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

Inside the modern live streaming room, a dense barrage of comments filled the public screen like snowflakes.

Faced with Zhu Dijun's analysis of the Ming Dynasty's mess in the previous chapter, the entire online audience's blood pressure was on the verge of collapse.

"It's tough being a Taoist priest! The Mongols are raiding the borders in the Northwest, the local chieftains are rebelling in Guangxi, and now there's the Jiangyin Hou Zhongjin Rebellion, caused by a smuggling group from Jiangnan! Add to that the lingering aftermath of the Great Rites Controversy, and the impending Jiajing-era Japanese pirate raids!"

"Faced with this hellish situation where everything was a minefield, and every step would cause an explosion, only Jiajing's abnormal mental fortitude could withstand it and still hold onto imperial power so tightly!"

[“Upstairs, isn’t that too absolute? What about other people? For example, Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin?”]

Zhu Dijun stood in front of the podium, having just taken a sip of water from his teacup, when he saw this comment on the screen. A wicked smile suddenly appeared on his lips. Without saying a word, he moved the mouse and bolded, highlighted, and pinned the comment mentioning Li Shimin to the top of the screen.

This one action immediately ignited the entire live stream's chat with comments.

"Li Er? A dud among the emperors of all time? Give me a break!"

"If Li Shimin had been in the position of Emperor Jiajing (Ming Shizong), he wouldn't have even lived three months! Throughout history, there are only four truly capable individuals who could have inherited such an utterly disastrous dynasty: Zheng He (Li Shimin), Bangzi (Li Shimin), Emperor Xuan of Han (Liu Xun), and Zhu Yuanzhang (Liu Bei) himself! Everyone else would have been completely lost!"

"That's right! If Li Er (Emperor Taizong of Tang) were to transmigrate into the Jiajing Emperor's body, he would have drowned in the Western Garden in his very first year, due to his overly trusting relationship with the civil officials, and would have dissolved instantly in the water!"

"Exactly! He even ruined Li Chengqian, the outstanding successor he raised himself. How could he possibly send him to face those ruthless and cunning Jiangnan officials of the Ming Dynasty? He's just asking for trouble! He's definitely a fraud!"

Throughout history, across countless worlds and timelines.

The Qin Dynasty, Xianyang Palace.

Ying Zheng stood atop the high steps of the palace, gazing at the unrestrained "Brother Zheng" displayed on the sky. A slight twitch appeared in the muscles of his usually hard, iron-like face. Such a form of address was a capital offense punishable by the extermination of nine generations of one's family in the Qin Dynasty, but he understood the fervent admiration behind those words.

Ying Zheng stood with his hands behind his back, a haughty sneer on his face. His descendants' judgment of people was indeed sharp. Those petty factional struggles of the Ming Dynasty, those smuggling groups that sold out their country for a few taels of silver? As long as the Tai'a sword of Qin was fast enough, and the ironclad law of collective punishment of Qin was unleashed, they would all be crushed into mincemeat beneath the Great Wall!

I won't bother with anything like "Brother Zheng".

The Great Han Dynasty, Weiyang Palace.

Liu Bang sat imposingly on the couch, a lamb leg bone he had gnawed clean in his hand, laughing so hard he almost fell over, pointing at the sky and shouting:

"E'xu, look at this! These young lads of later generations call me 'Bangzi'! They have no respect for elders!"

Empress Lü watched coldly from the side, without uttering a word.

Liu Bang casually tossed aside the bone and wiped the grease from his mouth. He was certainly capable of handling the mess that was the Ming Dynasty. Weren't the disloyal local warlords and civil officials that Zhu Houcong faced the same group of non-royal kings he had dealt with back then? If it were him, he would first appease them, then find a pretext to strip them of their military power, and finally, execute them all, family by family! When it came to playing dirty tricks, Liu Bang was the ancestor of all emperors under heaven!

The Western Han Dynasty.

Emperor Xuan of Han, Liu Xun, sat upright behind his imperial desk. This iron-fisted emperor, who had grown up in a civilian prison and had been fed by many families, had a gloomy and sharp gaze.

He knew all too well what kind of despicable people those low-level clerks and powerful figures were. The corrupt grassroots and domineering civil officials of the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty would have been utterly humiliated if they had encountered an emperor who truly believed in a "mixture of hegemonic and benevolent rule," and his all-encompassing imperial prison.

The Ming Dynasty, during the Hongwu era.

As Zhu Yuanzhang looked at the few flashing names on the sky, his anger, which had been building up because of the utterly corrupt border troops, finally subsided somewhat.

The house that Zhu Houcong inherited was indeed riddled with problems. It was hampered by civil officials internally, invaded by Mongols externally, and had local chieftains rebelling in the south.

How similar is this to his devastated beginning when he drove out the Tartars and established the Ming Dynasty? He was able to drive the Yuan cavalry back to the desert and kill Hu Weiyong and Li Shanchang. If he were to return to the Jiajing era, he could slaughter the entire Jiangnan gentry and turn the tables, leaving them with a clean hand!

The four top emperors were extremely satisfied with the evaluations of later generations.

But some people completely broke down.

The Tang Dynasty, in a parallel Zhenguan era.

Inside the Taiji Palace, there was a deathly silence.

The color drained from Li Shimin's face at a visible speed. He stared intently at the few comments highlighted and pinned by Zhu Dijun, his hands gripping the edge of the imperial desk so tightly that his knuckles turned a frighteningly pale.

The renowned ministers of the Zhenguan era, including Changsun Wuji, Fang Xuanling, and Du Ruhui, all buried their heads in their chests, not daring to look at the emperor's expression. The air in the hall was so heavy it was suffocating.

A fraudulent emperor in history?!

He can't compare to Old Zhu who came later.

Easily soluble in water?!

Even a promising heir has been ruined?!

"Bang!"

Li Shimin kicked over the sandalwood imperial desk in front of him, and memorials and writing materials crashed to the ground, with ink splattering onto his bright yellow dragon robe.

"You scoundrel! How dare you, a mere child of the future, insult me!"

Li Shimin, like a raging lion whose scales have been stepped on, roared wildly in the palace, pointing at the sky and cursing.

"I raised an army at thirteen! At eighteen, I persuaded my father to launch the Taiyuan uprising! I captured Dou Jiande and Wang Shichong alive in the battle outside Luoyang! Which city under heaven wasn't conquered by me? Which iron cavalry wasn't personally led by me?! I am the Heavenly Khan! The Heavenly Khan to whom all nations pay homage!"

Li Shimin's chest heaved violently, and his eyes were bloodshot.

What truly devastated him wasn't the questioning of his ability to become emperor of the Ming Dynasty, but rather the words that pierced his heart—Li Chengqian was ruined.

He turned his head sharply and looked fiercely at the eight- or nine-year-old Crown Prince Li Chengqian standing to the side.

Xiao Chengqian trembled with fear.

She knelt down with a thud, not daring to cry out loud.

"Chengqian...is it ruined?"

Li Shimin gritted his teeth. This was his eldest son, whom he cherished like the apple of his eye! He had poured all the resources and effort of the Tang Dynasty into him! And later generations actually said that he had ruined his heir?!

Li Shimin drew his sword from his waist and slashed it across the broken table, sending wood chips flying.

"If I went to be the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, I wouldn't even survive three months? Easily soluble in water?!"

Li Shimin was so angry that he trembled all over.

"I killed my brothers and imprisoned my own father! For the sake of the Tang Dynasty, I bore a lifetime of infamy! Is this what you call being soft-hearted?! These ignorant descendants are simply blind!"

Modern live streaming room.

Through the power of the sky screen, Zhu Dijun naturally saw Li Er breaking through his defenses in a certain parallel universe. He coldly watched the screen filled with people stomping on Li Er without making any rebuttal.

Because Li Shimin really dug a lot of pitfalls for his descendants, such as the Nestorian Religion, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Buddhism, and Empress Wu Zetian, etc. Now, looking back from the perspective of rectifying the situation, coupled with Li Shimin's public image, it is not unreasonable for the extreme Han supremacists to consider him a fraud.

He grabbed a red marker, turned around, and drew an extremely glaring red line on the whiteboard.

"Family members, you've been a bit harsh in criticizing Li Shimin, but you've hit the nail on the head."

Zhu Dijun turned around, placed his hands on the podium, and his eyes were extremely sharp.

Why were Zheng Ge (Liu Bang), Liu Bang, and Zhu Yuanzhang able to indiscriminately kill during the Jiajing reign, but Li Shimin (Emperor Taizong of Tang) was easily subdued by water?

"Because Li Shimin had a fatal weakness—he had an extremely strong 'political fastidiousness'!"

Four red characters slammed heavily onto the screen.

"He killed his own brothers in the Xuanwu Gate Incident, earning him eternal infamy. Therefore, he was extremely starved for love and desperately craved recognition in his later years! He wanted to spend the rest of his life playing the role of a perfect sage ruler; he wanted to listen to advice and accept criticism; he wanted to create a timeless tale of a wise ruler and upright minister with Wei Zheng and his ilk!"

Judy Jun let out an extremely harsh, cold laugh.

"But what kind of place was the officialdom during the Jiajing era? It was a super cesspool reeking of poison! The civil officials of the Ming Dynasty were not upright ministers like Wei Zheng who dared to speak frankly and directly to the emperor in court; they were a group of utter hypocrites who spouted benevolence and morality on the surface but secretly engaged in immoral and immoral acts!"

He grabbed the pointer and slammed it hard onto the whiteboard.

"Li Shimin went to the Ming Dynasty to play the game of accepting advice with these people? To play the game of benevolence with the smuggling gangs in Jiangnan? If you dare to delegate your power to the cabinet today, tomorrow Yang Tinghe and his cronies can turn you into a puppet who only knows how to stamp documents! The day after tomorrow, they can arrange for a palace maid to strangle you, or have the imperial physician bring you a bowl of medicine and send you straight to meet the King of Hell!"

"To be an emperor in the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty, the first rule is to absolutely not have any shame! The second rule is that your heart must be ten times blacker than all the civil officials combined!"

Zhu Dijun frantically tapped the keyboard, and portraits of Ying Zheng, Liu Bang, Liu Xun, and Zhu Yuanzhang appeared side by side.

"Like Qin Shi Huang, use the knife of collective punishment to cut down officials! Like Liu Bang, shamelessly engage in double-crossing! Like Liu Xun, use the imperial prison to terrify officials! Like Zhu Yuanzhang, raise the butcher's knife to skin and stuff the dead!"

"Only a ruthless, unscrupulous, and masterful tyrant like this could keep those rebellious demons and monsters of the Ming Dynasty in check! If a proud and venerable emperor like Li Er were to leave, the Ming Dynasty's underworld would surely drown him!"

The story takes place during the Zhenguan era of the Tang Dynasty. Upon hearing these words, Li Shimin's hand, holding the knife, fell limply to his side. The phrase "political fastidiousness" pierced his facade like an awl.

In the live stream, Zhu Dijun casually wiped the name off the whiteboard, forcefully pulling the topic back to the Ming Dynasty.

"Alright, forget about Li Er. The Ming Dynasty has to deal with its own problems."

On the big screen, the images of the Mongol cavalry and the Guangxi chieftains instantly faded away, replaced by a picturesque scene of the Jiangnan region, characterized by its dense network of waterways and extreme prosperity.

"Family members, as we just mentioned, in the eighth year of the Jiajing reign, the external defenses were completely rotten. But what truly undermined the foundation of the Ming Dynasty was never those few Tartars outside the Great Wall."

In the center of the screen, a name called "Zhong Jin" (meaning "Zhong Jin"), dressed in a commoner's tunic, and a name called "Jiangyin Hou" (meaning "Marquis of Jiangyin"), dressed in the court robes of a Ming Dynasty marquis, are placed side by side in an extremely eerie manner.

"In Jiangnan! The financial heart of the Ming Empire!"

Zhu Dijun lowered his voice, each word carrying a chilling aura.

"In the eighth year of the Jiajing reign, just as the Ministry of War was desperately trying to raise funds for the nine border regions, the most prosperous area of ​​the Ming Dynasty was driven into an extremely absurd peasant uprising by local officials and hereditary nobles due to a dispute over the unequal distribution of profits by smuggling rings!"

"The Rebellion of Hou Zhongjin of Jiangyin!"

Zhu Dijun stared intently at the camera, his eyes flashing with a cold light that seemed to see right through the very marrow of feudalism.

"You would never imagine how a hereditary marquis of the Ming Dynasty, whose fate was intertwined with the fate of the nation, could be so inextricably linked with commoners and smugglers at sea!"

"You can't even imagine how these powerful nobles who control the empire's coastal defenses double-crossed each other to pocket the smuggled gold coins, ultimately driving the common people into rebellion!"

The large screen went completely black, leaving only a bill dripping with black blood.

"If you look closely at this chaotic situation, the corrupt maggots of the Ming Dynasty's officialdom hidden inside are so disgusting that you won't be able to eat for three days."