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

"Family members, do you think the mess left over in the fourteenth year of the Jiajing reign was simply the suppression of a mutiny in Liaodong and the exile of the governor?"

Zhu Dijun stood in front of the large screen, his eyes appearing extremely violent under the glaring red light. He grabbed a rag and forcefully erased the writing about Liaodong from the whiteboard. He then turned and used a red marker to draw a huge circle along the southeastern coast of the entire Ming Dynasty's territory.

"Completely wrong! At the same time that the aftermath of the Datong mutiny in the north had barely subsided and the Liaodong defense line had just exploded, the southeastern coast of the Ming Dynasty was also completely bombed!"

Four blood-stained characters were slammed onto the public screen: 【Fighting on Two Fronts】!

In the modern live stream room, many netizens were stunned when they saw those four familiar words. The comments section exploded like boiling water.

"Holy crap! Another two-front war?!"

"I've seen this plot before! It's an exclusive feature of Zhu Qizhen, the Great War God of the Ming Dynasty!"

"That's right! It's a perfect replica! Back in the Zhengtong era of Zhu Qizhen, there was the Luchuan Rebellion in the southwest, where Si Renfa and his son rebelled; in the southeast, there was the uprising of Deng Maoqi, a tenant farmer in Fujian, and the uprising of Ye Zongliu, a miner in Zhejiang! In the end, there was also the Tumu Crisis, a three-front war!"

"Who would have thought that this hellish start, with enemies on all sides and everything going wrong, would now fall on the Jiajing Emperor's shoulders!"

"Family members."

The pointer in Zhu Dijun's hand was like a long knife, slashing heavily at Chaozhou, Guangdong on the screen.

"In the fourteenth year of the Jiajing reign, smuggling rings along the southeastern coast, not wanting the Jiajing Emperor to conduct any economic investigations, resorted to an extremely vicious method—using someone else to do their dirty work!"

A striking term appeared: "[Guo Lao's Rebellion by Sea Pirates]".

"This group of pirates, entrenched near Chaozhou's Dacheng Fortress, went ashore to burn, kill, and loot! And in this turmoil, an extremely tragic, yet extremely typical, figure from the Ming Dynasty's officialdom was implicated!"

Zhu Dijun tapped his fingers on the keyboard, and a portrait of someone wearing an imperial censor's robe appeared on the screen.

[Imperial Censor Su Xin]!

"Fellow family members, who is Su Xin? He is a retired censor who has returned to his hometown. If you examine his career path and official style, you will find an extremely rare fact—he is neither a member of Zhang Fujing's 'Imperial Party' nor a member of Yang Tinghe's old faction. He is a truly independent official who remains detached from factional struggles and upholds his supervisory duties and integrity!"

Zhu Dijun let out a cold laugh that could have blown the roof off, every word of which was full of extreme mockery of the Ming Dynasty's officialdom.

"But in the cesspool of factional strife and infighting during the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty, how could you dare to be honest? How could you dare not take sides? That's called original sin!"

"Being neutral is damn guilty!"

He slammed his fist on the podium. "The pirate Guo Lao stormed ashore with a very clear objective: he kidnapped Su Xin, a retired censor! Not only did the pirates tie him up, but they also went so far as to extort a huge sum of money! In the end, if it weren't for a sudden hurricane at sea, Su Xin would have lost his life in the pirate's den!"

Zhu Dijun approached the camera, his eyes as cold as ancient ice.

"Family members, do you understand the extremely insidious logic behind this? Why would the pirates choose to kidnap a clean-living, retired, neutral censor, instead of so many corrupt officials and wealthy gentry?"

"This is not a random robbery at all! This is a smuggling ring entrenched along the southeastern coast, issuing an extremely cruel and terrifying warning to the Jiajing Emperor and all Ming officials who attempt to remain aloof!"

"They're using knives to tell the entire court and the public: If you dare to investigate smuggling in Jiangnan again, or meddle in the mess of coastal defense, this is what will happen! I can even kidnap an imperial censor at will. The coastal garrisons of the Ming Dynasty have long since become our smuggling guild's backyard!"

The live stream room fell into a deathly silence, then erupted into a furious outcry. This blatant and brazen attack by the smuggling ring exposed the very fabric of their corrupt collusion with officials.

"Su Xin's kidnapping completely exposed the fact that the Ming Dynasty's coastal garrison defenses were practically non-existent."

Zhu Dijun took a deep breath, his tone suddenly becoming extremely dark.

"But because of this incident, in order to cover up their incompetence and smuggling profits, the local officials then did something seemingly insignificant but crucial that would directly lead to the downfall of the Ming Dynasty!"

On the whiteboard, Zhu Dijun wrote four large characters heavily: "Macau Opening to the Port"!

"Or it was called Oyster Bay back then!"

On the big screen, a giant Atlantic galleon flying a cross-shaped sail flag arrogantly sailed into a port on the coast of Guangdong.

"Around the fourteenth year of the Jiajing reign! The Ming Dynasty nominally maintained a strict maritime ban, prohibiting private individuals from engaging in overseas trade without authorization! But what were the local officials who actually controlled the coastal defense doing?"

Zhu Dijun grabbed a red marker and poked two names onto the whiteboard.

[Commander Huang Qing], [Deputy Commissioner of Guangdong Maritime Affairs Wang Bai].

"Commander Huang Qing, a high-ranking third-rank military officer in the Ming Dynasty, held immense power over coastal defense. He secretly accepted enormous bribes from the Portuguese! With this ill-gotten money, he arbitrarily granted the Portuguese permission to temporarily reside in Macau under the pretext of 'drying tribute goods'!"

"Immediately afterwards, Wang Bai, the Deputy Commissioner of the Guangdong Maritime Circuit, personally sat down at a table with these foreigners and secretly reached an extremely absurd agreement—directly establishing residency fees and customs rates!"

In a parallel Hongwu era of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes were bloodshot, and he overturned the imperial desk in front of him.

"Cease territory and collect rent?! Who gave them the audacity to lease our Great Ming's land to foreign barbarians! Setting their own tariffs, this is treason! It's a capital offense punishable by the extermination of nine generations of their family!"

On the sky, Zhu Dijun mercilessly dissected the malignant tumor.

"This is the later famous 'Guangzhou-Macau' dual trade system! The Maritime Trade Commissioner's Office was secretly moved here. On the surface, the maritime ban was extremely strict; ordinary Ming citizens who went to sea to boil salt or fish were beheaded. In reality, local military leaders and civil officials accepted bribes from foreigners, turning Ming territory into concessions and openly engaging in smuggling trade!"

"The far-reaching impact of this event is utterly despairing. It signifies that the Ming Empire's gateway on the southeastern coast was deliberately pried open from within by its own people for a few taels of silver!"

Zhu Dijun threw down the marker and slammed his hands hard on the table.

"Since smuggling is so rampant, and since wealthy merchants in Jiangnan and foreigners are making a fortune, hasn't the Ming Dynasty also gotten a share of the profits, and isn't the national treasury more prosperous?"

A bitter smile, more painful than a grimace, tugged at the corners of his mouth, and a shocking memorial appeared directly in the center of the screen.

[Jin Xueyan, Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Personnel – "Memorial Prohibiting the Use of Silver by the Common People"]!

"In that year, an extremely heated debate erupted within the court regarding the use of silver! Jin Xueyan, the Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Personnel, knelt in the Forbidden City, pleading with the Emperor with all his might: immediately prohibit the use of silver among the people and fully strengthen the circulation of copper coins!"

Why would a Vice Minister of the Ministry of Personnel suddenly turn his back on money?

Zhu Dijun's fingers furiously typed on the keyboard, and a string of data that stung everyone's retinas exploded onto the screen.

"Because in this memorial, Jin Xueyan revealed a cruel truth that would have terrified any feudal emperor to the point of having a stroke!"

"He did the math! Family members, do you know just how distorted the wealth structure of the Ming Dynasty was back then?"

Zhu Dijun roared at the top of his lungs:

"The wealthy households, smuggling merchants, and gentry of the entire southeastern coast! Each of them has at least several hundred thousand taels of silver hoarded in their private vaults! Yet the entire treasury of the mighty Ming Empire, including the national treasury, only has a little over a million taels!"

boom!

The emperors of all realms and timelines felt a wave of dizziness upon hearing this data.

At the Weiyang Palace of the Han Dynasty, Emperor Wu of Han, Liu Che, gasped, feeling a chill run down his spine.

"The wealth of a single household can rival half the national treasury? Whose empire is this, really?!"

The comments section in modern live streams has completely spiraled out of control.

"This is equivalent to Jack Ma's family's cash flow being equal to the entire country's foreign exchange reserves!"

[“Holy crap, this is the ultimate example of a poor country with rich people! No, it’s more like a poor country with rich officials and rich businesses!”]

"No wonder Jin Xueyan wants to ban silver; the nation's economic lifeline has been completely strangled in the hands of others!"

"This is not a sign of a prosperous and strong nation!" Zhu Dijun's eyes revealed a deep sense of fear and helplessness.

"What does Jin Xueyan's suggestion reflect? It reflects the ultimate economic anxiety that arose in the imperial court after the complete monetization of silver in the mid-Ming Dynasty!"

He wrote four large characters on the whiteboard: "Monetary Dominance!"

"The Ming Dynasty itself didn't produce much silver! The enormous amount of silver circulating in the market was all earned by smuggling groups in Jiangnan through maritime trade with the Portuguese and Japanese! What does it mean that silver became the main currency?"

Judy Jun pointed to the memorial on the screen, each word like a death knell tolling on the empire.

"This means that the Ming Dynasty completely lost its power and control over the issuance of national currency!"

"If your national treasury has no silver, you can't even afford to buy military rations! And if the wealthy merchants of Jiangnan want to strangle the imperial court, all they need to do is hoard silver in their cellars and not release it. The entire economy of the Ming Dynasty will immediately fall into deflation and be completely paralyzed!"

"Although Jin Xueyan was a scholar, he keenly sensed the deadly crisis brought about by silver. He wanted to regain control using copper coins, but it was completely useless! Even when Emperor Longqing opened the gates later, it was merely a temporary fix. Because the power to set the price of silver had long since left the Forbidden City!"

Judy pulled up a chair and sat down heavily. The light on the big screen gradually dimmed until only a cold, white silver ingot gleamed in the darkness.

"The Mongol army in the north is pressing in and demanding money, and the warlords in Liaodong are staging a mutiny and demanding money. Meanwhile, all the wealth of the Ming Dynasty is locked up in the cellars of the Jiangnan interest group that has made its fortune by profiting from human suffering."