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

On the big screen, the characters "Aisin Gioro Hongli" were almost completely covered by dozens of densely packed, large and small bright red ink pads, making the original strokes illegible.

"Family members, open your eyes wide and look carefully! This is the Qianlong Emperor, the longest-reigning, most powerful, and most extravagant ruler of the Qing Dynasty, and the so-called sage emperor most hyped up in later TV dramas! His nicknames are Qian Xiaosi, Zhang Zong, and Shi Que Lao Deng."

Zhu Dijun grabbed the pointer and slammed it into the pile of red stamps on the big screen, letting out an extremely grating laugh.

"In the official history of the Qing Dynasty, he was a perfect emperor proficient in both civil administration and military affairs. But in the eyes of ordinary people and modern netizens, he was a complete oddball, a pretentious show-off, a vandal, and a lecherous old man all in one!"

Zhu Dijun frantically typed on the holographic keyboard, and an astonishing string of numbers crashed onto the screen—[43630]!

"Do you know what this is? This is the total number of poems Emperor Qianlong wrote in his lifetime! Forty-three thousand six hundred and thirty!"

Judy laughed so hard she couldn't stand up straight.

"The entire collection of Tang poems only contains a little over 40,000 poems, and he single-handedly swept aside the entire Tang Dynasty's poetic circle! On average, he lived to be 89 years old, even writing poetry while going to the toilet!"

"But here's the problem! He wrote over 40,000 poems, have you even memorized a single one of them from your textbooks?!" Zhu Dijun leaned close to the camera, his face full of disdain.

"No! Because what he wrote was nothing but doggerel! Things like 'one flower, two flowers, three or four flowers, five flowers, six flowers, seven or eight flowers,' this kind of utter nonsense, which he forcibly bestowed upon his ministers, who had to kneel on the ground and shout that the emperor's literary talent was unparalleled! This is pure power bullying!"

A parallel Zhenguan era of the Tang Dynasty.

Li Shimin spat out the mouthful of tea he had just drunk.

"More than 40,000 songs?!"

Li Shimin stared in disbelief, then let out a sneer of utter contempt.

"Throughout my life of military campaigns, I've only managed to compose a hundred or so poems when the inspiration struck. Even the most brilliant poets of my great Tang Dynasty, like Li Bai and Du Fu, wouldn't dare claim they could write tens of thousands. These barbarians from beyond the borders, taking jingles as timeless masterpieces, are truly making a laughingstock of themselves!"

"A monkey wearing a hat—utterly nonsensical!"

Li Shimin flicked his sleeves, feeling that the number was an insult to the poetry world of the Tang Dynasty.

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's merciless desecration of the corpse continued.

"Not only does he write terrible poetry, but he also has a vice that makes every antique collector in the world want to dig him out of his grave!"

On the large screen, Wang Xizhi's "Letter After Snowfall" and Wang Xianzhi's "Mid-Autumn Festival Letter" were enlarged and displayed. But the originally blank and exquisite scrolls were now densely covered with red seals as large as fists and as small as coins! Not only were there seals, but huge annotations written in a scrawled mess were also placed next to them!

"The stamping maniac! The common people have given him a nickname—'The Master of Qing Dynasty Ancient Painting Stamping'!"

Zhu Dijun pounded the table in anguish.

"A masterpiece! In his hands, he felt there was an empty space, so he stamped it! He thought the artistic conception was good, so he wrote a review! A perfectly good, timeless masterpiece was ruined by him, looking like a cheap street lamppost! This kind of nouveau riche, extremely perverse possessiveness is just rubbing Chinese culture into the ground!"

The live stream chat was filled with anger and mockery.

"Antique Killer! Utility Pole Factory Manager!"

"I feel so sorry for Wang Xizhi. What's the difference between this and drawing a turtle on Mona Lisa's face?!"

Zhu Dijun directly cut off the old, unsightly painting on the screen and replaced it with a picture of a luxurious dragon boat traveling to the south of the Yangtze River.

"As for the TV series 'Emperor Qianlong's Six Trips to the South,' which is shown every day in movies and TV dramas, it's all about him understanding the people's conditions and inspecting river affairs."

Zhu Dijun sneered and drew a large X on the dragon boat with a red pen.

"The common people know perfectly well! His trip to the south of the Yangtze River drained the Qing Dynasty's treasury. Ostensibly, he was there to understand the people's plight, but in reality, he was there to observe the beauties of Jiangnan!"

"How did the common people ridicule him? The phrase 'Xia Yuhe by the Daming Lake' completely exposed his lecherous and womanizing ways! Every time he went to Jiangnan, officials along the way had to frantically exploit the people to welcome him, ultimately forcing the White Lotus Rebellion! In his later years, he shamelessly gave himself the title of 'The Perfect Old Man.' What did the common people say behind his back? 'Nine out of ten perfections are boastful! He's all just bragging!'"

A parallel Hongwu era of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang, his face cold, tapped his fingers heavily on the imperial desk.

"He made six trips to the south of the Yangtze River, emptying the national treasury, all for the sake of indulging in pleasure."

Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes were filled with murderous intent.

"When our Great Ming Dynasty was first established, we even had to repair and reuse a broken table! These barbarians who devour the flesh and blood of the common people stole the country, yet they treat it like their own brothel! They deserve to be ridiculed like this by the people!"

On the backdrop, Zhu Dijun casually ripped off Qianlong's hypocritical mask, and the background music in the studio suddenly changed to an extremely comical string piece.

"After Emperor Qianlong died, he squandered the entire treasury of the Qing Dynasty, leaving his son, Emperor Jiaqing, with only Heshen, a super corrupt official."

Zhu Dijun placed his hands on the podium, his expression becoming extremely strange.

"And this Jiaqing Emperor, right before the eyes of the common people, staged the most utterly disgraceful and shameful security incident in the history of the Qing Dynasty!"

On the big screen appeared a group of people dressed in Qing Dynasty guard uniforms, looking completely bewildered, with a man in the middle holding two butcher knives.

"There was an ordinary cook named Chen De. This guy couldn't go on living like this anymore. He felt the world was too dark, and in a moment of madness, he grabbed two cleavers and stormed into the Forbidden City!"

Judy laughed so hard tears almost came to her eyes, and she clapped her hands repeatedly.

"Guess what?! This cook, all by himself, with a cleaver, blocked the Jiaqing Emperor's path right outside the Shenwu Gate when he returned to the palace!"

"All the dozens of imperial guards and personal guards present were completely terrified! They stood there dumbfounded, watching helplessly as a cook brandished a cleaver and tried to kill the Qing emperor! In the end, it was only thanks to the desperate efforts of several old eunuchs and princes that Jiaqing managed to hold the cook back and escape with his life!"

Zhu Dijun suddenly kicked the edge of the podium:

"These are the martial arts masters and imperial guards portrayed in movies and TV dramas! They can't even stop a cook who's never practiced martial arts! How bad has the security in this country become?! This isn't just a joke; it's the death knell for the Qing Dynasty, a complete and utter rot from top to bottom!"

The parallel Yongle era of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Di sat upright on the dragon throne, and upon hearing this, the corner of his mouth twitched with extreme disdain.

Ji Gang, the commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, knelt below, and couldn't help but reveal a ridiculous sneer.

"A cook wielding a cleaver was able to get so close to the emperor, and none of the guards dared to touch him?"

Zhu Di shook his head.

"If these cowards were my Imperial Guards or personal guards, I would have them all chopped up and fed to the dogs. The Buryat were fierce back in the days of the Changbai Mountains and the Heilongjiang River, but after only a few generations since they entered the Central Plains, they've lost all courage to even wield a knife, all because of wine and women. They can't hold their ground in this world."

The scene on the screen changed again, and a Qing Dynasty dragon robe covered with extremely glaring patches was hung in the center of the screen.

"Emperor Jiaqing was incompetent, but his son, Emperor Daoguang, took the absurdity to the absolute limit of human history!"

Zhu Dijun grabbed the blackboard eraser and wrote four words heavily: "[A stingy oddball]!"

"Emperor Daoguang was known as the stingiest emperor in Qing Dynasty history! How stingy? He didn't eat meat, he ate vegetarian food every day! He wouldn't even replace his own dragon robe when it was torn, and had the Imperial Household Department patch his knees instead!"

Zhu Dijun's eyes were filled with extreme mockery. "But this is a hellish joke! Daoguang thought he could save money by patching things up, but he had no idea how those corrupt officials in the Imperial Household Department ripped him off! For every hole he patched, the bill submitted by the Imperial Household Department was a whopping five taels of silver! Ten times more expensive than buying a new silk garment!"

One day, Emperor Daoguang was really craving a bowl of noodle soup, a simple dish made from dough pieces. He ordered the Imperial Household Department to buy it.

Zhu Dijun vividly imitated Daoguang's expression.

An official from the Imperial Household Department rushed back to report: "Your Majesty, if you want to eat sliced ​​soup, we need to build a special branch of the Imperial Kitchen and recruit dozens of chefs to specialize in making soup. We need to allocate tens of thousands of taels of silver in advance!"

Zhu Dijun spread his hands:

"Upon hearing that it cost tens of thousands of taels of silver, our Qing emperor was so shocked that he swallowed hard and immediately declared, 'It's too expensive, I won't eat it!'"

The chat room across the entire network was in an uproar.

"Hahaha! The biggest sucker of the Qing Dynasty!"

"The emperor is stingy, while the corrupt officials below him are eating like there's no tomorrow! This is the ultimate example of information asymmetry!"

"What a miserable emperor he is! He can't even afford a simple bowl of soup. It's so frustrating!"

A parallel Chongzhen era of the Ming Dynasty.

Inside the Forbidden City. Zhu Youjian stared intently at the patched-up dragon robe on the ceiling, his eyes instantly reddening, his chest heaving violently, and he almost coughed up a mouthful of blood.

"I wear patched clothes because I don't even have a single tael of silver left in my granary! I'm truly damn poor!"

Zhu Youjian's voice was extremely shrill, his withered fingers clutching his tattered sleeve.

"This barbarian emperor has money in the national treasury, yet he's being fooled like a fool by a bunch of eunuchs and corrupt officials! He charges five taels of silver to patch a hole?! On my Liaodong front, five taels of silver can buy a life!"

Emperor Chongzhen suddenly drew his sword from his desk and began slashing wildly at the air:

"Fools! A bunch of damned fools! The emperor of the Qing Dynasty can't even manage his own Imperial Household Department, what right does he have to talk about the country and its people! If I had his national treasury, why would I be hanging myself on Coal Hill!"

On the backdrop, Zhu Dijun's maniacal laughter gradually faded. The warm yellow lights in the studio seemed to have been drained of their heat, suddenly turning into an extremely oppressive, iron-gray.

He casually tossed the red pen in his hand into the wastepaper basket, placed his hands on the podium, and stared intently at the camera. There was no longer a trace of a smile in his eyes, only a chilling coldness.

"Family members, didn't you find it funny when you heard about Emperor Qianlong stamping documents, Emperor Jiaqing being assassinated, and Emperor Daoguang being unable to afford even a simple bowl of soup? Didn't you think these Qing emperors were just a bunch of clowns sitting on their dragon thrones?"

Zhu Dijun's voice was extremely suppressed.

"But after the jokes were told, the bloody reality came crashing down on them!"

The dragon robe on the big screen was instantly burned to ashes by an invisible raging fire. In its place were countless steel behemoths spewing billowing black smoke on the sea surface, and the dark barrels of Krupp cannons!

"While the Daoguang Emperor was still outwitting eunuchs in the Forbidden City over a few taels of silver for a bowl of soup; while the Qing Dynasty's bureaucratic system was engaged in rampant corruption to repair a single patch; while the imperial guards couldn't even stop a cook wielding a cleaver!"

Zhu Dijun roared, veins bulging on his forehead:

"The Industrial Revolution in the West is already complete! The powerful ships and cannons of England have already reached the doorstep of the Qing Dynasty!"

"The common people of the Qing Dynasty used jokes to dismantle the hypocrisy of imperial power, but those foreigners who arrived in steamships used special cannonballs to directly tear apart the last line of defense of this land!"

The studio's alarm lights were flashing red frantically.

"Ready? The last few jokes about wild boar hides."

Zhu Dijun's eyes were like a bloodstained bayonet.