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

"Family members, Mao Bowen took the seal of the Ministry of War to prepare for the southern expedition against Annam, but this is a transnational war, and it will take an enormous amount of time to gather supplies and mobilize troops! In the gap before this absurd drama has officially begun, the Ming Dynasty's riddled northern defenses have actually produced a shocking upset that will leave everyone dumbfounded!"

Zhu Dijun slammed his hand on the podium, and four dazzling golden characters exploded on the screen: "[Great Victory in Northern Xinjiang]!"

A barrage of question marks instantly filled the live stream chat. Viewers who had just been vehemently criticizing the Ming Dynasty's border troops as cowards and collaborators were completely caught off guard.

"That's right! You heard me correctly, we won! And it wasn't some small skirmish where a few hundred heads were chopped off and people just boasted about it; it was a real, hard-fought battle!"

Zhu Dijun grabbed a laser pointer and pressed the red dot firmly onto the Helan Mountains on the map.

"In April of the fifteenth year of the Jiajing reign! Jinang, the leader of the Mongol right wing who had taken money from the rebels in Datong, had his appetite completely insatiable! He thought the Ming border troops were all useless, so he directly assembled a full 100,000 troops, stationed them behind the Helan Mountains, and launched a frenzied attack on Liangzhou and Zhuanglang from multiple directions!"

On the screen, countless Mongol cavalrymen, like a black tidal wave, swept towards the border city of the Ming Dynasty.

"If Liangzhou and Zhuanglang fall, the entire northwest defense line will be completely torn apart! At this critical juncture of life and death, two true heroes have stepped forward in the Ming army!"

[Deputy Commander-in-Chief Wang Fu]! [Commander-in-Chief Jiang Shi]!

The two names were like two bloodstained steel knives, plunged fiercely into the center of the screen.

"Unlike those cowards in Datong who shut themselves away and didn't pay to guide the Mongols! Wang Fu and Jiang Shi donned their armor and led their starving border troops, relying on the city walls and terrain, to fight Jinang's 100,000 iron cavalry to the death!"

The sound of war drums echoed wildly in the studio. On screen, the Ming army's muskets and crossbows rained down like a storm, and Mongol cavalry left corpses scattered all over the hillsides below the city.

"Jinang was stunned! He thought it would be a relaxed armed demonstration, but he ended up getting badly beaten in Liangzhou and Zhuanglang and had no choice but to retreat in a sorry state!"

In a parallel Hongwu era of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang stared intently at the names of Wang Fu and Jiang Shi on the screen, and a sliver of color finally returned to his face, which had been purplish-blue from holding his breath. He slammed his fist on the imperial desk and roared:

"Good! Our Ming Dynasty's border troops aren't all dead! There are still such courageous and spirited men! Zhu Houcong, reward them handsomely!"

In the modern live streaming room, the long-suppressed comments finally erupted.

"Holy crap, they can hold off an army of 100,000! These are the soldiers who truly protect our country!"

"It's not that the Ming Dynasty's borders lack tough guys; it's just that the warlords in front are utterly incompetent!"

"That was a satisfying battle! Did the Mongols really think the Ming Dynasty was an ATM?!"

A rare look of admiration appeared on Zhu Dijun's face, but he quickly changed the subject, slamming his pointer hard on another point on the map—[Yansui].

"Family members, don't be too happy yet. Jinang, that hungry wolf of the grasslands, wouldn't be content if he didn't get anything in Liangzhou. That autumn, Jinang adjusted his tactics, mobilized a large force, and marched directly towards the Yansui defense line!"

"But Ji Nang could never have imagined that he would run into a tactical mastermind in Yansui who was even more terrifying than Wang Fu and Jiang Shi, a ruthless individual who had directly illuminated the Ming Dynasty's technological tree!"

A portrait of a man in a governor's robe with a stern face occupies half the screen.

Liu Tianhe, Governor-General of the Three Border Regions of Shaanxi!

"Liu Tianhe was a pragmatist! He knew that the Mongol cavalry were highly mobile, putting the Ming infantry at a severe disadvantage in open field battles. So, he consulted military books and combined them with the firearms technology of the time to personally create a formidable weapon that could be considered an armored vehicle of the cold weapon era—the [Wheelchair]!"

The blueprints of a giant war chariot with an extremely peculiar design, equipped with cannons and heavy crossbows, and propelled by manpower, slowly unfolded on the screen.

"This thing can not only block arrows, but it's also extremely maneuverable. Most importantly, it's equipped with incredibly powerful firearms! As soon as Liu Tianhe took office, he immediately began equipping the troops with it on a large scale!"

Zhu Dijun spoke at an extremely fast pace, his voice like a barrage of bullets hitting the entire internet.

"Autumn! The Yansui defense line! Liu Tianhe is playing by his own rules! Instead of retreating to a defensive posture, he has directly dispatched two of his most formidable generals—[Bai Jue] and [Wu Ying]—with newly equipped wheelbarrow units to launch a preemptive strike, setting a deadly trap at Heihedun!"

In the scene, Jinang's cavalry charged into the valley of Heihedun without any warning. In an instant, Ming troops from all directions rushed out with wheelbarrows. Cannons roared and arrows rained down.

"The Mongol cavalry's horses, terrified by the cannon fire, broke into a frenzy, their scimitars unable to penetrate the chariot's defenses! Bai Jue and Wu Ying seized the opportunity to launch a counterattack, chasing and cutting their way from Heihedun all the way to Jilichuan, and then to Koujiajian!"

The three blood-red place names were tightly connected together by Judy Jun with thick thread.

"Victories after victory! Countless decapitations! The Mongol army suffered extremely heavy casualties, abandoning their armor and weapons, fleeing back into the depths of the grasslands in a state of utter despair!"

In a certain era of the Zhenguan period of the Tang Dynasty.

Li Shimin's eyes lit up as he looked at the "one-wheeled chariot" tactic displayed on the sky, and he clapped his hands and laughed:

"Brilliant! Using chariot formations to counter light cavalry, supplemented by firearms for casualties—Liu Tianhe is a military genius! That such a renowned general could emerge from the Ming Dynasty's dilapidated military system is truly a testament to Heaven's mercy!"

In the Weiyang Palace of the Han Dynasty, Emperor Wu of Han (Liu Che) also showed a satisfied expression. Having managed to defeat the descendants of the Xiongnu so thoroughly, the Ming Dynasty had at least not completely disgraced the Chinese nation.

Zhu Dijun grabbed his water glass, took a sip, and wrote two large characters on the whiteboard: "[Effective]".

"What does the victory at Heihedun prove? It proves that as long as the corrupt warlord's chain of interests is even slightly severed, and as long as there are capable officials like Liu Tianhe in charge, the Ming army, equipped with modern weapons, still possesses the absolute strength to confront the Mongols head-on!"

But the light in his eyes only lasted for a moment before it was immediately replaced by endless mockery.

He grabbed the blackboard eraser and ruthlessly wiped away all the marks on the whiteboard.

"Winning is great. But family, what's the most crucial question in war?"

Zhu Dijun tapped his fingers on the table.

"It's money! Don't chariots cost money? Don't gunpowder cost money? Don't the rewards that Wang Fu, Jiang Shi, Bai Jue, and Wu Ying's soldiers risked their lives for cost money?!"

The scene on the screen instantly shifted from the smoke of war in the northern frontier back to the Ministry of Revenue in the Forbidden City. The enormous abacus was filled with deficits.

"We just won a battle and are waiting to be paid out, and now the Ming Dynasty's backyard is on fire again!"

Zhu Dijun drew a circle in the southwest direction.

[Miao Unrest in Guizhou]!

"Wang Axiang and Wang Cong, Miao people from Pinglang area of ​​Guizhou, rebelled because they felt the imperial court could no longer control them over the hereditary positions of local officials! They led their men to capture Kaikoutun!"

"Jiajing had just triumphed in the north when he saw the southwest in turmoil again. How could he tolerate this? He immediately mobilized 30,000 troops to penetrate deep into the mountains and suppress the rebellion! In the end, they forcibly breached the mountain stronghold and beheaded Wang Cong, the ringleader of the uprising, as a warning to others!"

Before the live stream could even utter a single word about Jiajing's fortitude, Zhu Dijun immediately delivered a blunt blow.

[Major Earthquake in Jianchang, Sichuan]!

"Family members! While the army is still fighting in Guizhou, a massive earthquake has struck Sichuan! Houses have collapsed, and countless people have died or been injured! Local officials are sending three urgent messages a day, all demanding disaster relief funds from Emperor Jiajing!"

"The North needs military funds! The Southwest needs military pay to quell the rebellion! Sichuan needs disaster relief funds! The more than one million taels of silver in the Ming Dynasty's treasury can't even make a ripple in the face of this terrifying money-devouring behemoth!"

As Zhu Dijun drew close to the camera, every word he uttered exuded a hysterical sense of oppression.

"The emperor is broke! The Ministry of Revenue is broke! Where are we going to get money? As we said before, the people have been squeezed dry, and the nobles' estates have been thoroughly investigated, causing widespread resentment. How can we extract a massive amount of cash in the shortest amount of time?!"

Zhu Houcong suddenly turned around and wrote his name heavily in Fujian, on the southeastern coast.

Lou Zhide, the Salt Commissioner of Fujian!

"In feudal dynasties, when a country was desperately poor, it always had only one trump card that could be overdrawn indefinitely—salt!"

In the fifteenth year of the Jiajing reign (1546), in order to fill the financial gap in the northern border defenses, Lou Zhide, the salt commissioner of Fujian, received a death order from the imperial court: raise money!

A huge map of Fujian's coastline unfolds on the screen.

Lou Zhide gritted his teeth and directly established the "Eastern Route Branch Office" in Fuzhou, also known as the Huangqi Branch Office! What was he trying to do? He was trying to forcibly insert the Ming Dynasty's salt monopoly system into the Mindong region, which was originally the area where private smuggling was most rampant!

Zhu Dijun grabbed a marker and drew eight red anchor points on the map.

"He ordered the recruitment of salt merchants and forcibly regulated the means of transporting salt, requiring the use of officially certified 'ox-boats'! He also forcibly established eight legal monopoly ports in places such as Huangqi and Shuiji!"

The comments section erupted with analysis.

"Isn't this just the government stealing business? They're taking all the profits from smuggled salt and nationalizing it!"

"This is brilliant! Since smuggling can't be stopped, the government will just open up its own stores and take a cut!"

Lou Zhide: I don't care how you sell, but you must use my port and pay my taxes!

"That's right!"

Zhu Dijun slammed his fist on the whiteboard.

"This salt tax reform directly brought back a considerable amount of fiscal revenue for the Jiajing Emperor! This silver was hauled north by the cartload, barely plugging the terrifying black hole of military expenditures in the Nine Garrisons!"

Zhu Dijun pulled up a chair and sat down, his entire being enveloped in the cold lights of the studio.

"In the fifteenth year of the Jiajing reign, the Ming Dynasty survived a life-or-death crisis by relying on the lives of soldiers on the northern frontier and by squeezing the profits out of the Fujian salt merchants. This seemed to give everyone the illusion that this Taoist emperor was tough and that the Ming Dynasty, this dilapidated ship, could still sail forward."

He raised his head, his cold smile growing even more chilling, and with a flick of his wrist, he hid all the domestic maps on the screen, leaving only a solitary topographical map of Annam.

"But, my family. The fire in the country has been barely contained, and Jiajing's vanity has once again swelled to its extreme."

"After a year of preparation, Mao Bowen, carrying the emperor's death order, was finally about to take action on the southern border in the Annam War."

"The Ming Dynasty has just repelled 100,000 Mongol cavalry in the north. Do you think that, facing a small, usurped vassal state in the south, the Ming Dynasty will suffer a crushing defeat or a complete rout?"

Zhu Dijun's voice gradually lowered, and before the screen went completely dark, only one sentence remained.

"Get your melon seeds ready, because the most absurd and utterly ridiculous dark humor in the Ming Dynasty's foreign policy is about to begin."