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

The oppressive darkness of the studio was ripped apart by a piercing alarm. The holographic screen exploded, revealing a turbulent, deep blue sea, with a scarlet coordinate axis locked firmly on the coastline of Fujian.

"Family members! It is the 28th year of the Jiajing reign of the Ming Dynasty!"

Zhu Dijun pressed his hands firmly on the podium, violently ripped off his tie and threw it at his feet, his eyes revealing a fanatical desire to overturn all past grievances.

"We've just exposed the true state of the central government's finances; now, we must confront this dying state apparatus with its most devastating and tragic final burst of martial spirit!"

He grabbed a pure black marker and wrote three large characters on the whiteboard with extreme ferocity—【Zouma Creek】!

"Let's turn our attention back to the southeast coast! At this time, Zhu Wan, the Right Vice Censor-in-Chief, had his military power forcibly stripped by corrupt officials in the court, and was demoted to an 'inspector' minister with only supervisory authority! In the eyes of all the gentry in Jiangnan, this disobedient wolf had been stripped of its teeth and could only obediently await its death!"

Zhu Dijun let out a cold laugh that could blow off the roof, and slammed his pointer heavily onto the Zhao'an Bay area on the screen.

"But they underestimated the backbone of a loyal minister of the Ming Dynasty! No military power, huh? I'll use my authority as governor to forcefully suppress the capable officers under my command!"

A blurry image of a battle report is highlighted and magnified.

"In the twenty-eighth year of the Jiajing reign! Zhu Wan dispatched Commander Lu Tang to set up a shocking trap at a place called Zouma Creek! Who was facing them? A super combined fleet composed of Ming Dynasty pirates and Portuguese merchant ships, a major Western power at the time!"

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

"These Portuguese were used to their powerful ships and cannons, and they were used to running rampant at sea! But Lu Tang was not intimidated at all. He led the Ming navy to charge straight at them and annihilate them! Musketeers clashed! Hand-to-hand combat ensued! In this battle, the Ming army fought with extreme bravery and completely annihilated this armed smuggling fleet that spanned East and West!"

The live stream chat exploded with comments.

"Awesome!!! They managed to forcefully organize a campaign to wipe out the Western colonizers even without military power!"

"Lu Tang is a tough guy! Zhu Wan is a true god of war!"

"We've won! The Ming Dynasty's coastal defenses are saved!"

"There's no hope for me!"

With a roar, Judy Jun slammed his pointer onto the whiteboard, instantly shattering the frenzied online chatter. The studio lights snapped back to a stark white.

"As I said before, the more capable Zhu Wan is in combat, the more those smuggling tycoons want to grind him to dust! The fire at Zouma Creek not only burned the pirates' ships, but also burned a huge crater in the wallets of the powerful families along the Fujian coast!"

He turned around and slammed a stack of photocopied Ming Dynasty memorials onto the podium.

"The battle report of the great victory at Zoumaxi had just arrived in the capital when dozens of impeachment memorials, bearing the imprint of blood, followed! Officials from Fujian and Zhejiang barked like mad dogs in the court! They made no mention of the Portuguese cannons; they only insisted on one thing: Lu Tang and Zhu Wan had 'arbitrarily killed innocent civilians' at Zoumaxi!"

"These civil officials have gone so far as to portray the foreigners and pirates who came to rob with knives and guns as ordinary people doing business at sea! When the Jiajing Emperor saw this, although he ordered an investigation, he wanted to protect Zhu Wan and Lu Tang. Because with them around, although there were Japanese pirates and Portuguese attacking the Jiangnan region, it would not be in chaos. The situation was still under the control of the court. As long as they were alive, the situation could still be turned around."

"But the smuggling rings in Jiangnan don't want that; they're in cahoots with the Japanese pirates and the Portuguese."

A red laser pointer drew a long, cracked line on the map.

"That's why, as I mentioned before, when the imperial edict for his arrest arrived in early 29th year of the Jiajing reign, Zhu Wan would despair and commit suicide by poison! The Battle of Zouma Creek was the ultimate death sentence that this group of hypocrites handed down to him!"

The parallel Zhengde era of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Houzhao kicked over the bronze wine vessel in front of him, drew the Embroidered Spring Knife from his waist, and began slashing wildly in the hall.

"Killing traitors and earning merit is now a capital offense! What use is there in a court that so thoroughly distorts the truth!"

Zhu Houzhao's eyes were bloodshot, and his murderous intent spread throughout the hall.

"If I were still alive, I would personally lead a large army and chop all those pedantic officials in Jiangnan who speak up for pirates into mincemeat!"

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's voice was extremely suppressed.

"With Zhu Wan dead and Lu Tang imprisoned, the last tough guy on the southeastern coast of the Ming Dynasty who dared to draw his sword against smuggling gangs has fallen. What follows is a hellish moment where the common people of the whole country will pay the price."

The map of Fujian on the big screen was instantly flooded with endless black skull and crossbones flags.

"In the 28th year of the Jiajing reign, the Japanese pirate raids in Zhangzhou broke out on a full scale! Wang Zhi, the maritime overlord who had lost his grip on power, led his army of Japanese ronin and let out an extremely arrogant laugh."

Zhu Dijun's finger left a bloody mark on the spot where Yuegang was located.

"The Japanese pirates sailed straight to Yuegang in Zhangzhou! There was absolutely no decent resistance! Thousands of bandits wielding Japanese swords fled from Chaozhou all the way to Zhao'an, Yunxiao and other places! Wherever they went, they burned and looted, leaving no one alive!"

"In Jiangnan, civil officials and smuggling rings count their ill-gotten gains from smuggling within high walls and deep courtyards, while in the villages outside the city, the heads of the Ming Dynasty's lower-class farmers are being chopped off piece by piece by real and fake Japanese pirates wielding their swords! This is the 'prosperous age' that those upright civil officials risked their lives for!"

The entire online audience was stunned by this brutal contrast. But Zhu Dijun didn't give them a moment to breathe; he slammed his fist on the holographic keyboard.

The scene abruptly shifts from the blood-soaked southeastern coast to the windswept northern desert.

"The South is rotten to the core, do you think the North is any better?"

Zhu Dijun sneered, grabbed the blackboard eraser, and wiped it clean.

"Zouma Creek," he wrote in reverse: "[The Great Victory at Caojiazhuang]."

"In the twenty-eighth year of the Jiajing reign, in addition to the flames of war in Jiangnan, the northern defense line of the Ming Dynasty witnessed a bloody battle that could be described as a miracle!"

A portrait of an old general with a deeply lined face and white hair appeared faintly in the shadows of the screen.

"Zhou Shangwen! The General of Xuanfu in the Ming Dynasty! Family members, do you know how old he was back then?"

Zhu Dijun approached the camera, held up seven fingers, his voice hoarse from extreme shock.

"Seventy-five years old!! Older than Lian Po from the Warring States period!"

"In that very year, Altan Khan of the Mongols amassed a full 60,000 elite cavalry, like a black tsunami of death, and madly rushed towards the nine border defense lines of the Ming Dynasty! These Tartars thought that the Ming military garrisons had long been rendered powerless by civil officials embezzling their pay. But they ran into a wall made entirely of iron!"

Zhu Dijun brandished his pointer as if he were commanding a military battle spanning a century.

"At Caojiazhuang! Seventy-five-year-old Zhou Shangwen drew his sword, mounted his horse, and personally led the Ming army to meet the enemy! Without twenty million taels of military funds and without excellent logistical support, these border troops, relying solely on their rusty spears, managed to rout Altan Khan's sixty thousand iron cavalry, sending them fleeing north in disarray!"

The live stream chat fell into a brief silence, followed by a deafening roar of exclamations.

"Holy crap!! A 75-year-old man wiped out 60,000 cavalry!! That's the true spirit of the Ming Dynasty army!"

"Who says the Ming Dynasty had no famous generals! General Zhou, please accept my bow!"

The parallel Yongle era of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Di stared intently at the aged military general's face on the sky, then suddenly stood up, his eyes instantly reddening.

"Excellent! What a fine example of an old horse still eager to gallop through the stable!"

Zhu Di slammed his hand heavily on the imperial desk.

"With such an unparalleled veteran general in our Ming Dynasty, how can we not annihilate the northern barbarians! At least my descendants will still have someone who can wield a sword!"

But on the sky, Judy Jun's maniacal laughter abruptly stopped. He pulled up a chair and sat down heavily, his entire body hidden in the dim, crimson spotlight.

"You won, right? Feeling excited? But let me tell you, this is not a clarion call for revival at all; it's the last gasp of the Ming Dynasty's martial prowess!"

On the whiteboard, Zhu Dijun cruelly marked the five words "Great Victory at Caojiazhuang" with a huge red cross.

"Even if Zhou Shangwen were made of iron, how many nails could he hammer?! The Ming Dynasty's nine border defense lines have long been riddled with holes by the financial loopholes in the imperial court!"

The large screen suddenly shook violently as two devastating battle reports landed on either side of Zhou Shangwen's portrait.

"In the same year! In February! Another force of Altan Khan invaded Xuanfu. Ming army commander Dong Yang fought desperately, but was ultimately riddled with arrows and died a heroic death!"

"September! The Doyan Three Guards, driven into rebellion, launched a frenzied attack on Liaodong from the northeast! Border troops and civilians suffered heavy casualties, and the defenses were riddled with holes!"

Zhu Dijun suddenly stood up straight, ripped open his collar, and roared.

"Do you understand the despair of the Ming Dynasty's military garrisons?! Zhou Shangwen's victory at Caojiazhuang, achieved with his life, cannot conceal the complete collapse of the entire northern defense system! One person cannot save a rotten country!"

He turned and walked towards the far southwestern corner of the map, pointing his pointer among the mountains where Yunnan and Sichuan meet.

"Ironically, in this 28th year of the Jiajing reign, the army that fought most smoothly and achieved the most brilliant results in the entire Ming Dynasty was actually the Tusi (chieftain) armed forces, which were not completely controlled by the central civil officials!"

"The army of the Mu clan chieftain of Lijiang! They launched a series of military campaigns against the Kangnan Batang region this year, advancing with unstoppable momentum! They even arrogantly carved the four characters 'Heavenly Army Will Forever Win' on a cliff to commemorate their achievements!"

Zhu Dijun pressed his hands firmly on the table, his eyes like the sharp edge of a knife that had seen through centuries of cannibalistic history.

"Family members, have you noticed this chilling pattern? The weaker the influence of the Ming Dynasty's central government, the more effective the army becomes! And those defensive lines closer to the center of political power, whether it's Liaodong, Xuanfu, or the southeastern coast, have all become meat grinders for foreign tribes to slaughter ordinary people!"

The studio lights went out completely, leaving only a scarlet spotlight, like one from the underworld, shining on Judy Jun's expressionless face.

"The south is breached, and the north is leaking wind. Meanwhile, in the Western Garden of the Forbidden City in Beijing, the Jiajing Emperor is still striking the wooden fish, yearning for immortality. Yan Song is counting the silver he has divided in the cabinet, while Xu Jie is sharpening his venomous fangs for usurping power in the shadows."

Zhu Dijun leaned slightly forward, his voice lowered to an extremely low hue, like a demon whispering in someone's ear.

"In the 28th year of the Jiajing reign, this great meat grinder finally completed its cycle. All of the Ming Dynasty's trump cards and buffers were torn to shreds by its own people. And Altan Khan in the north had already wiped away the bloodstains of Caojiazhuang."

He casually tossed the marker into the pen holder with a dull thud.

"In the 29th year of the Jiajing reign, the ultimate national humiliation—a conflict that brought the Jiajing Emperor to his knees and left the entire city in agony amidst flames—was approaching Desheng Gate in Beijing, accompanied by the thunderous hoofbeats of 100,000 cavalry. My family, are you all prepared to face the national humiliation of the Jiajing era, the Gengxu Incident?"