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

The cold blue light from the studio cast a glaring reflection on the whiteboard. Zhu Dijun casually loosened his tie, walked to the holographic keyboard, and heavily tapped the Enter key several times.

"Family members, when faced with massive amounts of historical data, we modern people like to use top-tier AI software like Doubao, KIMI, and Qianwen to run models and search for information. Today, I'm going to feed the AI ​​the 'Color Conversion Method' from the Ming Xiaozong era and Zhang Juzheng's much-hyped 'Single Whip Method' from the Wanli era!"

Zhu Dijun suddenly raised his head, his eyes revealing an extreme coldness that seemed to have seen through hundreds of years of cannibalistic history.

"When we strip away the eulogistic facade of historical records and examine this so-called great tax reform through the lens of pure self-interest, conspiracy theories, and the extreme evil of human nature, what conclusions do we reach?"

Seven enormous, blood-red beams of light crashed down from the holographic screen, like seven nails that would kill off the fate of the Ming Dynasty!

"This is a seven-fold meat grinder that, under the guise of reform, is ruthlessly exploiting the common people and imperial power of the Ming Dynasty!" Zhu Dijun grabbed his pointer and lashed it hard at the first beam of light.

"Firstly! Exploiting a loophole in color-coded price comparisons, the official platform profits from both sides!"

"The 'grain-silver conversion method' implemented during the reign of Emperor Xiaozong of Ming established an extremely absurd fixed price for grain! In years of plenty, when grain should be cheap, the government would collect silver instead of grain, forcing ordinary people to sell their grain at rock-bottom prices for silver, paying several times more in blood and sweat! In years of famine, when grain prices skyrocketed, the government still collected taxes in silver at the old, high price!"

Zhu Dijun zoomed in on the camera, his roar echoing through the hall. "Zhang Juzheng's Single Whip Law was even more vicious! It tied all taxes and corvée labor to silver, completely eliminating the last resort for ordinary people to pay taxes in kind! From then on, the court colluded with grain and silver merchants, manipulating the grain-silver price ratio to carry out the most cruel and normalized exploitation of the lower classes!"

The parallel universe of the Ming Dynasty.

Inside the Grand Secretary's office, Zhang Juzheng, who had been basking in the glory of his new policies, suddenly dropped his vermilion pen onto the desk with a "thud." He stared intently at the sky, his forehead beaded with cold sweat.

"Two-way harvesting...abolishing the escape route..."

Zhang Juzheng trembled. He hadn't expected his scheme to be seen through, and he knew that once the people couldn't pay their grain taxes, the pricing power would fall entirely into the hands of those unscrupulous merchants and local gentry!

Now that his plans have been exposed, how can he carry out the plans of the Jiangnan gentry?

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's pointer had already struck the second beam of light.

"The second level! Monopolizing distribution and controlling the nation's economic lifeline!"

"Does the Ming Dynasty produce silver domestically?! Absolutely not! It's extremely reliant on overseas inflows! Who holds these massive amounts of silver? It's the wealthy smugglers along the coast! It's the powerful officials in the imperial court! It's the tax-exempt gentry group in Jiangnan!"

Judy Jun drew a giant death loop on the whiteboard.

"During Emperor Xiaozong's reign, at least there was some physical circulation as a buffer. The Single Whip Law directly collected silver from the entire country! This was tantamount to the court forcing all the poor people in the country to pay taxes with silver monopolized by the powerful and wealthy! This was deliberately creating a shortage of silver among the people and driving up the price of silver! The common people had no silver to pay taxes, so they could only borrow from loan sharks and eventually sell their land and become tenant farmers! The gentry took the opportunity to seize land and made a fortune!"

The live stream chat was instantly filled with a dense barrage of angry comments.

"Holy crap! Financial warfare! A capital harvesting scheme in the Ming Dynasty!"

"Controlling the issuance and pricing of currency is tantamount to slaughtering ordinary people like pigs!"

"The Yuan Dynasty's tax farming system has reappeared! Damn it, these civil officials deserve to die!"

"You think this is the end?"

Judy Jun let out a chilling laugh.

"The third layer! Overtly deducting taxes while covertly increasing them—hidden taxes are ripping off ordinary people!"

"The Single Whip Law, under the guise of equalizing taxes and corvée labor, superficially merged the exorbitant levies and miscellaneous taxes. But what was it really like?! As soon as the old levies were abolished, local officials would immediately come up with new ones! Fire loss fee, silver fee, transportation fee!"

"Originally, ordinary people only paid land tax in silver, but after the reforms, all sorts of poll taxes were crammed into the land tax. The poor had less land, and their burden increased in a disguised way. And what about the landlords and gentry? They colluded with local officials and frantically concealed their land holdings! The poor paid more and more, while the rich didn't contribute a penny, and the gap between the rich and the poor widened dramatically!"

A parallel Hongwu era of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang overturned the imperial desk in front of him, scattering memorials all over the floor.

"This is outrageous! These civil officials are outrageous!"

Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes were bloodshot, like a raging lion. "The lijia system we established was precisely to prevent them from annexing our land! That scoundrel Zhang Juzheng is just finding ways to plunder the people's wealth for those landlords in Jiangnan!"

"Speaking of the Lijia system!"

Zhu Dijun's voice suddenly rose, and the pointer struck the fourth beam of light.

"The fourth layer of the deadly trap! Undermining the grassroots and sowing the seeds of national subjugation!"

"In the early Ming Dynasty, the imperial power could directly control the grassroots through taxation in kind and personal service! The Single Whip Law replaced service with silver, so ordinary people no longer had to perform military service. The grassroots administrative system of village heads and townships completely collapsed and became ineffective! The imperial court directly lost the power to allocate manpower and resources among the people!"

Zhu Dijun pressed his hands firmly against the podium.

"This is the civil service deliberately weakening imperial power! Under the guise of reform, they've consolidated all local financial power into their own hands, completely undermining the emperor! They've dug the deepest pit for the insane factional strife and regional separatism that will plague the late Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty!"

In the scene, the Jiajing Emperor sits on a futon in the Wuyi Hall, a sinister smirk playing on his lips.

"I knew it all along..."

Jiajing gritted his teeth and gripped the jade prayer beads tightly.

"These self-righteous officials spout nonsense about the well-being of the people, but deep down they're all after my power! They're turning the control over grain into the control over silver, and human rights into the control over money! What excellent students Xu Jie has taught them!"

The red lights in the studio were flashing wildly, and Zhu Dijun's analysis was incisive, directly cutting away the last fig leaf covering up the Ming Dynasty's finances.

"The fifth layer! Binding to border defense, shifting the deadlock!"

"All the holes in the imperial court, the enormous military expenditures in the border towns, and the expenses of hundreds of thousands of imperial relatives who multiply like pigs. The court dares not collect taxes from the powerful and wealthy, so it converts them all into silver through the Single Whip Law, pressing down on the spines of the common people! Using the last drop of blood from the bottom of society to support this group of unproductive good-for-nothings!"

He suddenly turned around and used a black pen to draw a skull representing death in the center of the whiteboard!

"The sixth layer! The ultimate nuclear bomb that will send the Ming Dynasty straight to the guillotine—completely abandoning material reserves!"

"During Emperor Xiaozong's reign, grain reserves had already been reduced. After the Single Whip Law fully implemented the collection of silver, grain reserves in the national treasury and local granaries plummeted!"

Zhu Dijun moved closer to the camera, his eyes filled with a mixture of extreme pleasure and sorrow.

"Family! Can you eat silver?! When there's a severe drought or locust plague, and the fields yield no harvest, the national treasury is piled high with silver, but you can't even buy a single grain of rice on the market!"

A parallel Chongzhen era of the Ming Dynasty.

The old, crooked tree on Coal Hill swayed in the wind. Emperor Chongzhen, Zhu Youjian, stared intently at the sky, his entire body seemingly drained of its lifeblood, and collapsed to the ground in despair.

"I have no grain... I can't buy any more grain in my granaries..."

Emperor Chongzhen wailed, tears mingling with blood as they streamed down his face. "So that's how it is... Zhang Juzheng! All you collected through the Single Whip Law were piles of inedible scrap metal! Li Zicheng has reached the gates of Beijing, and I can't even scrape together a single meal to relieve the starving people or distribute to the defending troops!"

"No food reserves! Natural disasters would lead to peasant uprisings! Wars would result in military defeats! The Single Whip Law was the most direct death warrant for the Ming Dynasty!"

"The Seventh Layer! A Feast of Corruption Across the Entire Chain!"

"Accepting goods in kind is easier to audit. Accepting silver? That leaves too much room for manipulation! From local land surveying to the common people handing over small amounts of silver, and then to the government melting down the silver to cast ingots and sending them to the capital, every step of the process involves rampant deductions for waste and falsification of tax amounts!"

"This isn't reforming corrupt practices! It's clearly a top-down, seamless, complete silver-based corruption chain tailored specifically for the civil service!"

The studio lights suddenly went out, leaving only an oppressive crimson glow.

Zhu Dijun pulled over a chair, sat down heavily, and breathed heavily.

"Family members, the conclusion is clear. Considering the Ming Xiaozong Emperor's tax reform, the Single Whip Law was not a panacea for saving the crisis at all. It was a thorough and deep form of exploitation carried out by the ruling class through the monetization of taxes."

He leaned slightly forward, delivering his final verdict in a chillingly calm tone.

"Monopolizing the silver economy, depleting the country's grain reserves, shifting the fiscal crisis, favoring local tyrants and nobles, and exploiting the lower classes. What appeared to be a tax reform was actually the result of these hypocrites accumulating wealth and sowing the seeds of the Ming Dynasty's downfall."

"And all of this was a partial preview in the twenty-seventh year of the Jiajing reign, as we mentioned earlier."

Zhu Dijun casually tossed the pointer onto the table, making a dull thud.

The numbers and tables on the big screen vanished instantly, transforming into a vast, turbulent ocean with dark clouds looming over the city.

"The seeds of fiscal collapse have been sown. Now, let's shift our focus from the cannibalistic ledgers back to the real battlefield littered with mangled limbs."

Zhu Dijun's eyes sharpened, and he stared intently at the camera.

"In the 28th year of the Jiajing reign, due to the repeated breaches of the maritime ban and the tragic death of Zhu Wan, the last line of defense along the southeastern coast of the Ming Dynasty was completely destroyed. Wang Zhi, the maritime overlord who called himself the owner of the Five Peaks Ship and commanded tens of thousands of desperate men, led his Japanese ronin army and officially brandished his blood-dripping butcher's knife towards the heartland of the Jiangnan region of the Ming Dynasty."