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

Inside a modern live streaming studio.

As countless netizens watched Xia Yan's arrogant and overbearing demeanor on the screen, the barrage of comments exploded.

"This is what they call 'arrogance brings rain, and arrogance brings disaster!' Xia Yan's haughty attitude makes even me, let alone Jiajing, want to slap him!"

"Does he really think that just because he's called the Pillar of the State, he's become the pillar of the Ming Dynasty?"

["Isn't the traditional trick of the civil service group about to be used? Physically exorcising the emperor if he doesn't obey? Xia Yan is definitely going to make a fuss about this!"]

Zhu Dijun stood in front of the big screen, watching the barrage of comments refresh wildly, a chilling sneer curling at the corner of his mouth.

"Family members, you are absolutely right! Xia Yan's arrogant and domineering behavior, which made enemies on all sides, certainly dug his own grave for his tragic end! But the strange thing about the Ming Dynasty court is that sometimes what brings down a powerful minister is not some fair and square court struggle, but a series of extremely bizarre accidents that you simply cannot explain with common sense!"

He wrote four large, blood-red characters heavily on the whiteboard: "Southern Inspection of the Emperor!"

"The eighteenth year of the Jiajing reign! This was an extremely bizarre and terrifying year in the history of the Ming Dynasty! In this year, a super event occurred that directly changed the political landscape of Xia Yan, Yan Song, and even the entire Ming Empire!"

As Zhu Dijun's fingers tapped on the keyboard, a route map from Beijing to Zhongxiang, Hubei, unfolded on the screen.

"What was the cause? Empress Dowager Jiang, Jiajing's biological mother, passed away and was to be buried with Jiajing's biological father, Prince Xingxian. But at that time, a feng shui master came to report to Jiajing that the underground palace of Prince Xingxian's Xianling Mausoleum in Chengtian Prefecture, Huguang, was leaking!"

"Jiajing, this extremely superstitious and filial son, immediately became furious! The underground palace is leaking water? This is going to ruin my dragon vein! Jiajing immediately made the decision—I will personally go south to my hometown in Hubei to inspect the tombs!"

On the screen, a grand procession, like a long dragon, walked out of Beijing.

"This was an extremely extravagant armed parade! Jiajing, accompanied by his princes, concubines, Grand Secretary Xia Yan, Minister of Rites Yan Song, Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard Lu Bing, and more than 15,000 imperial guards and accompanying officials, marched in a grand procession towards Huguang!"

As Zhu Dijun approached the camera, a dark glint in his eyes revealed a mischievous glint in his eyes.

"Family members. Fifteen thousand guards! The Ming Dynasty's top security force has been brought along! Logically speaking, this business trip should be so safe that not even a mosquito could fly into the Emperor's tent, right? But!"

He slammed his hand on the whiteboard, the sound echoing throughout the live stream.

"What was Jiajing most afraid of in his life? Death! The unnatural death packages for the Ming emperors: drowning, fright, burning! This time, Heaven directly served Jiajing a top-tier dish!"

On the map, Zhao Prefecture and Linming Town were instantly engulfed in two blinding flames.

"In February! Around February 26th, the army had just reached Zhao Prefecture and Linming Town in Hebei when Jiajing's temporary palace, which was just a makeshift tent, inexplicably caught fire!"

"The first time! This was the first fire! Fortunately, it was extinguished quickly, and Jiajing was only slightly frightened. But before the southern tour, Tao Zhongwen, the extremely favored charlatan Taoist priest by Jiajing's side, had cast a divination and said, 'Before crossing the river, the imperial palace will suffer a fire disaster!'"

In a parallel Hongwu era of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang sneered, his eyes full of disdain: "What nonsense about Taoist divination! How could a camp of over ten thousand men, heavily guarded, suddenly catch fire? This is clearly someone plotting something, trying to teach Zhu Houcong a lesson, or even kill him!"

Zhu Di stroked his beard, deeply agreeing. He knew all too well about fires; hadn't his future nephew, the Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunwen, disappeared in a fire at the Nanjing Imperial Palace? Fire was the most convenient and easiest way to cover up the emperor's death and shirk responsibility.

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's speech suddenly quickened, raining down like a barrage of bullets.

"Jiajing was actually starting to panic! But he felt that he had the protection of the True Martial Emperor, so he gritted his teeth and continued south! By the late night of February 28th, the army was stationed in Weihui Prefecture, Henan!"

The screen was completely engulfed by a crimson sea of ​​fire.

"A second fire has broken out!"

"This fire was extremely terrifying! Flames soared into the sky, directly reaching the inner palace camp where Jiajing was sleeping! The wind fanned the flames, instantly destroying a vast amount of gold, silver, valuables, and precious paintings and calligraphy, and even burning several palace maids and eunuchs who were slow to escape alive!"

"Jiajing was awakened from his sleep by thick smoke, and flames were almost licking the bed curtains! Outside, there were eunuchs running around and palace maids crying and screaming! The emperor of the Ming Dynasty almost turned into a roast duck!"

All the Ming Dynasty officials from before the Jiajing era in the myriad realms held their breath at this moment.

"At this critical moment! A man, a ruthless figure destined to rise to prominence during the Jiajing reign and command the Ming Dynasty's intelligence agency for decades, kicked open the burning door and rushed into the inferno!"

Three large characters were nailed to the center of the sea of ​​fire—【Lu Bing】!

"Lu Bing, the Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard! This guy is Emperor Jiajing's childhood friend and wet nurse! He risked his life, holding up the burning roof beams, and carried Emperor Jiajing directly out of the fire!"

"Jiajing escaped death, but before he could even catch his breath, the next day!"

Zhu Dijun drew a big red cross on Kangcunyi on the map.

"On the way from Weihui to Kangcun Post Station, or rather, just after the army had set up camp, the temporary palace caught fire again!"

"Three major fires in three days! All targeting the emperor's residence!"

Zhu Dijun grabbed a half-used piece of chalk and wrote two extremely perfunctory reasons heavily on the whiteboard.

"What caused the fire? How does the official historical record, the *History of Ming*, state that it was because a palace maid left behind a candle flame while relieving herself?"

"Family members!"

Judy Jun let out a cold laugh that could blow the roof off, pointing directly at the camera.

"Do you believe it?! The Ming Dynasty had 15,000 elite guards protecting the emperor, with sentries every three steps and patrols every five! A palace maid went out to the toilet in the middle of the night and left behind a candle, and it burned down the emperor's palace three times?!"

"This is an insult to the intelligence of normal people! Did Jiajing believe it? He absolutely did not!"

The comments section has gone completely crazy.

"This is definitely murder! A blatant murder!"

["Civil officials: Your Majesty, I say this was an accident, and you'd better believe it!"]

[This is a warning to Jiajing: Once you leave the capital, your life is no longer in your own hands!]

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

"Regardless of whether it was an accident or not, is there any direct evidence that Xia Yan instigated it? Of course there is. If the first one was an accident, then Xia Yan would be irredeemably guilty of the latter two. Although Xia Yan, as the Grand Secretary, was handling state affairs on the periphery when the fire broke out, he was not in the center of the fire at all. The scapegoats were the Prefect of Weihui and the Magistrate of Jixian, who were tied up and paraded in front of the Emperor Jiajing and were directly dismissed."

"But these three fires became the ultimate and most fatal turning point in Xia Yan's political career!"

"Jiajing believed that his former like-minded partner had completely sided with the civil official group supported by the Jiangnan smuggling network."

On the big screen, a terrified Jiajing sat in a makeshift tent, his eyes so sinister they seemed to drip with malice.

"After surviving his brush with death, Jiajing was traumatized. The more he thought about it, the more uneasy he felt. He almost burned to death, and you, Xia Yan, as the Grand Secretary and a Pillar of State, couldn't even do a good job of protecting me? Where did your usual arrogant and defiant attitude go?"

"What's worse is that the army finally made it to Chengtian Prefecture in Huguang."

Judy Jun slammed the pointer in her hand hard against the end of the map.

Emperor Jiajing, wanting to save face in his hometown, hinted to his officials: "Let's hold a grand court ceremony in Chengtian Prefecture, so that the people back home can also witness my majesty."

Two completely different portraits of civil officials reappear.

"What did Xia Yan do at this moment? His deep-seated, deadly obsession with civil service etiquette flared up again! He stood up directly to object, with an extremely stubborn reason: Your Majesty, Chengtian Prefecture is just an old residence of a vassal king, not the capital. Holding a court audience here is against ancestral etiquette!"

The live stream was filled with sighs of regret.

"Xia Yan, are you out of your mind?! The boss almost got burned to death and wanted to throw a party to calm his nerves, and you have to bring up the rules to spoil the fun!"

"This is Xia Yan from the 18th year of Jiajing's reign! He was arrogant. He thought that Jiajing had already been warned three times by fire and had only survived by chance. Even if the emperor knew he was a suspect, he couldn't do anything to him."

"The three Yangs in the history of the Ming Dynasty, and Yang Yiqing in the current dynasty, are not all the same. Even if they are expelled from the cabinet, they can still pave the way for their descendants to enter the officialdom in the future based on their achievements."

Zhu Dijun suddenly turned his head and pointed to another portrait.

"But he forgot that there was a venomous snake beside him, ready to bite off his throat at any moment!"

"Yan Song, Minister of Rites!"

"When Yan Song saw that Xia Yan dared to defy Jiajing, he was so happy he wanted to set off firecrackers! He immediately displayed his terrifyingly sliding kneeling technique. Without saying a word, he wrote a long memorial, citing classical texts, and tried his best to prove to Jiajing that holding a grand court celebration in Chengtian Prefecture was not only in accordance with etiquette, but also an unprecedented act of demonstrating great filial piety!"

"Even more so, Yan Song thoughtfully took care of all the court ceremonies and music arrangements, allowing Jiajing to fully indulge in the fantasy of being a great emperor in history while still in his hometown!"

In a parallel Jiajing era of the Ming Dynasty.

Xia Yan stood in the cabinet office, looking at the scene on the sky, his face pale and his hands and feet ice-cold. He finally understood what he had lost by insisting on his point in Chengtian Prefecture.

"Family members."

Zhu Dijun's voice gradually lowered, revealing a cruelty in the shift of power.

"On one side is Xia Yan, the Grand Secretary who almost caused his own death by burning and who constantly pressures him with rules; on the other side is Yan Song, the Minister of Rites who always goes along with him and writes extremely considerate petitions. If you were Emperor Jiajing, what would you choose?"

The light on the big screen began to shrink, and Xia Yan's portrait was gradually covered by a layer of shadow, while Yan Song's old face gleamed with a greedy red light in the darkness.

"After returning to the capital from Chengtian Prefecture, Jiajing completely lost trust in Xia Yan. The countdown to Yan Song replacing Xia Yan as the most powerful minister in the Ming Dynasty had officially begun!"

"But the impact of these three fires went far beyond a reshuffling of the court."

Zhu Dijun dropped his teaching pointer, his eyes filled with an extremely dark expression.

"After Jiajing returned to Beijing, he completely changed. He deeply believed in Tao Zhongwen's divination and felt that God was protecting him. At the same time, he developed an extremely terrifying paranoia about the world outside the Forbidden City."