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

In the thirteenth year of the Jiajing reign of the Ming Dynasty, in Longwan, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province.

It should have been a quiet afternoon. Zhang Fujing, who had retired and returned to his hometown, was sitting alone in his study. This man, who had once single-handedly torn apart the civil service in the Ming Dynasty court and borne the infamy of the Jiajing Emperor for ten years, was now hunched over and had long lost his former ferocity.

The vast and strange light and shadow of the sky cast oblique shadows on the back of his withered and thin hands. When he heard Zhu Dijun's words "May the public be remembered forever" in the sky, saw that his descendants had built a memorial hall for him, and heard the people who came to admire him praise his "pragmatic reforms," ​​this hard-hearted leader of the new policies suddenly trembled.

"May you live forever... Will anyone in later generations still remember this old man?"

Zhang Fujing muttered to himself, two streams of tears streaming down his dry, wrinkled eyes. In his life, he had killed, wielded power, ruined the reputation of sages, and purged nobles and landowners. He thought that after his death, he would be nailed to the pillar of shame by historians and never be able to rise again, but who could have imagined that, hundreds of years later, he would be the one recognized as a "meritorious official"?

This timeless redemption made the old prime minister clutch his chest tightly, crying like a wronged child.

[Modern Live Streaming Room]

Zhu Dijun grabbed a rag and scrubbed all the names on the whiteboard until it was spotless, leaving only a blinding white. He walked in front of the camera, his eyes revealing a brutality that seemed to see right through the marrow of history.

"Family members, have you understood the extremely terrifying time point of the twelfth year of the Jiajing reign?"

Zhu Dijun's voice sounded particularly jarring in the quiet live broadcast room.

"In the central court, Grand Secretary Yang Yiqing has been purged and killed, and Zhang Fujing has lost his power. The cabinet, this engine of power, is currently in a power vacuum! And on the economic front, the reform to investigate and seize estates has thoroughly enraged all the vested interests of the Ming Dynasty!"

He drew a huge circle on the verge of exploding right in the center of the whiteboard.

"This pressure didn't disappear; rather, it flowed down the Ming Dynasty's rotten bureaucratic system! Finally, it all poured into the weakest and most insane part of the Ming Dynasty's defenses—Datong!"

The screen abruptly switched. A swirling sandstorm swept across the borderlands, tearing a tattered "Datong" battle flag apart by the wind. In the scene, countless Ming border soldiers, their eyes gleaming with the greed and savagery of wolves, slowly drew their rusty longswords from their waists.

"In the twelfth year of the Jiajing reign, at the Datong defense line, the most formidable and unruly 'arrogant soldiers' in the entire Ming Dynasty were stationed. They wielded knives, had smuggling merchant gangs behind them, and harbored the 'successful experience' of killing the governor nine years ago without facing repercussions!"

Judy Jun chuckled.

"Just then, a self-important 'hothead' appeared, wanting to launch a rectification campaign within the powder keg of Datong!"

Two names appeared on the screen: [Governor Liu Yuanqing] and [Commander-in-Chief Xi Yong].

"In June of the twelfth year of the Jiajing reign (1543), Liu Yuanqing took office. He felt that Datong was too chaotic and needed to be rectified. So he did something that, in the eyes of Datong at that time, was simply suicidal. He arrested Guo Jian, a remnant of the mutiny in the third year of the Jiajing reign (1544), also known as 'Scarface Guo,' and had him executed!"

Zhu Dijun slammed his hand on the podium, making the teacup rattle.

"Was killing Guo the Scarface wrong? No! But in the eyes of those arrogant soldiers who had become private armies and personal guards, this wasn't law enforcement; it was the Central Committee settling scores with them later! This fear of mutual destruction instantly ignited the anger that had been building up in Datong for nine years!"

The era of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang's mood, which had been somewhat calmed by Zhang Fujing's recognition by later generations, exploded again when he saw the seven characters "Second Datong Mutiny." He stared at Liu Yuanqing's rigid portrait in the sky, his knuckles cracking with rage.

"Fool! If you're going to kill, you should kill those beasts the moment they start causing trouble! When those traitorous generals were at their most arrogant, you, Zhu Houcong, compromised, appeased, and dismissed them in the capital, thus nurturing the ambitions of these scoundrels!"

Zhu Yuanzhang roared and kicked a pillar.

"Nine years later, you're sending a civil official to kill a troublemaker who's already gained power? That's not establishing authority, that's just sending someone to their death!"

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's voice grew louder and louder, accompanied by the muffled sound of horses' hooves and shouts in the background.

"The year is September of the twelfth year of the Jiajing reign! The outbreak has officially begun!"

"Wang Fusheng and Wang Bao! These two low-ranking officers from Datong, taking advantage of Liu Yuanqing's inspection tour, launched a direct attack! They didn't listen to any reason, and stormed into the Governor's Mansion with knives in hand! This isn't a mutiny; this is a public execution of imperial officials!"

On the screen, swords clashed, and several military officials in crimson robes lay dead in pools of blood. Commander-in-Chief Xi Yong narrowly escaped, but at that moment, the entire city of Datong no longer belonged to the Ming Emperor.

"Family members, the most surreal scene is about to unfold. What did these rebels do after taking control of Datong?" Zhu Dijun wrote a familiar name on the whiteboard—[Zhu Zhen].

"They dragged out Zhu Zhen, the old general who was dismissed nine years ago for the first mutiny and was now living in retirement at home! They made him their leader! It's like putting an old bottle on a mess and continuing to sell it! Officially, they claim they revolted because of 'unfair military pay,' but in reality, these people have already established an independent kingdom in Datong!"

The chat room was flooded with comments.

"In just nine years, Jiajing Emperor managed to raise such a bunch of spoiled brats?"

"I've seen officials force the people to rebel, but for the army to force the court, the Ming Dynasty is truly unique!"

"Liu Yuanqing probably never imagined, even on his deathbed, that these people would dare to collude with the Mongols!"

"This isn't some kind of recreation of the elite guards from the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period!"

Zhu Dijun's eyes revealed an extreme coldness. "That's right! In October, the imperial court dispatched a large army to besiege Datong. If it were the usual pattern, the court would have been able to take it if they were determined. But these rebels did something utterly shameless, something that completely shattered the Ming Dynasty's defenses—they wrote a letter to the Anda tribe outside the city, inviting Mongol cavalry to come south and rescue them!"

"To save their own lives, these Ming Dynasty border guards simply opened the country's gates, inviting the ruthless Tartars to come in and make a deal!"

Emperor Wu of Han, Liu Che, paced back and forth in the main hall, his heavy sword drawing sparks on the bluestone slab.

"Traitor! National traitor!"

Liu Che's voice became shrill with anger, "Are these still the sons and daughters of China who dared to seal the wolf's lair? Is this still the mighty army that hailed as 'expelling the barbarians'? Jiajing! How could you be an emperor?! What use is this kind of army? We should crush them with our iron cavalry, dig up their ancestral graves, and sever their bloodline!"

However, Zhu Dijun in the sky spread his hands, revealing a smile that was even uglier than crying.

"Pacify? How? The Ming cabinet calculated that attacking Datong would require a huge amount of military expenditure. In addition, Anda was watching from outside the city. Once a real battle broke out, the northwest defense line would completely collapse! At this time, the newly appointed Grand Secretary Zhang Fujing, along with the court officials who were already terrified, gave Jiajing a 'brilliant' idea."

"Of course, we can't blame Zhang Fujing; he's already done everything he could."

On the screen, an imperial edict bearing the imperial seal is slowly unfurled, the golden characters appearing ironically in the moment.

"In the thirteenth year of the Jiajing reign, the emperor issued an edict—[pardon]! He dismissed the unfortunate governor-general Liu Yuanqing and appointed a new governor named Shi Dao. What was the reason? For the sake of 'border stability,' and to avoid disturbing the Mongols, the court once again chose to swallow its pride and recognize the legitimacy of these rebels!"

Zhu Dijun approached the screen, his finger pressing hard on the word "pardon," each word seeming to be squeezed out from between his teeth.

"Family members, this is not just a compromise; it's Jiajing's dignity as emperor being ripped off by these Datong soldiers, thrown into the latrine, and trampled on again and again! Nine years ago, he compromised once; nine years later, he compromised a second time! The moment this 'pardon' was issued, the Ming Dynasty's deterrent power over the nine border generals was completely wiped out!"

"From then on, a tacit rule formed among the Ming Dynasty's border troops: No money? Cause trouble! Dissatisfied? Kill the governor! The court wants to reorganize? Then I'll surrender to the Mongols!"

Judy Jun's voice trembled, a mixture of helplessness and anger at the desperate rush of an empire toward its end.

"In this battle, the Ming Dynasty 'pacified' the rebellion without firing a single shot. But in reality, the Jiajing Emperor lost the last vestige of legitimacy in his rule over the warlords. From then on, the Datong defense line, nominally belonging to the Ming Dynasty, actually became the private domain of those arrogant and unruly generals and smuggling groups. And all of this directly planted the final ton of gunpowder for the 'Gengxu Incident' seventeen years later, when the Mongol Altan Khan's cavalry rampaged through Beijing and burned it down!"

In the scene, the battle flags on the walls of Datong are raised again, but what flutters in the wind is an atmosphere of decay and despair.

"The mutiny in the twelfth year of the Jiajing reign was not only due to the corruption of the army, but also because the rigid system of the Ming Dynasty, which prioritized the interests of officials and the interests of the people, had completely reached a dead end. The emperor thought he was playing a grand game, but the pieces under him had long since turned the tables for their own benefit."

Zhu Dijun picked up the pointer and pointed to the last image on the big screen: the gloomy profile of the Jiajing Emperor.

"That year, the Daoist Emperor looked at the smoke rising from the Western Garden, and he changed. He began to feel that no one in this country could be trusted, and only the ethereal Dao of immortals could give him a tiny bit of false security. From this moment on, the Ming Dynasty's 'practical governance' officially transformed into 'illusion'."

He put down his teaching pointer, and the violence in his eyes gradually subsided, replaced by a sense of indifference as if he had seen through the outcome.

"The Datong Mutiny has been quelled, but the wound in the heart of the Ming Empire can never be stitched up again."

Zhu Dijun lowered his voice, as if bidding farewell in the darkness.