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

The blinding darkness in the studio lasted only two seconds before the holographic screen suddenly lit up with a sharp electronic buzzer.

Zhu Dijun slammed his keyboard down, and a huge red and black contrasting EXE table was projected directly onto the retinas of all the viewers.

On the left side of the table were five large, blood-red characters: "[Land Tax in Silver]". On the right side were four large, jet-black characters: "[Single Whip Law]".

"Family members! Look closely at these two things!" Judy grabbed the pointer and slammed it hard on the dividing line in the center of the form, making a crisp cracking sound.

"The 'deadly tax law' I mentioned earlier in the 27th year of the Jiajing reign is the localized, albeit minor, measure implemented in Shanxi province—the 'land tax converted into silver'!"

He moved closer to the camera, speaking as fast as a storm.

"What is land tax converted into silver? In plain terms, it means that in the past, ordinary people paid taxes and grain, but now the government doesn't want grain anymore, they only accept cash! But the free hard labor that ordinary people are supposed to do hasn't been reduced at all, they still have to do it all the same!"

The pointer swung sharply to the right.

"And the 'Single Whip Law' on the right, I believe everyone has learned about it in their history textbooks. It was the great reform of Zhang Juzheng, the prime minister of the Wanli era! What did the reform include? It broke up all the land tax, corvée labor, and all sorts of miscellaneous levies and merged them together, uniformly calculating them based on the amount of land, collecting all the money in silver, and having the government handle everything!"

Zhu Dijun kicked the chair next to the podium aside and walked back to the whiteboard with a cold smile.

"Do you see the connection between these two? The land tax converted into silver in Shanxi in the 27th year of the Jiajing reign was basically a test version of Zhang Juzheng's Single Whip Law thirty years earlier! It was a transitional form that combined land tax and part of the corvée labor into silver in a localized manner, using the spirit of the Single Whip Law!"

He drew an extremely exaggerated black circle around the two characters "折银" (zhé yín, meaning "discounted silver") on the whiteboard.

"If it's just for the convenience of tax collection, it seems reasonable, right? But folks, let's consider the 'silver-for-military system' that was in place throughout the reign of Emperor Xiaozong of Ming—the old practice of paying border troops only in silver, not grain. If we look at Zhang Juzheng's 'Single Whip Law' from the darkest, most utilitarian conspiracy theory perspective, what do you think is really going to happen under that umbrella?!"

The live stream chat exploded with a flurry of comments, like a hornet's nest bursting open, with countless bright red comments filling the screen.

"Here it comes! Jun-ge's conspiracy theory about Zhang Juzheng's Single Whip Law!"

"This isn't a conspiracy theory at all! Zhang Juzheng was Xu Jie's student, and Xu Jie was a beast in human skin. We modern people can find out everything by checking the land annexation history of Songjiang Prefecture! If the teacher was such a scoundrel, how could the student be clean?!"

"Don't be influenced by those old-fashioned TV dramas! They're all just descendants of the civil service trying to whitewash Zhang Juzheng, just like they're whitewashing Yu Qian! When you look at history, just look at one thing: who benefits and who loses!"

"That's absolutely right! The Ming Dynasty's northwestern border defenses are in disarray, and Japanese pirates are rampant along the southeastern coast. The root cause is that the central government lacks economic and administrative control. If this whipping system didn't offer tremendous benefits to the entire civil service, would these old gentry who constantly spout ancestral rules have allowed it to be implemented nationwide?!"

[“Yan Shifan’s accusation against Zhang Juzheng in the drama that he harbored malicious intentions turned out to be a very true statement!”]

In a parallel universe of the Ming Dynasty, in the thirty-fourth year of the Jiajing reign.

Inside the study of the Yan family mansion, the air was thick with the luxurious scent of sandalwood. Yan Shifan, with his round belly protruding, stared intently at the sky above with his single eye, toying with two top-quality mutton-fat jade walnuts in his hand, which made a crisp, clattering sound as they collided.

Upon seeing the comments from future generations on the screen, Yan Shifan suddenly burst into unrestrained, maniacal laughter.

"Okay! Okay!"

Yan Shifan was so excited that his fat jiggled, and he slapped his hand on the rosewood table.

"Father, do you see? The eyes of future generations are discerning! Those self-proclaimed upright scholars, our Xu Jie who spouts righteousness and morality, and Zhang Juzheng who is praised to the skies, seem to have stabbed the Ming Dynasty in an irreversible and fatal blow!"

He snorted coldly, a sinister glint in his single eye.

"I told you long ago, Zhang Juzheng is a treacherous fellow! These upright officials are full of wicked and immoral men; no wonder they are hated to the core by later generations. Now I really want to see just how powerful his overhyped 'Single Whip Law' really is, and how much damage it can do to the Ming Dynasty!"

Standing by the window, Grand Secretary Yan Song's aged face remained expressionless. He first glanced towards the direction of the Western Garden of the Imperial Palace, then looked back at his smug son, his eyes filled with unfathomable cunning.

Yan Song knew all too well the cutthroat world of Ming Dynasty officialdom. He and his son, Yan Shifan, were certainly no saints; they were involved in all the dirty work—embezzlement, bribery, and eliminating dissidents. But they knew one bottom line—the Ming Dynasty could not fall. If the Ming Dynasty fell, where would they find such secure wealth?

They are truly despicable people; not only do they want to pocket money, but they also have to endure public condemnation to siphon military funds from the border for Jiajing.

And what about Xu Jie and his disciples, that so-called "pure stream" group?

Yan Song narrowed his eyes coldly. Judging from the fragments of information gleaned from the sky, Xu Jie and Zhang Juzheng, along with their ilk, not only intended to empty the national treasury but also to gain lasting fame by stepping on others. They wanted to have their cake and eat it too. This kind of greed, disregarding the fate of the nation, was the poison that would directly push the Ming Dynasty to its demise.

At this moment, inside the Wuyi Hall in the West Garden.

The Jiajing Emperor, dressed in a loose Taoist robe, sat slumped on a prayer mat. The dim light from the heavens above shone on his gaunt and thin face, making him appear extremely sinister.

He gripped a jade Buddhist prayer bead tightly with his fingers, his knuckles turning white.

Emperor Jiajing knew the ins and outs of the officials in the court very well. Yan Song and his son were greedy, but Yan Song was useful; he could bite people for him like an obedient old dog and could raise the funds to fight the Japanese pirates on the southeastern front.

And those so-called upright officials? Those officials and leaders of the upright officials who constantly talk about ancestral laws and the common people?

In his heart, Jiajing coldly uttered seven words: "A beast in human form and with the heart of a beast."

These people occupy hundreds of thousands of acres of fertile land in Jiangnan without paying a single penny in taxes, yet they turn around and criticize the emperor in court for wasting money on Taoist practices. If these people were to gain power and introduce some kind of comprehensive tax law that collects silver, the Ming Dynasty would likely be uprooted!

……

Inside the modern live broadcast room, Zhu Dijun's voice once again struck like a thunderbolt.

"Family members! To understand just how ruthless Zhang Juzheng's Single Whip Law was, we must dissect it within the context of the extremely dysfunctional economic environment of the Ming Dynasty!"

He turned around, picked up a red marker, and frantically drew huge arrows on the whiteboard, pointing directly at the words "Unified Cashier".

"Remember that term I mentioned in previous chapters? 'Cash crunch'!"

Judy Jun roared angrily.

"The Ming Dynasty didn't produce silver! Copper coins were over-issued and became scrap metal, while paper money became nothing more than toilet paper! Before the opening of trade during the Longqing era and the massive influx of silver from the Americas and Japan, the Ming people were extremely short of cash!"

He slammed his hand on the podium, bringing it close to the camera.

"What do ordinary people have? Only the grain they grow in the fields and the cloth they weave on their looms! In the past, when people paid taxes, they paid grain to the imperial court; this was called a tax in kind! No matter how much the price of silver rose, I paid one shi (a unit of dry measure) of rice as tax, and I could survive!"

"But the Single Whip Law and the subsequent conversion of land tax into silver completely overturned the table!"

Zhu Dijun's eyes were bloodshot, revealing a cruel understanding of history's cannibalistic nature.

"The imperial court has made it clear: I don't want your worthless grain! I only want piles of silver!"

On the big screen, the balance scale once again showed an extremely distorted inversion.

"Where can ordinary people get silver?! They can only push their grain to the city to exchange for it! At this time, who holds the power to set the price of silver in the Ming Dynasty?!"

Zhu Dijun slammed the names of three interest groups onto the whiteboard.

"The tax-free gentry of Jiangnan! The smuggling merchants! The local tycoons who lend money at exorbitant interest rates! They're all relatives and front men of these upright civil officials in the localities!"

"These bloodsuckers are ganging up to drive down prices! Normally, one shi (a unit of dry measure) of rice can be exchanged for one tael (another unit of silver). But when the common people are in a hurry to pay their taxes, they tell you directly: three shi of rice for one tael! Don't you want to exchange? If you don't, the government will chain you up and kill you tomorrow!"

The studio lights flickered violently, as if they were issuing a desperate cry for the common people of the Ming Dynasty.

"This is an ultimate financial plunder disguised as a reform!"

Judy Jun suddenly stood up straight, pulled open his collar,

"The common people have been exploited to the point of bankruptcy by the tax scissors, and after paying taxes, they don't even have enough food for winter. What can they do? They can only borrow money at exorbitant interest rates from these gentry who have money in their hands!"

"With interest compounding, they couldn't repay the loans the following year. These gentry, all smiles, took the IOUs and, for the price of a cow, seized all the fertile land passed down through generations of ordinary people!"

Zhu Dijun walked to the screen, pointed at Xu Jie's portrait, and let out a chilling laugh.

"Xu Jie was known as the leader of the Qingliu faction. After he retired and returned to his hometown of Songjiang Prefecture, guess how many acres of land he owned? A full 240,000 acres of fertile land! 240,000 acres, folks! All of this was obtained by exploiting the people through this bloodsucking system, ruthlessly squeezing them dry!"

In a parallel Hongwu era of the Ming Dynasty.

The imperial brush in Zhu Yuanzhang's hand was crushed to pieces with a "crack," and ink splattered all over his face.

"Two hundred and forty thousand mu..."

Zhu Yuanzhang's voice was hoarse, like sandpaper being rubbed, and his eyes shot out a murderous aura of mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

"Even a duke in our Great Ming Dynasty wouldn't dare to annex so much land! Such a traitor deserves to be skinned alive and stuffed with straw—that wouldn't even appease my hatred!"

"Future generations calling them beasts in human form is entirely justified! They deserve to die, they deserve to die!"

In a certain Yongle era.

Zhu Di stared at the 24 mu of land in the sky, his body trembling with rage. During his father's and his own reign, which corrupt official dared to embezzle 24 mu of land? The day after the Jinyiwei discovered it, they would confiscate the property and exterminate the family. But in the Jiajing era of later generations, the imperial power had declined, so they stopped pretending, right?

"Boss, don't you usually associate with civil officials? What's your opinion on this matter? These 24 mu of land..."

Zhu Gaochi's face turned pale. He thought that the civil officials would at most embezzle tens of thousands of acres of land, but who would have thought that they would directly embezzle a large amount, 24 acres! This caused so many people to lose their families and be separated from their spouses!

Zhu Gaochi answered through gritted teeth, feeling utterly humiliated. His descendants, who later called him the disastrous Ming emperor, were absolutely right.

"He deserves to be killed, skinned alive and stuffed into straw!"