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

Inside the live stream, the screen was filled with a frenzied uproar over the secret collusion between Xu Jie and the sorcerer.

"Holy crap! Holy crap! Holy crap! So the Jiajing era was all about old silver coins!"

"From Yang Tinghe in the early period, to Yan Song in the middle period, and then to Xu Jie in the later period! One after another, they were all competing to see who could play the coward best and who could be more insidious!"

"The most pitiful one is that old 'immortal emperor' Jiajing! He thought that bringing Taoist priests into the civil service as officials was a divine intervention, a way to monitor and escape the control of civil officials. Turns out, even the Taoist priests' household registrations were handled by the Jiangnan civil official group!"

"Just thinking about it is terrifying! This isn't cultivating immortality; it's being made a fool of like a monkey for twenty years and still feeling smug about it!"

In a parallel Zhengde era of the Ming Dynasty.

Inside the Leopard Chamber, Zhu Houzhao laughed so hard he rolled off his bed, clutching his stomach and pounding the ground with laughter. "Zhu Houcong, Zhu Houcong! You've finally met your match! You pride yourself on being the best at political maneuvering, using the court rod to establish your authority. Turns out, the fortune teller you trusted most, who spent his days telling your fortune in the Western Garden, sold your underwear to Xu Jie as soon as he stepped outside! You're not even as good an emperor as a pimp in a brothel!"

And a parallel universe in the late Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty.

Inside the Wuyi Hall in the Western Garden, the aged and decrepit Jiajing Emperor stared intently at the sky, his withered hands clutching his Taoist robe to shreds. His lips trembled violently as he looked at the portraits of Xu Jie and the Taoist priests on the sky, feeling a chill run down his spine.

"Xu Jie...Xu Jie!!!"

Jiajing gritted his teeth, a metallic taste rising in his throat. He couldn't believe that the safe haven of absolute power he had painstakingly built with half a lifetime of effort was actually filled with spies planted by his enemies.

"Alright, everyone!"

On the screen, Zhu Dijun slammed his hand on the podium twice with tremendous force, the loud noise dispelling some of the chill in the studio. He grabbed the blackboard eraser and roughly wiped away the intricate network of palace spies on the whiteboard. Then, with a blood-red marker, he drew a large circle heavily on the northern border of the map.

"Let's put the old coins in the Forbidden City aside for now. While these scoundrels are fiercely fighting for power and scheming, let's talk about a crucial military event that also occurred this year!"

As Zhu Dijun approached the camera, a knowing, mocking look appeared in his eyes.

"In the previous article, I told you about the massacre of thirty-eight prefectures and counties in Shanxi, and the fall of Mutianyu Pass. You might think that the Ming Dynasty's border army was so corrupt that it was worse than a dog, right? But my friends, the Ming Dynasty's border army, having lost its military power, financial power, and personnel appointment power, exhibited an extremely bizarre state during the Jiajing reign!"

He typed eight large characters on the whiteboard: "The Power of Schrödinger's Format!"

"What are Schrödinger's border troops? They are soldiers who, even when they have no money, no food, and not even enough weapons, will suddenly unleash an incredible fighting power that will shake the heavens and earth, driven by their survival instincts!"

The scene on the big screen instantly switched to the Great Wall beyond the Great Wall, where yellow sand filled the sky.

"Time! July of the 23rd year of the Jiajing reign! Location! Black Mountain, Datong!"

Zhu Dijun's pointer struck the Inner Mongolia Heishan region on the map heavily.

"Having tasted the sweetness of previous raids, Anda Khan thought the Ming Dynasty's borders were just an undefended chicken farm. So he once again gathered his main force and launched a massive attack, intending to repeat the massacres that occurred in Datong and Shanxi two years ago!"

"but!"

Zhu Dijun roared at the top of his lungs and slammed his hand on the podium.

"This time, Anda Khan has run into a piece of iron that he can't crack!"

A portrait of a weathered general, his armor tattered and worn, was firmly fixed in the center of the screen—[Zhou Shangwen, Commander-in-Chief of Datong]!

"Zhou Shangwen! He's an extremely rare, even panda-like, pragmatic border general in the mid-Ming Dynasty! He didn't have the 300,000 taels of silver from the Ministry of Revenue to hire mercenaries, and many of his soldiers were starving. But facing the Mongol elite cavalry swarming across the mountains, Zhou Shangwen drew his veteran's sword from his waist!"

On the screen, warhorses neighed, and the sound of metal tearing as swords clashed echoed throughout the studio.

Unlike other generals who resorted to scorched-earth tactics and cowered behind city walls, Zhou Shangwen established his main camp at Black Mountain! When Altan Khan's main force charged in, Zhou Shangwen personally donned his armor and led his Datong border troops in a brutal frontal assault against the seemingly invincible Mongol elite!

"This battle was extremely fierce. The Ming border troops withstood the Mongol charge with their bare hands. After several bloody battles, Zhou Shangwen, through extremely strong command and the desperate fighting of his rank-and-file soldiers, successfully defeated the invading Altan Khan's forces! The Mongol cavalry left behind a field of corpses and retreated north in disarray!"

The live stream chat exploded with comments.

"Awesome! The spirit of the Ming Dynasty is still intact!"

"This is the true shield of the nation! They can defeat Anda's main force even without money or food. If they had the equipment and pay of Qi Jiguang's army, Anda would have been wiped out long ago!"

"Hurry up and reward those who have rendered meritorious service! Grant them titles and ranks!"

"Rewarding those who have rendered meritorious service?"

Judy Jun let out a maniacal laugh that could have blown the roof off, a laugh filled with endless desolation and extremely malicious mockery. He turned abruptly and used a black marker to fiercely cross out Zhou Shangwen's name with a huge X.

"Family members, you are thinking with the logic of a normal country. But in the Ming Dynasty court of the twenty-third year of Jiajing's reign, Yan Song had just become the Grand Secretary, and Jiajing had just become obsessed with cultivating immortality. In their eyes, the border general's victory was a problem!"

Zhu Dijun moved closer to the camera, each word seeming to pierce the screen like a nail.

"Zhou Shangwen fought desperately on the front lines and achieved the great victory at Heishan, saving the situation in Datong. When the battle report reached the capital, Yan Song and the bureaucrats in the Ministry of War glanced at it and immediately shoved this blood-stained report into the dustbin of history!"

"No promotion! No reward! No imperial decree of commendation!"

Zhu Dijun slammed his hand on the table.

"Why didn't Yan Song reward him? Because Zhou Shangwen wasn't one of his Jiangxi clique members! After driving away Xia Yan, Yan Song became one of the leaders of the civil official group. For the sake of internal factional interests and the need for the Jiangnan civil official group to maintain the decadent state of the border to sustain the huge profits from smuggling, what reason do we have to embezzle military funds?! How are we supposed to sell salt and tea to the Mongols?!"

In a parallel Hongwu era of the Ming Dynasty.

As Zhu Yuanzhang listened to Tianmu's words, his withered hands gripped his thighs tightly, his nails digging into his flesh and drawing blood. His bloodshot eyes were fixed on Yan Song's portrait.

"These beasts... they won the battle but didn't reward them, instead treating them as a threat! They're forcing the soldiers on the front lines to die, to betray their country and betray their country!"

"Zhou Shangwen is a military general; how could he understand these dirty political calculations?"

Zhu Dijun's voice sank to the bottom, and the lights in the entire studio turned into an extremely oppressive dark gray.

"He defended Datong, but was utterly ignored by the court. His fervent patriotism was doused with ice water at minus thirty degrees Celsius. The following year, the twenty-fourth year of the Jiajing reign, this veteran general, who had spent his life on the frontier of the Ming Dynasty and had blocked Altan Khan's butcher's knife, died of depression in his military camp amidst frustration and despair!"

The barrage of comments fell silent, then erupted with a torrent of angry curses that could tear the screen apart.

"But there are still people in the Ming Dynasty who care about Zhou Shangwen."

Zhu Dijun tapped the corner of the whiteboard with his pointer, writing down a name buried by history—[Shen Shu, Censor-in-Chief].

"After Zhou Shangwen's death, Shen Shu, then serving as a censor, could no longer tolerate it. He could not bear such an extreme insult to a meritorious official of the state. He wrote an extremely poignant memorial and submitted it directly to the Western Garden, requesting the court to grant Zhou Shangwen the posthumous honors and compensation he deserved! He wanted the court to give an explanation to the soldiers guarding the borders!"

Did Jiajing and Yan Song give him an explanation?

Zhu Dijun's lips curled into a cold, demonic smile. He frantically typed on the keyboard, and a sinister prison gate, covered in bloody torture instruments, slammed onto the screen—[Jinyiwei Prison].

Yan Song whispered a sinister word in Jiajing's ear: "Shen Shu is currying credit for military officers, interfering in court affairs, and showing disrespect to Your Majesty!" Jiajing, the tyrannical emperor who spent his days indulging in toxic substances in the Wuyi Hall, immediately issued an edict: "Shen Shu is to be imprisoned and severely tortured!"

Judy Jun suddenly stood up, spread his arms, and let out a blood-curdling roar at the camera.

"Family members! Do you know how long Shen Shu was imprisoned in the imperial jail because of this memorial that sought justice for a meritorious official?!"

Four shocking blood-red characters flashed wildly on the screen!

Eighteen years!

"Eighteen years!!! Family members!! From the twenty-fourth year of Jiajing's reign, he was imprisoned until the forty-second year! The most precious half of his life was spent in the dark and gloomy imperial prison, in a cell full of rats and excrement! Just because he pleaded for a pension for a general who had won a battle!"

Zhu Dijun kicked over a chair next to him, and the loud crash echoed in the studio.

"This is the political ecosystem jointly created by the Ming Dynasty's civil service and the autocratic emperor! You can betray your country, engage in smuggling, and embezzle hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, yet you can become the Grand Secretary! You can fight for your country and seek justice for the loyal and virtuous, yet your fate is to die with your eyes wide open and eighteen years in prison!"

The viewers in the live stream completely broke down, with countless people's eyes reddening and their anger overwhelming the chat server.

"But God has eyes, or rather, karma comes incredibly fast!"

Zhu Dijun loosened his tie, panting heavily, and once again nailed the red laser pen in his hand to the timeline, pointing to the autumn of the twenty-third year of Jiajing's reign.

"You didn't reward Zhou Shangwen for his victory, but instead suppressed the border troops. Fine! Then you'll have to take responsibility for what you did next!"

"October of the twenty-third year of the Jiajing reign! Only three months had passed since the great victory at Black Mountain! Altan Khan discovered that the Ming Dynasty's fiercest generals were gone and the court was recklessly courting disaster, so he changed direction and launched a counterattack!"

An extremely thick black arrow, like a poisoned dagger, plunged directly from the Wanquan Right Guard on the map into the heart of the Ming Dynasty!

"The Right Guard of Wanquan has been breached! Without Zhou Shangwen, the Ming Dynasty's defenses are less than a sheet of paper! The Mongol cavalry have swept through the breach, plundering all the way! This time, they didn't linger on the border, but instead directly confronted the absolute heart of the Ming Empire—the capital!"

On the large screen, three large, blood-red characters, like an alarm, flashed wildly—【Martial Law in the Capital】!

"From October to November! Anda's army was burning, killing, and looting with impunity in the capital region! The gates of Beijing were tightly shut, and the entire city was in a state of extreme panic and emergency! The smoke from the beacon towers drifted directly into the alchemy furnace in the Wuyi Hall of the Western Garden!"

Zhu Dijun gripped the podium tightly, staring at the camera with a mocking, gleeful look in his eyes. "At this time, Jiajing was so terrified in the Western Garden that he couldn't even hold his elixirs properly. And Yan Song? Besides covering the emperor's hat with a veil and throwing loyal officials into prison, would he dare to go out of the city to meet the enemy?"

The screen then cuts to the devastation outside Beijing, with countless villages ablaze and Mongol cavalry swaggering in formation, laden with looted supplies.

"They invaded in October and retreated in November. Altan Khan plundered the capital for a month right under its nose, leaving nothing behind, and then calmly withdrew north as if walking through the city gates. Only then was the martial law in the capital lifted amidst deathly silence and humiliation."

The lights in the entire studio gradually dimmed.

Judy pulled up a chair and sat down heavily. He casually tossed the marker onto the table.

"The reason why the general was not rewarded was the imposition of martial law in the capital. This is the answer that Jiajing and Yan Song gave."

He leaned slightly forward, his voice low and deep, like a countdown from hell.

"But this is just a rehearsal. Six years later, an ultimate national calamity that will utterly disgrace the Ming Dynasty and break the backbone of the entire court is brewing deep in the grasslands."

"In this national crisis, Jiajing, Yan Song, and that group of civil officials must bear full responsibility. If it were the Ming Taizu during Jiajing's reign, holding military power, he would have wanted to grind them all to dust. No matter how much I despise the Buryat people, I have to admit that their system of undermining the emperor, the Manchu-Han balance of power, the secret memorial surveillance, the ideological purges, and the binding of interests—a five-pronged approach—completely transformed the civil officials who could 'co-govern' with the emperor or even stand up to him into professional managers and obedient lackeys of imperial power."

"The Ming History Case, the Imperial Examination Case, and the Lü Liuliang and Zeng Jing Case, among others, completely severed the civil service group."

"To deal with local tyrants and evil gentry: use the cases of reporting expenses and crying at temples to kill the leaders, then collect taxes, control the judiciary, prohibit the formation of parties, and impose collective punishment on the local baojia system, so as to turn the local tyrants from 'autonomous bigwigs' into 'honest landlords'."

• For smuggling rings: Cut off their foundation by relocating them to other areas and banning maritime trade; use naval force to suppress armed merchant pirates; establish a single-port trade system and a salt and iron monopoly to monopolize profits; and use severe punishments and collective liability to scare away anyone from forming smuggling groups.