastation of Gansu back then? It was because Yang Tinghe purged dissidents! It was because Yang Tinghe persecuted Wang Qiong, the former Minister of War who advocated a hardline stance against the Northwest!"

Zhu Dijun gripped the podium tightly with both hands, his voice carrying a chilling tremor.

"The logic is complete! Yang Tinghe's political persecution led to the demotion of Wang Qiong, who was knowledgeable in military affairs, resulting in a lack of capable personnel on the Northwest defense line, which ultimately led to the Ganzhou Incident! Therefore, the blood debt of the tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians who died on the Ganzhou front must be placed entirely on your shoulders, Yang Tinghe, the former Grand Secretary!"

Viewers in the modern live stream were completely dumbfounded.

"Holy crap?! You can do that?! That's some serious blame-shifting!"

"I thought the aftermath of the Great Rites Controversy would subside in a few years, but I never expected another regional purge to occur in the sixth year of the Jiajing reign!"

"How many people died in all of this? This partisan strife is even more ruthless than a meat grinder on the battlefield!"

"Ruthless? This is just the beginning!"

Zhu Dijun roared at the top of his lungs, his fingers furiously pounding on the keyboard, a long list of liquidation orders flashing wildly across the screen like a death knell.

"In this imprisonment in the heart of the region, Zhang Cong and Gui E had three core objectives—to purge dissidents, strengthen imperial power, and install their cronies!"

"The Jiajing Emperor sat on his dragon throne, expressionless, watching the people below fight like dogs, then, going with the flow, mercilessly wielded the great guillotine called imperial power!"

The bright red stamps were pressed onto the list one by one with a deafening bang.

"Grand Secretaries Fei Hong, Shi Bao, and Mao Ji! These former cabinet officials who once joined Yang Tinghe in forcing the emperor to abdicate at Zuoshun Gate have all been forced to retire and leave!"

"Peng Ze, a key border official back then, was directly dismissed and placed on idleness! As for Chen Jiuchou, the Gansu governor who took the blame? Originally, he was only exiled, but this time it was escalated to exile to the farthest border! He was sent to the coldest and most desolate place in the Ming Dynasty to wait for death!"

The image on the large screen was completely stained a deep, blood-red color.

"And the core target of the case—Yang Tinghe!"

Zhu Dijun stared intently at the isolated, phantom image of the old man on the screen.

"Although he was eventually acquitted by Jiajing, all the political influence he maintained in the court was completely uprooted in this storm! Not a single one was left!"

Zhu Dijun took a deep breath and slammed his hand on the whiteboard.

"The final outcome! In October of the sixth year of the Jiajing reign, Zhang Cong, stepping over the corpses of the old party, strode confidently into the cabinet! He completely declared that the old party that opposed the emperor's Great Rites Controversy had been annihilated! A cabinet composed entirely of newly appointed officials from the Great Rites Controversy, absolutely obedient to imperial authority, was formally established!"

"From that moment on, no one in the cabinet dared to utter a single word of dissent against Jiajing! Zhu Houcong, who ascended the throne at the age of eighteen and endured six long years of hardship, finally pushed the imperial power of the Ming Empire to an unprecedented peak!"

The era of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang coldly gazed at the sky. He knew all too well the thrill of completely purging the court. Using a pretext, he could pull out the radish and bring out the mud, eliminating all those who disobeyed. Zhu Houcong, that brat, possessed the ruthless cold-bloodedness of the Zhu family emperors.

but...

What happened before? From Zhu Gaochi to Zhu Houzhao, they were inexplicably soft-hearted when they should have been cold-blooded, which resulted in harming themselves and others. Although Jiajing, the rebellious grandson, played a trick on him at Shenlie Mountain, it was essentially for his own throne. What Zhu Yuanzhang didn't understand was why he didn't kill Yang Yiqing. Was it because he didn't want to or couldn't?

However, the viewers in the live broadcast room were filled with sighs, lamenting the bottomless operation of using the corpses of border soldiers to engage in factional strife, and some even began to feel sorry for Yang Tinghe and others who were purged.

As Zhu Dijun looked at the comments expressing sympathy for the civil servants, the light in his eyes instantly turned extremely dangerous.

He picked up the blackboard eraser and forcefully wiped away the words "factional strife" from the whiteboard, replacing them with four large characters dripping with black blood—"The Death of Zhengde."

"Family members, those fools who feel sorry for the civil officials, have they forgotten how Zhu Houzhao died? Have they forgotten how the Great Ming War God Zhu Qizhen died? Do they think Jiajing was ruthless? Do they think these civil officials are innocent victims of the factional strife?"

Zhu Dijun spoke in a low, eerie voice, like a demon crawling out of the coldest hell.

"In fact, the civil service group led by Yang Yiqing and Yang Tinghe is by no means innocent!"

The entire online audience was instantly chilled to the bone.

Zhu Dijun grabbed the pointer and slammed it heavily onto the whiteboard.

"Let's rewind the timeline! From the Anhua Prince's Rebellion and the Ningxia Mutiny during the reign of Emperor Wuzong of Ming, all the way to Zhu Houzhao's drowning at Qingjiangpu in the fifteenth year of Zhengde's reign, and finally his inexplicable death in the Leopard Chamber! Behind each and every one of these events, wasn't the instigation and scheming of this group of civil officials?!"

On the big screen, a reconstruction image of Zhu Houzhao, who had fallen into the water, lying in the Leopard Chamber with a sickly face after being rescued was displayed.

"After Zhu Houzhao fell into the water, he clearly had many opportunities to leave the Leopard Chamber and summon renowned doctors from the capital to treat him! Who conspired to block all these opportunities? It was Yang Yiqing! It was Empress Dowager Zhang! It was Zhang Yong!"

Zhu Dijun moved close to the camera, his eyes bloodshot.

"They used the absurd excuse, 'The emperor is too ill to be moved lightly,' to keep a robust 30-year-old emperor confined to his bed until he died! In the end, a bowl of so-called 'medicine' served by the imperial physician directly sent away the emperor who most wanted to overthrow the dynasty!"

In the myriad realms and timelines of the Ming Dynasty during the Zhengde era.

Inside the Leopard Chamber, Zhu Houzhao abruptly overturned the imperial desk in front of him, shattering the wine pot. His eyes were bloodshot, like those of a raging tiger, as he stared intently at the sky.

The descendants of King Zhao had mentioned his death more than once, but when they heard this together, they couldn't control their anger!

The modern live-streaming room was deathly silent; only Zhu Dijun's heavy breathing could be heard.

"There's no solid evidence. How could such a shocking case of regicide possibly leave any evidence in the official histories compiled by civil officials?!"

Zhu Dijun spread his hands with a cold smile.

"But was Jiajing a fool? A brilliant man who came from the Prince of Anlu Prefecture and seized the throne through bloodshed at Zuoshun Gate, how could he not see how his cousin died?"

Zhu Dijun suddenly turned around and drew a large X representing the death penalty on the whiteboard with a red pen.

"Although today we say this is the aftermath of factional strife, and that Zhang Cong used someone else to do his dirty work, in Jiajing's eyes, all these civil officials were stained with the blood of the Zhengde Emperor!"

"Jiajing is right to do this! He has to crush all these old bones! Kick them all out! If he doesn't completely eliminate Yang Tinghe, Yang Yiqing and their ilk, if he doesn't arm the imperial power to the teeth!"

Zhu Dijun stared directly into the camera and uttered a final, chilling sentence.

"One day, it will be Zhu Houcong who falls into the water! It will be Zhu Houcong who drinks that bowl of poison! If he doesn't kill someone, he will suffer the same fate as Zhu Houzhao, who died a gruesome death!"

Shock! The ultimate shock exploded in everyone's hearts.

Only at this moment did the true nature of the Great Rites Controversy fully surface. This wasn't about recognizing a father; it was a life-or-death struggle between two ferocious beasts on the edge of a cliff!

Zhu Dijun casually tossed aside the red pen and picked up a rag to wipe his palms.

"Alright. The cancer in the court has been completely removed. Jiajing has obtained the absolute power he desired."

The Forbidden City on the big screen shattered with a crash, and the scene switched back to the Great Wall in the northwest, where the wind howled and the sand was everywhere.

"However, even though the emperor had managed to control the cabinet, he still had to deal with the border defenses, which had been completely wrecked by the cabinet's factional infighting."

"This time, Jiajing faced not only the north, but also rebellions from the south, with chieftain rebellions occurring in Tianzhou and Sien areas of Guangxi—the Sitian Rebellion."

"It was in April of the sixth year of the Jiajing reign that the barbarians in Liuzhou, Luorong, and Gutian in Guangxi rebelled. The imperial court ordered Yao Mo and others to suppress the rebellion, which laid the groundwork for Wang Shouren's subsequent appointment to office."