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

Inside the modern live stream room, the barrage of comments had completely spiraled out of control. Countless netizens, listening to Zhu Dijun's dark deductions about the "Nine Temples Heavenly Fire," not only felt no fear, but instead typed out the same keyword, one that reeked of bloodshed.

The "Gengxu Incident!"

"After watching the streamer discuss the history of the Ming Dynasty for so long, I've practically memorized this routine! If internal strife can't control the emperor, then let foreign guests in as pawns!"

[“The Traditional Skill of the Ming Dynasty Civil Officials – [Inviting the Invaders into the Pass] is Now Available!”]

"They know it all too well! Back then, Emperor Yongle launched five northern expeditions, and on the later ones, he went deep into the Mongolian steppes but couldn't even catch a glimpse of a Mongol. Someone must have tipped off the Tartars in advance!"

[“Wasn’t the Tumu Crisis, the Battle of Zhu Qizhen, the Great War God of the Ming Dynasty, also a case of civil officials colluding with foreign enemies to cut off their water and food supplies, thus wiping out their elite troops in one fell swoop?”]

"And then there's Emperor Wuzong of Ming, Zhu Houzhao! While he was fighting a field battle with a Mongol prince in Yingzhou, the civil officials were frantically cutting off supplies and reporting false military intelligence! These scoundrels' tactics are practically identical!"

Standing in front of the big screen, Zhu Dijun watched the barrage of comments on the public screen and couldn't help but clap his hands. The clapping echoed in the studio, carrying a crisp, extremely ironic tone.

"My family, I am so gratified. You have finally seen through the glamorous exterior of the Ming Dynasty empire, revealing a rotten skeleton infested with parasites!"

A parallel Yongle era in the Ming Dynasty.

Inside the Fengtian Hall, Emperor Yongle (Zhu Di) sat on his dragon throne. When he saw the comments from netizens on the screen, his tiger-like eyes widened suddenly, and then he let out a chilling laugh.

"Very good...very good indeed! Back then, I roamed the northern deserts, returning empty-handed several times, not even seeing the Tartars' horse manure warm. So that's how it is...it turns out that the good officials I raised were acting as spies for the Tartars!"

The parallel Zhengde era of the Ming Dynasty.

Inside the Leopard Chamber, Zhu Houzhao threw the wine from the Western Regions onto the ground, his eyes filled with savage murderous intent.

"No wonder so many of my adopted sons died on the grasslands; they were traitors working from within!"

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's smile vanished instantly. He grabbed a red marker and drew a shocking timeline heavily on the whiteboard.

"My family, you are absolutely right. Now, it's Jiajing's turn to act in this script stained with the blood of the Ming Dynasty's soldiers!"

In the first cell of the timeline, he wrote "[April of the 20th year of Jiajing's reign - Great Fire]". Immediately afterward, he wrote two large characters in the second cell with extreme aggression: "[Spring - Died in Battle]".

"As we just mentioned, in April, the nine temples in Beijing were set ablaze. The civil officials used this extremely absurd targeted attack in an attempt to force Jiajing to back down. But Jiajing only issued an edict of self-reproach and continued to hide in the Western Garden to refine elixirs, showing no intention of relinquishing power. Since even the fires of heaven couldn't wake you up, the only option left was to resort to the ultimate external nuclear strike!"

Zhu Dijun's pointer lashed hard across the northwest direction of the map.

"Our attention shifts to the Mongol Tatars! As early as the spring of that year, Altan Khan and his brother Jinang had already begun their relentless probing of the Ming Dynasty's borders!"

"The Mongol cavalry bypassed the heavily guarded Xuanda defense line, splitting into multiple routes and sweeping towards Lanzhou like a black whirlwind!"

On the screen, the yellow sand on the Gobi Desert was kicked up by a sky full of horses' hooves.

"The defenses of Lanzhou are in dire straits! The Ming troops stationed there have long been reduced to rags due to internal strife and infighting, and are utterly powerless against the elite Mongol forces! In this spring defensive battle, Lieutenant General Zheng Dong fought to the death, ultimately being hacked to death by the Mongols, sacrificing his life heroically!"

Zhu Dijun's voice was tinged with a cold numbness.

"Family members, remember the name Zheng Dong. Another high-ranking general has fallen in battle. Under the chaotic meddling of these civil officials and warlords, the Ming Dynasty's border defenses are like a tattered rag riddled with holes; the Mongols can enter wherever they want!"

He clicked on the third cell of the timeline: "After seizing Lanzhou in the spring, in the autumn, the Mongol army once again divided into multiple routes and launched a full-scale invasion of Xuanfu, Datong, and other important border towns! Smoke signals rose all along the Great Wall defense line, and alarm signals were being sent towards the capital every day!"

The Weiyang Palace of the Han Dynasty.

Emperor Wu of Han, Liu Che, frowned deeply and coldly uttered two words:

"Decayed. Suffering from several wars within a year, the border defenses are practically non-existent. Does the Ming Dynasty really expect Heaven to help it fend off the enemy?"

Zhu Dijun walked around in front of the screen, the red laser light shining on his glasses, reflecting a faint, dim light.

"But, family, war kills people and costs money. Although the Mongols can plunder, they will also suffer losses due to facing the Ming Dynasty's city walls and firearms year after year."

He turned around abruptly and wrote a shocking date in the center of the whiteboard with extremely glaring red, bold ink: "[July of the 20th year of Jiajing]!"

"Just when the Ming Dynasty's border defenses were being soundly defeated, an extremely rare and pivotal event occurred on the grasslands!"

"Anda Khan didn't want to fight anymore! Or rather, he felt that continuing like this was pointless. What did the Mongolian steppe lack? Iron pots, cloth, and tea! These things were too expensive to obtain by robbing! Since the Ming Dynasty's borders had already been ravaged, he might as well force the Ming Dynasty to sit down and do business!"

Zhu Dijun pointed to a portrait of a Mongol envoy that appeared on the screen. [Shi Tianjue]

"In July! Altan Khan officially dispatched his trusted envoy, Shi Tianjue, carrying the Mongols' letter of state and sincerity, to the border of the Ming Dynasty, solemnly requesting: [the commencement of tribute trade]! That is, official peaceful trade!"

The viewers in the live stream were stunned.

"Holy crap? Altan Khan is actually seeking peace and opening up trade?"

"This is fantastic news! Once trade begins, the Great Wall won't need to maintain such a massive military expenditure. It's a win-win situation for both sides!"

"Even if the Ming Dynasty court has lost its mind, shouldn't they agree quickly? This could save countless border guards' lives!"

As Zhu Dijun looked at the comments, a chilling, eerie smile crept across his face.

"A good thing? A win-win situation? My friends, you're all so naive! You're using modern logic to think about the Ming Dynasty, but in the eyes of those officials during the Jiajing era, this wasn't an opportunity for peace at all; it was jeopardizing their livelihoods!"

A portrait of a sinister-looking Ming Dynasty military general was slammed onto the center of the screen—[Border General Long Dayou]!

"Faced with the trade delegation sent by Anda, Long Dayou, a Ming Dynasty general stationed at the border, did something utterly disgusting, rubbing the last shred of Ming Dynasty's credibility into a cesspool!"

Zhu Dijun slammed his fist on the podium, making a loud bang.

"Long Dayou pretended to agree to trade, luring Shi Tianjue and his group of Mongol envoys into the interior of China, where he treated them to lavish feasts. But during the banquet, a cup was smashed, and axemen appeared, capturing the unsuspecting envoys on the spot! A few days later, Long Dayou drew his sword and beheaded Shi Tianjue and the others, stuffing their heads into boxes of lime and sending them to the capital to claim credit and rewards!"

At that moment, viewers across the internet felt their scalp tingle and even their breath caught in their throats.

"Kill the envoy?! Even in a war between two nations, envoys aren't killed! Has Long Dayou gone mad?!"

How does the History of Ming record this event?

Zhu Dijun grabbed a half-used piece of chalk and wrote two words on the whiteboard in a very perfunctory manner—"[claiming credit for others' work]". "The official explanation is that Long Dayou, in order to covet military achievements on the border, betrayed his promise and killed innocent people to claim credit for others' work."

He suddenly broke the chalk in half and slammed it to the ground.

"Bullshit!"

Zhu Dijun roared at the top of his lungs, his eyes filled with a violent rage like a volcanic eruption.

"Family members! Use your brains! Long Dayou is a seasoned border general, how could he not know the consequences of killing the Mongol Khan's personal envoy?! If he really wanted to claim credit, wouldn't it have been simpler to kill a few ordinary Mongol herders on the border?! Why did he specifically choose to behead the special envoy sent by Altan Khan to sue for peace?!"

In a parallel Hongwu era of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang stared intently at the sky, his withered hands trembling violently, and a roar like a broken bellows came from his throat.

"This isn't taking credit for something... someone's pulling the strings behind the scenes! Someone doesn't want our Great Ming to negotiate peace with the Tartars!"

"Because this is a seamless connection, insidiously venomous!"

Zhu Dijun pressed his hands firmly on the table, leaning close to the camera, each word sounding like a razor blade squeezed out from between his teeth.

"Family members! Did you understand this extremely terrifying timeline?!"

"In April, the Nine Temples in Beijing caught fire! The civil official group was in turmoil, trying to scare Jiajing to death! Jiajing did not yield! In July, Altan Khan happened to send someone to request tribute at this critical juncture! Once the tribute was successful and the border was pacified, Jiajing's external pressure would be greatly reduced, and he would have enough energy to use the Embroidered Uniform Guard to completely reshuffle the civil officials in Jiangnan!"

He drew a thick red line between "Jiangnan" and "Datong Border" on the map.

"Even more deadly is the economic interest! Family members, do you remember the smuggling groups in Jiangnan we mentioned earlier?! If the official trade between the Ming Dynasty and Mongolia were legalized, Ming Dynasty tea and iron pots could be sold to the grasslands openly through official channels. The huge profits that the Jiangnan merchants and border warlords secretly monopolized through smuggling would instantly evaporate!"

"Peace is tantamount to cutting off the smuggling tycoons' source of wealth! Peace is tantamount to giving Jiajing a chance to regroup and consolidate imperial power!"

The chat room exploded with comments.

"Holy crap!! This is the truth!! Long Dayou wasn't after battle merits at all; he's a paid assassin!"

"The civil service and smuggling merchants need the Mongols to continue fighting the Ming Dynasty! They need Altan Khan to be the knife that forced Jiajing to his death!"

"That's ruthless! For their own smuggling profits and political power, they're directly tying the fate of the Ming Dynasty to a powder keg and setting it on fire!"

Judy Jun let out an extremely desolate and bitter laugh.

"They deliberately arranged for Long Dayou to take credit for someone else's work and then kill the assassin Shi Tianjue! Tsk tsk tsk, that's a masterful use of a borrowed knife to kill someone, a seamless and masterful execution!"

The era of Zhenguan in the Tang Dynasty.

Li Shimin looked at the sky, his fingers crushing the wine cup in his hand. Wine mixed with blood flowed down, but he was completely unaware.

"Traitors...for their own selfish gain, they have recklessly squandered an opportunity for peace and forcibly provoked the overlord of the grasslands. The Ming court has completely become a breeding ground for treacherous officials!"

The screen went completely dark.

All that remained was the boundless grassland. Anda Khan looked at the few empty bone boxes that had been returned and let out a terrifying roar like that of a wounded beast.

"The entire mission was wiped out, and their heads were sent to the capital to claim credit. When this news reached the grasslands, it shattered Altan Khan's last shred of reason."

"Or rather, this fits the script he and the civil service group were performing; the actors are in place, and that familiar plot is about to play out again for Jiajing."

Zhu Dijun's voice echoed in the dimly lit studio, carrying a suffocating sense of oppression.