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

The studio screen had been frozen on the turbulent southeastern sea when Zhu Dijun suddenly slammed his hand on the holographic keyboard.

The ear-piercing sound of brakes rang out in the live stream, and the entire screen was abruptly cut off, rewinding to a suffocating crimson.

"Alright, everyone!" Zhu Dijun slammed his hands on the podium, panting heavily, his eyes gleaming with an almost neurotic excitement. "Before digging deeper into the Japanese pirate raids of the 28th year of the Jiajing reign, I almost missed an extremely terrifying and insidious final bombshell!"

He grabbed a pure black marker, turned around, and wrote four large characters heavily on the whiteboard: "[The Death of Empress Fang]!"

"We previously discussed the 26th year of the Jiajing Emperor's reign, mentioning Zeng Xian's demand for over 20 million taels of silver for military expenses in the Northwest, Zhu Wan's campaign against pirates in the Southeast, and the Ming Dynasty's financial ruin. However, at the end of that year, within the Forbidden City, which resembled a giant morgue, a bloody incident occurred that vividly demonstrated the Jiajing Emperor's cruelty and cunning!"

On the large screen, a timeline accurate to the day unfolded like a dripping, sharp blade.

"On the fifth day of the eleventh month of the twenty-sixth year of the Jiajing reign! The third empress of the Ming Dynasty, Empress Fang, who also pulled Jiajing out of the noose during the Renyin Palace Coup and saved the emperor's life, suddenly found her palace, Kunning Palace, engulfed in flames!"

Zhu Dijun moved closer to the camera, his speech as rapid as a rapid war drumbeat.

"On the 18th day of the 11th month of the 26th year of the Jiajing reign! Thirteen days after the fire, Empress Fang, severely injured and terrified, breathed her last! Two years later, in the 3rd month of the 28th year of the Jiajing reign, Crown Prince Zhu Zairi died suddenly!"

He drew a circle on the whiteboard with his pointer, tightly encircling the fire, Empress Fang, and the Crown Prince.

"Are these two events connected? On the surface, no! But what does it say in official history? The 'Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty' clearly states that a fire broke out in the palace, and Empress Fang died of shock. Emperor Jiajing was devastated and gave her a grand funeral befitting his first wife! She was posthumously honored as Empress Xiaolie, and Jiajing even went so far as to defy the entire court to elevate Empress Fang's ancestral tablet to the Imperial Ancestral Temple!"

Zhu Dijun let out a loud laugh that could blow off the roof, and casually smashed a copy of the "Ming Shilu" (Veritable Records of the Ming Dynasty) on the ground.

"So affectionate?! So touching?! He's practically the perfect man ever! But!"

The studio lights suddenly went out, leaving only a dim red light shining on half of his face.

"Family members, if you read the history of the Ming Dynasty, especially the history of the Jiajing reign, and actually believe this kind of nonsense, you won't even know how you died! Let's take a look at the chilling hellish scenes recorded in those unofficial histories from the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, such as 'Mingshan Cang' and 'Shengchao Tongshi Shiyi Ji'!"

The holographic screen suddenly exploded, and towering flames raged wildly on the glazed tiles of Kunning Palace, while the woman's shrill screams faintly pierced through the screen.

"Late at night on the fifth day of the eleventh month, a great fire broke out! The fire was extremely fierce! The eunuchs and palace maids were terrified and knelt outside the Wuyi Hall, desperately kowtowing and begging the Jiajing Emperor to issue an edict to dispatch the Imperial Guards to put out the fire!"

Zhu Dijun's face was close to the camera, mimicking an extremely cold-blooded and indifferent tone: "What did Jiajing say when his savior's palace was engulfed in flames?"

He coldly gazed at the towering flames and uttered eight words: "[This is Heaven's will, why defy it?] He added: "[Burn it down and rebuild it.]"

At that moment, viewers across the internet collectively gasped in shock.

"He damn well ordered no rescue! The imperial guards on the outer perimeter remained stationary, and even the water carts that were originally placed on the east side to fight the fire were inexplicably moved away before the fire even started!"

"Empress Fang was trapped in the sea of ​​fire, listening to the deathly silence outside. She knew that the emperor, who usually shared her bed, was standing not far away watching her be burned alive!"

"Afterwards, looking at the ruins of Kunning Palace, Jiajing left behind only one famous saying: 'The Empress saved me, but I could not save the Empress.'"

In a parallel universe of the Ming Dynasty.

The Jiajing Emperor sat on a prayer mat in the Wuyi Hall, his hand crumpling the prayer paper into a ball of trash. He stared intently at the image of his future descendant on the celestial screen, his withered face twitching violently.

He still remembers the temperature of that fire very clearly.

"Insolence... Judi Jun, how dare you presume to know my will!"

Jiajing gritted his teeth and growled, but in his bloodshot eyes there was no anger, only extreme guilt at being completely stripped naked.

The chat room was completely dumbfounded.

"Holy crap! Using someone else's fire to kill his wife?! That's insane!"

"My savior! Without Empress Fang, Jiajing would have been strangled to death by those palace maids!"

"The art of rulership is truly cold-blooded to the extreme!"

"Why kill Empress Fang?!"

Zhu Dijun suddenly stood up straight, and with a red marker, he drew a thick arrow on the whiteboard, pointing directly to—[The Southern Inspection Tour of Chengtian!][The Renyin Palace Coup]!

"Family members! You haven't really forgotten who died in the Renyin Palace Coup, have you? As I mentioned before, Empress Fang was a ruthless character! Taking advantage of the opportunity to quell the assassination attempt, she didn't even bother to investigate, and directly had Consort Cao, Jiajing's most favored concubine who hadn't participated in the assassination, executed on the spot by slow slicing on charges of being the mastermind!"

Zhu Dijun frantically tapped the screen.

"When Jiajing awoke, he learned the truth. Consort Cao had been tortured to death, and his heart was bleeding with pain! But could he vent it? No! Because Empress Fang had just saved his life, and with the immense merit of suppressing the rebellion, all the civil officials in the outer court were praising the Empress's virtue!"

"Moreover, without Xu Shen saving his life, he would have died long ago. During that palace coup, Empress Fang could have been promoted to Empress Dowager Fang!"

"Not to mention the even earlier 'Southern Tour to Chengtian,' in which Empress Fang was also a participant."

"Jiajing kept this bitter pill to swallow for five whole years! A full five years! Every day he watched the murderer who killed his beloved woman lord it over the palace, and he had long since sharpened a boning knife in his heart!"

Zhu Dijun pulled up a chair and sat down, his eyes filled with a chilling sarcasm.

"But do you think that Jiajing's refusal to help a concubine in distress was merely out of jealousy and revenge? Wrong! To reduce palace intrigue to mere jealousy is a low-level trope from Qing Dynasty dramas! In the Ming Dynasty, every drop of blood in the harem was directly linked to the vast political empire of the civil service!"

He grabbed the blackboard eraser and slapped it onto the whiteboard.

Let's delve into the ultimate political attributes of the Ming Dynasty's imperial harem!

The titles of the five women were nailed to the whiteboard with a blood-red marker.

"The Zhou family of Emperor Zhu Qizhen, the God of War! The Wang family of Emperor Chenghua, Zhu Jianshen! The Zhang family of Emperor Hongzhi, Zhu Youcheng! The Xia family of Emperor Zhengde, Zhu Houzhao!"

Zhu Dijun pressed his hands firmly against the podium, staring intently at the camera.

"Family members, as I mentioned before, some people are still sending me private messages asking the same question. So let me repeat it again: Do you see the commonalities among these empresses? Every single one of them is a super spy and political partner, carefully selected by the civil service and planted next to the emperor!"

The parallel Zhengde era of the Ming Dynasty.

Upon seeing the words "Xia Shi," Zhu Houzhao crushed the wine cup in his hand, the shards of porcelain piercing his palm, and blood dripping onto the imperial desk.

"My Empress Xia..."

Zhu Houzhao sneered, his eyes filled with malice. He knew all too well that during their wedding, those civil officials treated him like a thief, forcibly shoving this emotionless woman into his bedchamber, and every move she made was recorded.

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's voice was like a chilling wind from hell.

"The emperor's harem, especially in the Ming Dynasty, had no secrets! I said during the Renyin Palace Coup, how could a few palace maids possibly obtain a thick silk rope? How could they possibly bypass layers of guards to strangle the emperor? It was all the work of civil officials in the outer court and smuggling interest groups!"

"Empress Fang had no children, but she controlled the internal affairs of the harem, appointed eunuchs, placed imperial physicians in her service, and even maintained close ties with certain civil officials in the outer court! This violated Jiajing's absolute taboo!"

Zhu Dijun drew a huge cross over Empress Fang's name.

"What is Jiajing afraid of?! If Empress Fang were allowed to live until the 28th year of Jiajing's reign, until Crown Prince Zhu Zairi had fully come of age, this stepmother who controlled the harem, once she joined forces with the Crown Prince, and with the encouragement of the civil officials in the outer court, they could absolutely and legitimately force him to abdicate, completely sidelining that immortal emperor who spent his days in the Western Garden and never held court!"

"A replay of the events of Emperor Xiaozong and Emperor Xianzong of the Ming Dynasty!"

Judy Jun suddenly stood up, ripped open his collar, and stared at the screen with a fanatical gaze.

"Therefore, Jiajing had to take action! And he had to do it flawlessly! Starting in the twenty-fifth year of Jiajing's reign, this old man who cultivates immortality began his scheme!"

"He gradually distanced himself from Empress Fang, dismissed her trusted eunuchs, and replaced her with his own people as imperial physicians! The floor tiles in Kunning Palace became loose, the lights were abnormal, and various supernatural events occurred frequently. Jiajing was laying the groundwork for an atmosphere of 'divine retribution' for the whole country! After all, he had been burned down so many times, he had learned from his experience."

"Until November of the 26th year of the Jiajing reign, a fire of unknown origin was used to remove the waterwheels and stop the Imperial Guards! A perfectly planned locked-room murder was thus brought to a close!"

The live stream fell into complete silence. There were no comments, only the constantly fluctuating number of viewers. Everyone's worldview was utterly shattered by this extremely meticulous, ruthless, and nauseatingly sophisticated logic of court politics.

"This is the ultimate stranglehold between the civil service and extreme imperial power!"

Zhu Dijun slammed his hand heavily on the table.

"Empress Fang is dead, and the highest-ranking informant of the civil service in the inner palace has been completely eradicated! Jiajing not only avenged himself, but also successfully silenced public opinion and maintained his disgusting image of being 'loyal and righteous' through an extravagant funeral!"

Zhu Dijun took two steps back and coldly watched the gradually dying flames on the screen.

"The obstacles in the harem have been cleared. But this meat grinder of the Ming Dynasty has only just begun to grind its blades until they gleam with a bloody white light."

He leaned forward slightly, a chilling smile curving his lips.

Two years after Empress Fang's death, in March of the 28th year of the Jiajing reign, in the Forbidden City, which had lost its last check and balance, the 14-year-old Crown Prince Zhu Zairi, who had just undergone his coming-of-age ceremony and should have smoothly inherited the throne, suddenly died without warning, bleeding from all seven orifices in the Eastern Palace!

Four large, black characters—【Crown Prince's Sudden Death】—slammed onto the holographic screen like a death knell.

Zhu Dijun's eyes were sinister, and he lowered his voice extremely.

"Empress Fang is dead, and the foundation of the Ming Dynasty is crumbling. My family, how many more ruthless monsters are still lurking within the Forbidden City?"