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

The studio's cold lights cast extremely distorted shadows on the walls.

Zhu Dijun stood in front of the large screen and casually wiped away the ink marks on the whiteboard representing Xu Shen's death and the examination cheating scandal. He picked up a pure black marker and drew a shocking black vortex heavily on the southeastern coastal area of ​​the map.

"Family members! We just exposed the corruption on the northern border of the Ming Dynasty and the scheming within the Forbidden City. In the twenty-third year of Jiajing's reign, Altan Khan attacked Beijing. Yan Song held absolute power in the court, while Xu Jie acted like a subservient subordinate in the Ministry of Personnel."

Zhu Dijun's coaching pointer lashed hard at the port of Ningbo, Zhejiang.

"But do you think that's the end of it? The leaks in the Ming Empire have never been limited to just the north! In the twenty-third year of the Jiajing reign, the civil officials of Jiangnan and smuggling merchants joined forces on the southeast coast to officially begin the final meat grinder that plagued the Ming Empire for half a century!"

Four large, blood-red characters suddenly appeared on the screen: "Diplomatic Setback!"

"The Ming Dynasty had always adhered to a rigid rule of 'one tribute every ten years' for official tributary trade with Japan. As we mentioned earlier, the Ningbo Tribute Dispute broke out in the second year of the Jiajing reign, during which the Japanese directly killed officials and soldiers, burned, looted, and burned outside Shaoxing. After that incident, the Jiajing Emperor decisively severed official trade agreements with Japan."

Zhu Dijun's fingers flew across the keyboard as a yellowed diplomatic file was dragged to the center of the screen.

"The year is now the twenty-third year of the Jiajing reign! Japan is in great turmoil and desperately needs silk and ironware from the Ming Dynasty to survive. So, the Japanese delegation, with its shameless attitude, once again sailed to the waters off Zhejiang to demand tribute."

He drew a huge red cross on the whiteboard.

"But these Japanese came in a very perfunctory manner! They didn't bring any official documents, that is, the official letter of state! And it hadn't even been ten years since their last tribute mission! When the officials of the Ministry of Rites of the Ming Dynasty saw this, they immediately stood on the moral high ground, righteously invoking the laws of their ancestors, and very forcefully refused to let the Japanese tribute envoys in!"

The chat in the live stream started scrolling.

"The Ministry of Rites did a perfect job! The dignity of our Celestial Empire cannot be lost!"

"Trying to do business without your credentials? Throwing you out is too lenient!"

"No problem?"

Judy Jun let out an extremely harsh, cold laugh. He pulled up a chair and sat down heavily, his gaze piercing the camera like a blade.

"Family members, you've been fooled again by these civil officials who spout platitudes about benevolence and morality!"

"This tough diplomatic stance, on the surface, appears to be upholding the prestige of the Ming Dynasty. But what is it really?! With the Ministry of Rites closed, the channels for official and legitimate trade have been completely and permanently sealed off!"

The studio lights instantly switched to a somber, dark red.

"The official channels have been blocked, but Japan's extreme desire for Ming Dynasty goods has not disappeared, nor has the need to convert the silk and porcelain produced in Jiangnan into cash! Who will fill the profit vacuum in between?"

Zhu Dijun suddenly stood up, spread his arms, and roared at the screen.

"Smuggling rings! Maritime merchants! Large landowners! Major salt merchants!"

He frantically wrote down the names of these interest groups on the whiteboard.

"When legal channels are blocked, the exorbitant profits inevitably breed armed criminal gangs! The powerful families of Jiangnan are ecstatic! They have completely monopolized the pricing power of maritime trade by taking advantage of the maritime ban! A bolt of coarse silk shipped at sea can fetch ten times its original price!"

"To counter the Ming Dynasty's coastal defense patrols, even after a power grab during the Zhengde era, these smuggling tycoons, who were originally operating clandestinely, began openly recruiting soldiers for greater profits and to facilitate future double-crosses! They recruited bankrupt farmers, disillusioned scholars who failed the imperial examinations, and even paid large sums to hire desperate samurai as suicide squads in Kyushu, Japan!"

The scene on the screen switched to the turbulent East China Sea, where armed merchant ships flying the skull and crossbones flag moved out like a pack of wolves.

"Family members, don't forget the terrifying statistic I told you earlier! Three out of ten are genuine Japanese, and seven out of ten are fake!"

An uncontrollable rage surged in Judy Jun's eyes.

"This diplomatic refusal to pay tribute in the 23rd year of the Jiajing reign was the final finger pulling the trigger! From that moment on, the Ming Dynasty's southeastern coastal defense line completely collapsed. Smuggling rings and Japanese pirates completed an extremely bloody alliance. This was the true origin of the later era of the Great Wokou (Japanese pirates) that ravaged the coast and emptied dozens of prefectures and counties!"

In a parallel Hongwu era of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang gripped the edge of the imperial desk tightly, his knuckles turning white.

"What a clever tactic of feigning indifference! And what insatiable greed!"

The founding emperor gritted his teeth, his eyes filled with bloodthirsty killing intent.

"When Zhu Houzhao seized power from the Maritime Trade Office, Zhu Houcong used the maritime ban to close the door, and they ran their own illegal inns in the backyard. These gentry in Jiangnan, for the sake of money, threw the lives of their compatriots into the sea."

"This is the opening act of that great Japanese invasion, which lasted forty-four years in a broad sense and fifteen years in a narrow sense!"

Zhu Dijun loosened his tie and slammed the water glass on the table down heavily.

"They are harming their own compatriots and draining the lifeblood of their own dynasty!"

The live stream room was deathly silent, with only a barrage of profanities scrolling at the bottom of the chat.

"Was the Ming Dynasty utterly rotten? Absolutely rotten."

Zhu Dijun's voice suddenly turned low, carrying a sense of desolation as if a great building was about to collapse.

"In the north, Altan Khan's scimitars slaughtered cities, while in the south, the gentry of Jiangnan colluded with Japanese pirates to leech off the city. In the imperial court, the emperor cultivated immortality in the Western Garden and consumed red lead, the chief minister was frantically embezzling, and the upright officials were feigning death while scheming."

He grabbed the blackboard eraser and wiped away the dark coastal situation.

"But my family, the fate of China has never been completely severed by these vermin. When the upper echelons rotted into a stinking swamp, the lower echelons of the Ming Empire, in a pool of utter despair and bloodshed, gave birth to two steel blades sharp enough to pierce the heavens!"

Two extremely young portraits, yet exuding a murderous aura, were slammed directly into the center of the large screen.

"In the twenty-third year of the Jiajing reign! In the dark night of the Ming Dynasty, two brilliant generals simultaneously emerged in this incredibly magical year!"

Zhu Dijun slammed the pointer in his hand hard into the portrait on the left.

"First place! Dengzhouwei, Shandong!"

A row of golden information appeared—[Qi Jiguang]!

"In that very year, the seventeen-year-old Qi Jiguang, upon the death of his father, officially inherited the military post of Deputy Commander of Dengzhou Guard! He stepped onto the meat grinder of the Ming Dynasty's coastal defense, a machine that had already rusted and stalled!"

On the screen, a boy in a thin military uniform stands on the shore of the Bohai Bay, where the wind howls, his eyes piercing.

"Qi Jiguang was a true hereditary military household. He had no background, no powerful connections. When he took over the Dengzhou garrison, the military was in disarray, the soldiers were emaciated from hunger, and they couldn't even gather a single unrusted spear. But this seventeen-year-old boy, standing on the drill ground of the barracks, looking at the turbulent sea, etched ten words into his heart!"

Zhu Dijun recited the oath that shattered the ages, word by word.

"I do not desire titles and honors; I only wish for peace on the seas!"

"He didn't want to be a warlord, much less rely on killing innocent people to gain rewards from Yan Song! He just wanted the people along the coast to be able to eat their fill in peace!"

"In this extremely dilapidated military camp, he began to study coastal defense and to ponder battle formations. A few years later, on the battlefield of Longshan in Zhejiang, this young man achieved legendary status in a single battle! Facing the charging Japanese pirate army, he drew his bow and fired three arrows in quick succession, instantly killing three pirate leaders! Single-handedly, he stabilized the Ming army's retreating formation!"

The live stream chat exploded with comments.

"Grandpa Qi is awesome! He was already shouldering the responsibility of the nation's defense at the age of seventeen!"

"This is the true backbone of the Ming Dynasty! The civil officials are rotten to the core, but the spirit of the military generals is still alive!"

"If the spirit of the military generals hasn't died, does that mean all the civil officials are just beasts hiding behind the scenes, lining their own pockets?"

Zhu Dijun turned around abruptly, his pointer pointing directly at the portrait on his right.

"Second place! Debuted in the same year!"

【Tan Lun】!

"In the Jiajing 23rd year, the Jia Chen imperial examination! That was the very examination hall where Grand Secretary Zhai Luan's family produced two Jinshi (successful candidates in the highest imperial examinations), utterly disgracing the Ming Dynasty's civil service examinations. Amidst a group of useless officials who climbed the list through back channels and bribery, a true anomaly among the civil officials emerged!"

Zhu Dijun moved closer to the camera, his eyes filled with fervor.

"Tan Lun passed the imperial examination and became a Jinshi, initially serving as a principal officer in the Ministry of Rites in Nanjing, and later transferred to the Ministry of War! He should have been like other civil officials in Jiangnan, sitting in a grand chair, drinking tea and listening to opera, coldly watching the dead on the front lines. But!"

A heavy punch slammed onto the podium.

"When the Japanese pirates' matchlock muskets reached the gates of Nanjing, and when the Ming Dynasty's 100,000-strong garrison was being chased and hacked down by a few dozen pirates, Tan Lun, this scholar-official who wielded a pen, directly took off his official robes, put on iron armor, and volunteered to fight! He led his troops out of the city gates and decisively defeated this extremely arrogant armed pirate group!"

On the screen, the silhouette of Tan Lun drawing his sword and slashing angrily is contrasted with Qi Jiguang drawing his bow and nocking an arrow.

"This battle was a wake-up call for Tan Lun! He finally saw the mess the Ming army was in. From that day on, this civil official put down the Four Books and Five Classics and began to study military strategy to the death!"

"He later became the prefect of Taizhou in Zhejiang. Faced with a corrupt situation, he refused to take scraps from the imperial court. He personally recruited a new army from the people and established extremely harsh 'united forces law' and 'collective punishment law'! Anyone who dared to back down would be executed along with their entire family! He single-handedly built a 'Zhejiang Army' with explosive fighting power right under the noses of the civil service!"

"Not only was Tan Lun skilled in training troops, but he also possessed exceptional strategic vision! Despite pressure from the imperial court, he promoted tactics for annihilating the enemy on land and even constructed hollow watchtowers to strengthen city defenses. This defensive technology was later directly adopted by Qi Jiguang and used in the construction of the Great Wall in northern China!"

Zhu Dijun took two steps back, his cold, hard face exuding an extreme sense of oppression in the flickering light.

"One scholar and one military officer, in the darkest year of Jiajing's reign, the twenty-third year of his reign, they obtained their place in history."

He casually tossed the chalk into the bottom groove of the whiteboard.

"But do you really think that with Qi Jiguang and Tan Lun, the threat of Japanese pirates in the southeast could be easily resolved?"

Zhu Dijun looked at the camera, a cruel smile curving his lips.

"Don't be naive. In this super ironclad formation where Yan Song is in power, Xu Jie is patient, Jiajing is greedy for money, and the gentry of Jiangnan are colluding with the enemy, even the best generals often have their hands cut off from behind by their own people before they can even reach the enemy's neck."

He leaned forward, his voice deep and resonant, as if it came from the deepest hell.

"The Death of Xia Yan!"