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

Inside the live stream, the chat was still buzzing with speculation that Xu Jie might be the mastermind behind the palace coup. The powerful impact of this theory, which overturned conventional historical understanding, sent chills down the spines of countless modern netizens.

Zhu Dijun stood in front of the large screen, picked up the now-cold tea on the table, and drank it all in one gulp. He wiped the water from the corner of his mouth and returned to the computer. With a heavy click of the mouse, a brand new document was dragged directly to the center of the whiteboard.

"Family members, let's leave the discussion of the intrigues within the Forbidden City for now. Now, let's continue!"

The red laser lights in the studio suddenly turned into an extremely oppressive, cold blue.

A line of bold, blood-dripping text appeared on the screen: "[Major Military Events: Anda's Revenge and the Mutianyu Massacre]".

"The 22nd year of the Jiajing reign! That is, the year after the Renyin Palace Coup!"

Zhu Dijun grabbed the pointer and lashed it hard across the Great Wall defense line on the map, making a piercing crack.

"When the Jiajing Emperor, strangled by a rope, retreated to the Wuyi Hall in the Western Garden to seek immortality; when officials like Yan Song in the Grand Secretariat and Xu Jie in the Outer Court began secretly sharpening their knives for power, the northern border of the Ming Empire faced an extremely dark and bloody final retribution!"

His fingers furiously tapped the keyboard, and Anda Khan's wolf-like image once again dominated the screen.

"What caused it? Family members, I don't need to elaborate, do I? Last year, the civil officials colluded with Border General Long Da to behead Shi Tianjue, the Mongol envoy seeking peace! The civil officials successfully blocked the tribute trade and protected their own smuggling profits. But what was the price?!"

A violent red light swirled in Judy Jun's eyes.

"The price was that Anda Khan went completely mad! No trade, no commerce, so he resorted to robbery! Starting in early 1853, Anda's main force, like a black flood overflowing its banks, swept towards the defenses of Shanxi and Datong!"

The Shanxi and Datong areas on the map were instantly covered with a dense array of bright red skulls.

"This is a massacre! A blatant massacre!"

"Where are the elite troops of the Ming Dynasty's nine border regions?! Aren't these warlords usually so greedy for money?!"

"They took the military funds but didn't do their job; now they're playing dead!"

"Good question from the comments: What are the Ming Dynasty's army doing?"

Zhu Dijun let out an extremely absurd cold laugh and wrote four large characters heavily on the whiteboard: "Strengthen the walls and clear the fields!"

"Official historical records define the Ming army's strategic guidance as 'fortifying the walls and clearing the fields!' The literal meaning is to hide supplies, move civilians inside the city walls, and starve the enemy. But in Datong and Shanxi during the 22nd year of the Jiajing reign, these four characters had a completely different interpretation!"

Zhu Dijun zoomed in on the camera, each word like a nail piercing into the underwear of feudal bureaucrats.

"These four words are: Stay inside and never come out! Better to die than lose yourselves! Faced with Anda's elite cavalry, the Ming border generals abandoned all outer defenses, their main force holed up inside the walls of key cities and refused to come out!"

The screen then switched to a horrific sketch of a battlefield.

Inside the city, generals drank wine with their concubines, watching the smoke signals outside. Outside the city, the common people of the Ming Dynasty, who had no time to retreat or were not even qualified to enter the city, became live targets and lambs to the slaughter for the Mongol cavalry! Anda's cavalry entered as if they were in an empty land, plundering people, stealing grain, and seizing livestock! Half of the Ming Dynasty's territory became a free buffet for the Mongols!

A parallel Yongle era in the Ming Dynasty.

Emperor Yongle (Zhu Di) stared intently at the sky, then kicked over the heavy imperial desk in front of him. Memorials scattered all over the floor. He drew his imperial sword from his waist, pointed it at the heavens, and let out a roar like that of a dying tiger.

"Cowards and cowerers! Allowing enemy cavalry to ravage my people! These border guards should be killed! They should all be executed by slow slicing! I led five expeditions into the northern deserts, driving the Tartars to the Onon River to eat sand. How many years have passed? Has the backbone of the Ming Dynasty become so weak?!"

On the sky, Zhu Dijun couldn't hear the roar of the parallel universe at all. The pointer in his hand drew an extremely deadly parabola from Shanxi and heavily stabbed right under the nose of Beijing.

"Family members, if the corruption in Shanxi and Datong was because the emperor was far away and the officials in the capital didn't feel the pain, then the tragedy that happened in October put a knife directly to the throats of these vermin!"

Three large, blood-red characters slammed onto the center of the public screen—【Mutianyu】!

"In October of the 22nd year of the Jiajing reign! Ba'ersun, the leader of the Mongol Doyan tribe, a staunch ally of Altan Khan and a complete warmonger, led his elite cavalry. Instead of joining the fray in Shanxi, he boldly bypassed the main defenses and launched a surprise attack on the core pass of the Great Wall defenses—Mutianyu Pass!"

Zhu Dijun pulled over a chair, placed one foot on the crossbar, and looked like a cheetah ready to pounce.

"Where is Mutianyu? Family, those of you who went to Beijing today know it, right? It's Huairou! It's right under Beijing's nose! After passing Mutianyu, Mongol cavalry could be riding their horses under the walls of the Forbidden City in less than half a day!"

"How were these heavily fortified passes of the Inner Great Wall breached?"

Judy drew a big question mark on the whiteboard, and then slammed a red X over it with great irony.

Historical records describe his descendants using four words: "Deceitful tactics to break through barriers!"

"How would they bluff? Would the Mongols dress up as ordinary Ming Dynasty citizens to deceive us? Or would they pretend to be a smuggling caravan?! The historical records dare not write the details behind this, but think about it: if the border defenses at Mutianyu Pass weren't rotten to the core, and if there weren't those tacitly approved border smuggling networks providing loopholes, how could a Mongol cavalry force possibly sneak up to the pass without bloodshed?!"

"The moment they tricked their children and grandchildren into opening the gate, an ambush was sprung! A dark mass of Mongol cavalry surged directly into the inner Great Wall through the pass!"

On the big screen, flames shot skyward. The sound of metal tearing apart as swords clashed echoed throughout the studio.

"At this moment, finally a man from the Ming Dynasty stepped forward!"

Zhu Dijun wrote a name heavily on the whiteboard with a red pen in his hand—[Chen Shun].

"Ming garrison commander Chen Shun! He did not retreat! Faced with the pass breached and overwhelming odds, Chen Shun drew his sword and led his remaining forces in a suicidal counterattack against the invading elite Mongol troops!"

"But he's just a garrison commander, he has too few soldiers! Where are his superiors? Where are the surrounding defense zones?! No support! Absolutely nothing!"

Judy Jun's voice became hoarse and strained due to extreme anger.

"Chen Shun fought valiantly to his death amidst the chaos of battle! He was hacked to death by the Mongols at the foot of the Great Wall! All his junior officers, including the centurion, perished! Mutianyu Castle, this vital passage protecting the capital of the Ming Dynasty, was utterly trampled and shattered underfoot by the Mongols!"

The chat in the live stream fell silent for a few seconds before erupting like a volcano.

"Chen Shun is a true hero! The Ming Dynasty doesn't lack junior officers who are willing to fight to the death; what it lacks are high-ranking officials who are truly responsible!"

"The capital must be in an uproar! The broadswords are practically slashing at Jiajing's alchemy furnace!"

"Are the civil service groups happy now? This is exactly what you wanted—severing trade ties! You lent the knife to the Mongols, only to have it cut into your own lifeline!"

"The capital city was indeed shaken!"

Zhu Dijun laughed loudly, but his laughter was filled with endless desolation.

"Jiajing was so frightened while hiding in the Western Garden that he couldn't even take any medicine! The Minister of War was as anxious as an ant on a hot pan! The entire court finally remembered that even Beijing could be captured!"

"At this critical juncture, Wang Jizu, the deputy commander-in-chief of the Ming Dynasty, finally arrived at Mutianyu with reinforcements!"

Zhu Dijun frantically typed on the keyboard, and Wang Jizu's name was dragged onto the screen.

"Wang Jizu was a tough guy. He led reinforcements and engaged in an extremely fierce tug-of-war with the troops of his sons and grandsons at the pass. In the end, relying on his superior numbers and firearms, he barely managed to push the Mongols out of Mutianyu."

He paused for a moment, his eyes revealing an extreme darkness that showed his complete disillusionment with the corruption of officialdom.

"Family members, do you know what the Ming Dynasty's achievements were in this so-called 'Battle of Mutianyu'? How did the official military reports claim credit?"

On the whiteboard, Zhu Dijun wrote four words in extremely bright red, bold ink.

[Thirty heads were beheaded].

All the lights in the studio went out, leaving only the four words on the whiteboard emitting a faint, bloody glow.

"Over thirty levels!"

Zhu Dijun lowered his voice, each word sounding like a sarcastic remark squeezed out from between his teeth.

"The formidable defenses of the capital region were breached; the garrison commander and the centurion were killed in action; the castle was massacred. The Ming Dynasty mobilized reinforcements at the deputy commander level, fighting a desperate battle to the death, and in the end, they only managed to cut off the heads of a little over thirty enemies!"

"These mere thirty heads were used by the Ministry of War and the border generals as a fig leaf to save face, as a top-tier military achievement that could lead to promotion and titles, and were rushed into the capital to appease the emperor's anger!"

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

Li Shimin stared at the battle results displayed on the sky, his fingers crushing the wine cup. He turned to look at Changsun Wuji and Li Jing beside him, and coldly uttered a single sentence.

"Losing a pass, losing a general, and thirty heads count as military merit? The military preparedness and morale of the Ming Dynasty are rotten to the bone. If any general of my Great Tang dares to try to fool me with such a battle report, I will skin him alive!"

On the sky, Zhu Dijun casually broke a piece of chalk in half and threw it on the table.

"This is the Ming Dynasty's border defense in the twenty-second year of the Jiajing reign. A joke riddled with holes."

He walked back to the center of the studio and pulled up a chair to sit down again.

"The emperor hid in the Western Garden to survive, civil officials plotted in the court for the next prime minister's position, and border generals used the heads of dozens of enemies to gain military merit. As for Chen Shun, who actually died at the foot of the Mutianyu Great Wall, and the people who were dragged out of Datong City like sheep by the Mongol cavalry, their blood is not even worthy of a single ink mark in the history books."

Zhu Dijun raised his head and looked directly at the camera.

"But this is exactly the result that the Ming Dynasty's civil service group and the Jiangnan financial magnates wanted. As long as there is still war on the border, the smuggling profits will continue to operate. The longer the emperor stays in the Western Garden, the more completely the power of the outer court will fall into the hands of the civil officials."

The image on the large screen gradually shrank, transforming into a ledger stained with blood.

"But my family. The blood of the Ming Empire is finite. The nine northern borders have been ravaged, and military spending has become a bottomless pit. No matter how much the Jiajing Emperor tries to squeeze, he can't fill this terrifying black hole."

A strange smile curled at the corners of Zhu Dijun's mouth as he tapped the countdown lightly on the table.

"The wool from the north is no longer available. So, where will this greedy financial behemoth, the Ming Dynasty, and that immortal emperor hiding in the Western Garden demanding money to build palaces, place their blood-sucking needles?"

Four large, dark characters were faintly visible deep within the screen.

"Are you ready? The next piece of meat is laced with deadly poison."