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 screen was filled with a frenzied barrage of comments because of the question Zhu Dijun had posed.

[Here it comes! My favorite part: the Ming Dynasty conspiracy theory segment!]

[“Host, pull down your pants! I knew there wasn’t a single innocent civil official during the Jiajing era!”]

"Indeed, on paper, the 'Fourteen Strategies for Defending the Borders' are excellent policies for strengthening the army and benefiting the country. But in practice, what's needed for implementation is people! At that time, the Ming Dynasty's border troops and nobles, along with the civil service group, were all involved in smuggling! The so-called capable generals were of questionable character!"

"That's right! During the reign of Emperor Wuzong (Zhu Houzhao), there was a group of civil officials led by Yang Yiqing who were engaged in rampant smuggling. Now that Xia Yan is the Grand Secretary, does that mean he, a Jiangxi gang leader he elected, is innocent? Nonsense!"

Zhu Dijun stood in front of the big screen, watching the scrolling comments, a cold smile of extreme satisfaction curling at the corner of his mouth.

He grabbed the blackboard eraser and roughly wiped away Xia Yan's tragic figure from the whiteboard. Then, with a black marker, he wrote four large characters heavily: "[Cleansing and Seizing Power]!"

"Family members, the veteran fans in the comments are getting more and more sophisticated! Today, we're going to dissect Xia Yan's historically renowned 'Fourteen Strategies for Border Defense' with the darkest and most ruthless scalpel of self-interest, bit by bit, and show it to you!"

Zhu Dijun's pointer slammed hard onto the screen.

"After Xia Yan's return to power, he strongly advocated the Fourteen Strategies, the core of which boils down to two points: carefully select generals and ministers, and ensure logistical support! Ostensibly, this means sending money and grain to Datong and Xuanfu, and replacing them with capable generals to reclaim the Hetao region. Doesn't that sound exciting?"

He moved closer to the camera, his eyes full of mockery.

"But from a conspiracy theory perspective, this isn't about building a strong military at all; it's a massive scheme to undermine imperial power and completely monopolize border interests!"

As the large screen displayed the map of Datong and Xuanfu, two important military towns, it was magnified infinitely, densely marked with trade routes and checkpoints for the tea-horse trade.

"First and foremost! Control your cash flow!"

Zhu Dijun pressed his hands firmly on the podium. "What kind of place is Datong and Xuanfu? It's not only part of the Great Wall defense line, but also the core area of ​​the largest official and semi-official tea-horse trade market in the Ming Dynasty! To put it bluntly, it was a smuggling hub!"

"In his fourteen policies, Xia Yan made an extremely forceful demand: the imperial court must provide these two towns with money and grain on a regular and fixed basis. Ostensibly, this was for military supplies, but in reality? He wanted to use the guise of 'military expenses' to forcibly establish a massive financial channel directly controlled by the Grand Secretary!"

"Secondly! Place your trusted confidants in power!"

A huge circle was drawn on the whiteboard with a red laser pointer.

"What does 'carefully selecting generals' mean? The unspoken message in the Ming Dynasty's officialdom is: find excuses to purge all the disobedient generals who don't belong to the Jiangxi clique or the Jiangnan civil official interest chain! Replace them with Xia Yan's own people!"

Zhu Dijun roared at the top of his lungs:

"Once the military power and the enormous financial resources allocated by the imperial court in Datong both fall into the hands of Xia Yan's faction, will this border army still be the Ming Dynasty's defense force? No! It will directly become a private army that only obeys the Grand Secretary, or even a legitimate official armed smuggling team!"

In a parallel Zhengde era of the Ming Dynasty.

Emperor Wuzong of Ming, Zhu Houzhao, sat on the carpet in the Leopard Chamber, slamming his wine cup heavily onto the table.

He let out a sneer of utter disdain: "What a clever tactic of feigning one step while secretly taking another! Back then, Yang Yiqing and his gang of old dogs were smuggling in Shaanxi, Gansu, and Ningxia under the guise of strengthening the border defenses. When I personally led troops to Yingzhou to fight, it was precisely to seize back the military power and smuggling channels from those civil officials! That idiot Zhu Houcong almost had his very defenses stripped bare!"

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's speech grew faster and faster, like a rapid drumbeat of war.

"That's not all! The third point is covering up the deficit!" Judy Jun slammed his hand on the podium.

"It's an open secret that the Ming Dynasty's border troops are drawing salaries without working and engaging in smuggling! Now, in order to 'restore the border system,' the court has suddenly allocated a massive amount of special military funds. Do you really think this money will turn into rations and swords for the soldiers?"

"No! Once this huge sum of money arrives at its destination, it will most likely be used directly to fill the bottomless pit left by previous smuggling and corruption, and the rest will all flow into the private pockets of the Jiangnan interest group and the border generals!"

A portrait of a resolute military general was dragged to the center of the screen—Zeng Xian!

"Let's take a look at the two main protagonists on the front lines of this 'recapture the Tao' drama. Zeng Xian, the Governor-General of Shaanxi's Three Border Regions, is the direct commander of the Tao reclamation plan and also Xia Yan's closest ally in the military!"

A sharp glint of insight, as if he had seen through the mystery, flashed in Zhu Dijun's eyes.

"Was Zeng Xian's frequent military campaigns against the Mongols truly motivated by loyalty to the country? Conspiracy theories suggest that his wars were more akin to using force to purge the borders and completely monopolize the smuggling trade routes in the Hetao region! He was using military achievements and imperial resources to solidify his faction's gray income network!"

Immediately afterwards, another portrait of a military general was smashed next to Zeng Xian—that of Qiu Luan.

"Qiu Luan! This border general who later betrayed Xia Yan and Zeng Xian, and directly surrendered to Yan Song. Historical records say he was framed by a villain. But why did he switch sides?!"

Judy Jun drew a sharp cross between the two men with her red pen, a symbol of rift. "Because of unequal distribution of the spoils! Because of double-crossing!"

"It's highly likely that Qiu Luan discovered that Xia Yan's implementation of the 'Fourteen Policies for Border Defense' was an attempt to seize all the interests at the border and bring them under the direct control of the cabinet's civil service! Even Xia Yan's demand for 'military discipline rectification' directly threatened the livelihoods of local bullies like Qiu Luan! Seeing that there was no meat to be eaten, Qiu Luan gritted his teeth and went to Yan Song to inform on them! This wasn't some righteous exposé at all; it was an extremely ugly infighting after the spoils had broken down!"

The chat room exploded with comments at that moment.

"Holy crap!! This is the true operating logic of the Ming Dynasty court!"

"So the war is just to monopolize smuggling routes? That's insane!"

["Qiu Luan: You want to take it all for yourself? Then I'll flip the table and we'll all die together!"]

"Yes, from a conspiracy theory perspective, this is the real truth behind Xia Yan and Zeng Xian's murders. There were major victories in subspace during the reign of Emperor Wuzong of Ming, but there won't be a similar subspace victory during the Jiajing era. Anyway, Jiajing wouldn't go to the front lines to check the accounts."

"Family members, if we only consider the struggle for military and financial power, Xia Yan is at most a prime minister who craves power. But he has overlooked an extremely fatal political context!"

Zhu Dijun abruptly stood up, and the studio lights instantly switched to a suffocating blood red. On the whiteboard, he wrote four words that would send shivers down the spine of the Ming Emperor—[The Renyin Palace Coup]!

"Let's rewind the clock a few years. In the twenty-first year of the Jiajing reign, a palace maid nearly strangled the emperor with a knotted rope. Where was Xia Yan that year? He was living in seclusion, or rather, he was handling military affairs in the north!"

Zhu Dijun braced his hands on the table, his eyes like those of a hawk.

"After being strangled, Jiajing was so frightened that he hid in the West Garden, feeling extremely insecure. He wasn't just wary of the harem, but also of the outer court! What kind of place is the border? It's the hub of intelligence exchange. Were there any secret collusions between the border generals and powerful figures in the palace, such as Empress Fang, or certain close eunuchs?"

"What would the Emperor think? Jiajing looked at Xia Yan's return to power, at his grasp of the cabinet, and at his vigorous promotion of Zeng Xian to control the border troops. In Jiajing's eyes, which were suffering from severe paranoia, Xia Yan was an extremely terrifying ultimate monster—a usurper minister who had troops outside and allies inside!"

In a parallel Jiajing era of the Ming Dynasty.

Inside the Wuyi Hall, the aged and frail Jiajing Emperor stared intently at the sky. His breathing was rapid, and a terrifying light flashed in his cloudy eyes.

"He didn't die in vain... I didn't kill the wrong person!"

Jiajing roared through gritted teeth, his withered fingers gripping a whisk, his knuckles white.

"He wants military power, he wants financial power, and he's still having an affair with those beasts in the palace who want me dead. If he doesn't die, the Ming Dynasty will be ruled by the Xia!"

"What was Jiajing's initial attitude towards the recapture of the Hetao region? He agreed!"

Zhu Dijun's voice echoed in the hall, "At first, he only wanted to test the waters at the border. But when he discovered that Xia Yan was actually going to start selecting generals and allocating massive amounts of funds, Jiajing panicked completely and was furious!"

"Once this money is allocated and this army is formed, it will be completely free from the control of the imperial power! This will be a 'military-financial complex' that is not subject to the emperor's control!"

Zhu Dijun pulled over a chair and sat down heavily, his face hidden in the dark green shadows.

"At this critical juncture, Yan Song, that old viper who had always played the subservient role, accurately saw through the emperor's extreme fear!"

"Yan Song, carrying Qiu Luan's letter of denunciation, went to the West Garden and whispered in Jiajing's ear: 'Xia Yan is making connections with close attendants and amassing military power. That's enough.'"

Zhu Dijun sneered and casually tossed the chalk onto the table.

"Xia Yan's death was not some clichéd story of a loyal minister being framed by a treacherous official. It was the ultimate showdown between the imperial power and the prime minister's power in the highest power arena of the Ming Empire, as they attempted to seize military power. Xia Yan overstepped his bounds; he touched Jiajing's extremely sensitive nerve of death. And Yan Song was merely the executioner who understood his boss's mood and handed him a knife."

On the big screen, the image of Xia Yan being executed in the marketplace gradually faded, and Yan Song's face, covered with age spots and with an extremely sinister smile, slowly filled the entire screen.