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

In a parallel Hongwu era of the Ming Dynasty.

The iron gates of the Imperial Clan Court prison had long been welded shut. Zhu Yunwen, the once high-ranking imperial grandson, had now been stripped of his yellow sash and removed from the imperial genealogy, becoming a commoner dressed in coarse prison clothes.

Inside the Fengtian Hall, Zhu Yuanzhang sat on the dragon throne, his calloused, rough hands slowly stroking the edge of the imperial desk. When he heard his descendant Zhu Dijun on the screen suddenly mention "Crown Princess Lü," his hawk-like eyes narrowed sharply.

Zhu Yuanzhang turned his head, his gaze sweeping over the civil and military officials in front of the hall, landing on Crown Prince Zhu Biao. Then, he looked at his fourth son, Zhu Di, who stood on the other side with a grim expression.

"Fourth brother."

Zhu Yuanzhang's voice was cold and hard as iron, exuding an undeniable air of authority.

"The message on the screen says you'll completely erase Yunwen's mother and Biao'er's stepmother in the future? What, is there something else about Lady Lü that we've overlooked?"

Zhu Di tensed up abruptly and knelt on the ground with a thud. He was about to open his mouth when Zhu Dijun's voice from the sky swept across the entire hall like a gust of cold wind.

"Family members, regarding Lady Lü, the second Crown Princess of the Ming Dynasty and the birth mother of Emperor Jianwen, many scholars who study the early Ming Dynasty and authors of time-travel novels strongly suspect that she was not Lü Ben's biological daughter at all!"

On the holographic screen, a faceless portrait dressed in the everyday clothes of the Crown Princess of the Ming Dynasty suddenly appeared.

"Why the suspicion? There are three reasons!" Zhu Dijun wrote three large characters heavily on the whiteboard: "Delete, Lower, Compose."

"First! After the Jingnan Campaign, Zhu Di entered Nanjing, and his first act was to frantically destroy historical materials from the Jianwen era. Strangely enough, records of Empress Lü's family history were also drastically reduced, making the historical descriptions of this empress dowager extremely vague!"

"Secondly! She comes from a family of Yuan Dynasty officials who surrendered. Compared to founding generals like Chang Yuchun and Xu Da, and top noble families from Huaixi, the Lü family's social standing is so ordinary that it makes her seem like an imposter!"

"Third! At that time, unofficial histories from the Ming Dynasty, and even later films and television dramas, were frantically fabricating her background, leading to a flood of rumors!"

Zhu Dijun pulled up a chair, leaned forward, and rested his hands on his chin. A chilling smirk curled at the corner of his mouth, and his eyes held a profound depth that seemed to see through centuries.

"But! Family members, what if we step outside the logic of official history that sings praises and instead use absolute conspiracy theories, combined with the smuggling interest groups in Jiangnan that we just discussed, to speculate?"

He erased the three large characters on the whiteboard with a single stroke. With a violent crack, he slammed down four more large characters: 【The Lü Family of Zhongshan】!

"What if this Lady Lü wasn't just some ordinary daughter of a surrendered Yuan dynasty official, but rather a descendant of the Zhongshan state established by the Xianyu tribe of the Bai Di people during the pre-Qin period?! Don't forget, the Zhongshan state was a centipede that, though dead, still thrives; their iconic trident can still be seen in many places today! They also had marriage alliances with the Khazars. During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, those beasts from the Ji family often impersonated the Quanrong and other foreign tribes to attack non-Ji surname vassal states."

"Let's look at the political map of the early Ming Dynasty! The Lü family of Shouzhou, going back three generations, can be traced back to the gentry network of the Huai and Si regions and Jiangnan! This is precisely the core base of Jiangnan gentry that Zhang Shicheng desperately tried to win over when he occupied Jiangnan!"

A map depicting the fragmented power struggles of the late Yuan Dynasty suddenly appeared on the large screen. Red arrows, starting from Zhang Shicheng's Pingjiang Road, lunged towards Zhu Yuanzhang's Yingtian Prefecture like venomous snakes.

"In the twenty-seventh year of the Zhizheng era, Zhang Shicheng was defeated and killed! Zhu Yuanzhang launched an unprecedented and frenzied crackdown on the gentry group in Jiangnan! He increased taxes! He exiled them to the frontier! Were these old forces of Zhang Shicheng, these landlords who controlled vast amounts of wealth in Jiangnan, willing to accept this?! Absolutely not! They chose the most vicious move—infiltration!"

Zhu Dijun roared:

"As a surrendered official, Lü Ben voluntarily pledged allegiance to Zhu Yuanzhang. He maintained an extremely low profile in court, refusing to form factions, vie for power, or engage in corruption! He was practically a saint! He played the subservient role his entire life, but what was his motive? It was all to send his daughter, the pawn carrying a top-secret mission from the remnants of the Zhongshan Kingdom and the Jiangnan gentry, into the Eastern Palace of the Ming Dynasty!"

Inside the Fengtian Hall, Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly gripped the armrest of the dragon throne tightly, and with a "crack," several cracks appeared in the sandalwood.

"Sending Lady Lü into the Eastern Palace to become Zhu Biao's second wife—this is a super strategy spanning decades!"

On the large screen, Lü's faceless portrait instantly split into three scarlet chains, which tightly bound the dragon pillar representing the fate of the Ming Dynasty.

"The objective is threefold! First, close surveillance! By infiltrating the Eastern Palace, we can not only fully grasp the movements of Crown Prince Zhu Biao, but also, through Zhu Biao, uncover Zhu Yuanzhang's most crucial secrets regarding Jiangnan and the maritime ban from the Fengtian Hall!"

"The second layer is binding the future imperial power! As soon as Chang Yuchun's daughter, Crown Princess Chang, dies, Lady Lü will immediately ascend to the throne! Once Zhu Biao ascends the throne, she will be the Empress of the Ming Dynasty, and her son will be the future Emperor of the Ming Dynasty! The remnants of Zhang Shicheng's faction and the descendants of the Zhongshan Kingdom in Jiangnan can completely turn the tables by virtue of their status as imperial relatives!"

"The third layer connects with smuggling rings in Jiangnan! This is why the Ming Dynasty's civil service later became so powerful in Jiangnan! Because as early as the Hongwu era, this thorn was firmly driven into the throat of the Ming Dynasty's central government!"

The live stream chat exploded instantly, everyone was stunned by this perfectly closed-loop conspiracy theory.

"Holy crap!! A spy thriller set in the Ming Dynasty! Infiltrating the Eastern Palace! This is terrifying to think about!"

"This logic is completely flawed! Why did Emperor Jianwen immediately rely on civil officials from Jiangnan to weaken the power of the regional military governors as soon as he came to power? The root of the problem lies with his own mother!"

"There's definitely something fishy about the death of Crown Princess Chang! It's chilling to think about!"

["And don't forget Old Zhu, he was vomiting and having diarrhea before he died, and he was buried only six days later. The vassal kings at the time were not allowed to come and pay their respects, and the first person they arrested was the Prince of Zhou, who was skilled in medicine."]

Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly stood up, his eyes bloodshot. He stared intently at the trembling Crown Prince Zhu Biao below, his killing intent churning in the hall like a tangible force.

"She's just a poor, powerless civil official's daughter, and we actually got fooled by her!" Zhu Yuanzhang gritted his teeth, squeezing out the words in blood.

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's scalpel mercilessly pierced Old Zhu's heart.

"A family member asked, 'Zhu Yuanzhang is known as the most ruthless man in history, and the Embroidered Uniform Guard was so pervasive, why didn't he discover it?!'"

Zhu Dijun sneered and slammed his hand on the blackboard:

"This is the perfect example of a conspiracy theory where the truth is hidden! The Lü family is too weak! No military power! No background! The Lü family is extremely docile in the Eastern Palace, completely uninterested in vying for favor! They seem like harmless little white rabbits!"

"And who were Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes fixed on at that time? He was keeping a close eye on Li Shanchang, Hu Weiyong, and Lan Yu and Xu Da, those arrogant and fierce generals from Huaixi who held considerable military power! He gave all his guard to his old brothers, but allowed the real venomous snake to coil up next to his own son's pillow!"

The scene abruptly shifts to the fire that followed the Jingnan Campaign.

"That's why Zhu Di's treatment of the Lü family after capturing Nanjing was so illogical!" Zhu Dijun slammed his pointer heavily on Zhu Di's name.

"The Jingnan Rebellion succeeded. Empress Lü was Emperor Jianwen's biological mother; logically, a normal reckoning would have sufficed. But what did Zhu Di do?"

"The Empress Dowager's title was revoked! She was placed under house arrest! And then died a bizarre and violent death! Along with her, the Lü family's historical records were completely erased!"

Zhu Dijun moved closer to the camera, his eyes sharp as a knife.

"Zhu Di was a ruthless man. Normally, there's no need to physically erase someone's background before killing them. There's only one terrifying explanation—Zhu Di entered the palace, opened the top-secret files of the Embroidered Uniform Guard or the inner court, and was horrified to discover that the Lü family was actually a super-powerful underground force planted by Zhang Shicheng in conjunction with the Zhongshan Kingdom, a force thought to have disappeared but which still existed! This force had already deeply penetrated the Jiangnan underground, along with the disgusting smuggling network in Jiangnan that plagued the Ming Dynasty! For the sake of consolidating his rule, Zhu Di had to eradicate it completely and burn this disgraceful scandal that had utterly disgraced the Zhu family to ashes!"

In a certain Yongle era of the Ming Dynasty.

Fengtian Temple.

Zhu Di slammed his hand on the imperial desk, a glint of extreme rage flashing in his eyes. Although these descendants were spouting conspiracy theories, every word they uttered struck a chord with him! If it weren't for the need to completely eradicate these cancerous growths, why would he have gone to such lengths to eliminate them back then!

However, Judy Jun's maniacal laughter suddenly rose in volume, and the studio lights instantly switched to an eerie purple.

"Family members! Do you think the story of Lady Lü infiltrating the Eastern Palace is too fantastical? Do you think I'm just creating hype? Let me tell you, in Chinese history, the sordid practice of using a woman to seize control of an entire country not only actually happened, but it was also taken to an extreme!"

Zhu Dijun turned around and began frantically typing on the holographic keyboard. The map of the Ming Dynasty instantly shrank, and the golden expanse of the Tang Dynasty crashed down in the very center of the screen!

"The Tang Dynasty perished after three generations! The name of this usurper was Wu Zhao! The infamous Wu Zetian! Wu Meiniang!"

Four large, blood-soaked characters crashed onto the screen—【Wu Zhou Dynasty Replaces Tang Dynasty】!

"Using her status as the wife of Emperor Gaozong of Tang, Li Zhi, she not only successfully seized the throne from the Li Tang imperial family and changed the dynasty name to Great Zhou, but what's even more terrifying is that you really think she chose that Zhou dynasty casually? It was a restoration of the Ji clan's Zhou dynasty!"

Judy Jun suddenly ripped off his tie and roared, "What's even more outrageous is yet to come! Go look at that island nation next door! The so-called supreme deity enshrined in Japan's shrines now—Amaterasu Omikami! Her historical prototype is none other than Empress Wu Zetian!"

boom!

The live stream chat fell into a deathly silence for ten seconds. Then, it exploded with a frenzy of comments, like a nuclear bomb going off.

"Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap!!! What kind of hellish historical material is this?! Wu Zetian is the Japanese Amaterasu?!"

"Possession in the Tang Dynasty, deification in Japan! This is the ultimate female protagonist in a wish-fulfillment novel!"

"What are you gloating about, upstairs! Don't forget that when King Yu the Great was rewritten into some Meishan Buddha by this paper-cutting artist, why wasn't he ridden to death by a thousand men back then?"

"If the Wu family can even possess Japan, then what's the big deal about the Lü family being spies in the Eastern Palace!"

In a parallel Zhenguan era of the Tang Dynasty.

Taiji Palace.

Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin, was holding a glass of wine, a tribute from the Western Regions, when he heard the words, "The Tang Dynasty will perish after three generations, and Wu Zetian will seize power from the Tang Dynasty." With a "bang," the glass in his hand was crushed to pieces! Crimson wine mixed with blood dripped wildly from between his fingers.

"Wu Zetian?! Wu Meiniang?!"

Li Shimin's eyes widened, and he let out a roar like that of a wounded wild beast.

"Guards! Summon Li Chunfeng! Investigate! Drag out every woman in the palace with the surname Wu and execute her!"

In a parallel timeline of Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty.

Emperor Gaozong of Tang, Li Zhi, trembled violently on his sickbed. He stared intently at Wu Meiniang, who was holding a bowl of medicine beside him. Her face was exquisitely beautiful but exuded a chilling aura. A strange, grating sound came from his throat.

"Mei Niang...you...you want to seize my throne?!"

Wu Zetian's hand trembled, and the medicine bowl shattered on the ground. She looked up at the sky, her eyes filled with undisguised extreme horror and ambition.

On the screen, Zhu Dijun casually tossed a marker onto the podium, making a dull thud.

"Family members, with such a real historical prototype, my conspiracy theory about the Lü clan is completely plausible. Without Zhu Di's iron-fisted purge, the Ming Dynasty would definitely have become a second Tang Dynasty."

"Of course, some people will say I'm talking nonsense, but that doesn't matter. Believe it if you want, don't believe it if you don't. After all, I'm a member of the Zhu family, so it's hard to say that my stance is absolutely impartial. So let's continue talking about the trouble that the Manchu remnants have caused."