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

The faint sounds of roaring waves and clashing swords in the studio abruptly ceased.

The dark golden light was suddenly replaced by a blinding blood red. Judy Jun's pointer struck the podium with a dull thud that made one's heart stop.

"Family members, Shang Dajie has been imprisoned to death, and Li Mo has been stripped of his official robes. The military officers and central officials of the Six Ministries of the Ming Dynasty, anyone who dared to do anything practical and had any backbone, have been almost entirely purged by these smuggling agents and corrupt officials."

Zhu Dijun struck a key on the holographic keyboard, and a group of civil officials dressed in blue egret-patterned official robes appeared on the large screen.

"But at this time, the Ming Dynasty still had one last group of fearless and resolute individuals! They were the censors of the Ming Dynasty, the officials in charge of the Six Ministries! In the corrupt and morally ambiguous Jiajing era, these officials became the empire's last alarm bell!"

The red laser pointer circled several names on the screen, with the three characters "Wang Jizong" being enlarged to an extreme degree.

"In the thirtieth year of the Jiajing reign, Wang Jizong and several other officials, seeing the Xuanda defense line breached and the common people forced to sell their children due to the pressure of the capital's silver reserves, became utterly enraged!"

Zhu Dijun roared, veins bulging on his forehead.

"What did they do? They slammed the memorial directly onto Jiajing's desk!"

On the big screen, several virtual memorials with extremely strong language suddenly appeared.

"They not only condemned Yan Song for his tyranny and disastrous rule, but they also cursed Emperor Jiajing, who sat on the dragon throne practicing immortality! They pointed their fingers at Jiajing and questioned him: 'Your Majesty indulges in extravagance and Taoism every day, refining elixirs and practicing Taoism in the Western Garden, while border defenses have fallen into such disarray. Does the Ming Dynasty still exist?! That old villain Yan Song has seized control of the entire court; where is the authority of the government?!'"

The live stream chat was instantly ignited with comments.

"Holy crap! These officials are really brave! They're directly going up against the immortal emperor and the number one powerful minister!"

"The true grandmaster of trolls! For the Ming Dynasty, these people are truly willing to risk their lives!"

"This is the spirit of the Ming Dynasty! There will always be someone who will light a fire in the darkness!"

A parallel Chongzhen era of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Youjian stared intently at Wang Jizong's name on the sky, his withered hands clenched into fists, his nails piercing his palms.

"Loyal ministers... these are the true pillars of a nation!"

Zhu Youjian's eyes were red-rimmed.

"Those officials in my court who dare to speak out are only good at forming cliques and attacking each other! If I had such loyal ministers who would risk their lives to remonstrate, how could the country have fallen!"

However, Judy Jun's maniacal laughter from the sky was like a bucket of cold water mixed with ice crystals, poured over his head.

"The alarm went off, what did Jiajing and Yan Song do?"

Zhu Dijun gripped the control panel tightly with both hands, his eyes filled with an icy chill.

"If we can't deal with the person who raised the problem, then let's just smash the alarm!"

On the holographic screen, outside the Golden Palace, a dozen or so blood-soaked wide wooden benches were lined up in a row.

"That old fox Yan Song didn't even need to lift a finger. He only needed to fan the flames in Jiajing's ear and fabricate a few charges of disrespect, and Jiajing's thunderous wrath would directly strike these upright officials on the head!"

Zhu Dijun suddenly kicked the edge of the podium:

"Beat them! Beat them! Beat them to death! Pull their pants down and beat them directly outside the Meridian Gate with iron-plated sticks! Wang Jizong and several upright censors were beaten bloody on the spot, and then an imperial edict was issued, demoting and dismissing them from office!"

The red lights in the studio were flashing wildly.

"From this moment on, the channels for free speech during the mid-to-late Jiajing reign were completely and physically blocked!"

Zhu Dijun pointed at the camera and angrily cursed.

"No one dares to speak anymore! Anyone who dares to tell the truth will suffer the same fate as the bloodstains outside the Meridian Gate! This dilapidated carriage of the Ming Dynasty, already riddled with holes, not only has no brakes left, but now even the horn and dashboard have been smashed to pieces! It's blindly speeding towards the abyss!"

A parallel Hongwu era of the Ming Dynasty.

Inside the Fengtian Hall, Zhu Yuanzhang stared at the group of officials on the sky, their skin torn and bleeding from being beaten, his facial muscles twitching violently.

"Well done, what a fine emperor who cultivates immortality."

Zhu Yuanzhang was so angry that he laughed instead; his laughter echoed like thunder in the hall.

"We established the Censorate and the Six Ministries precisely to serve as the Emperor's eyes and ears! These unworthy descendants actually allowed powerful ministers to gouge out their own eyes and deafen them! This is how the Ming Dynasty was ruined by these beasts!"

Old Zhu slammed his hand on the imperial desk, shattering the sandalwood into pieces.

"Issue the decree! Any future ruler who dares to punish an official with a cane for speaking frankly is unfilial! He is a foolish ruler!"

On the backdrop, Judy Jun casually waved away the bloody image of a court flogging, and the studio lights turned into an extremely ironic dark gold.

"The censors have fallen silent, and the court is quiet. My friends, who is the happiest at this moment?"

Judy grabbed a black marker and drew a huge money bag on the whiteboard, tied with an extremely ugly knot.

"The vested interest groups are ecstatic! No one dares to impeach them anymore, so they can finally unleash an unprecedented bloodsucking frenzy!"

Zhu Dijun wrote a few words on the whiteboard: "[The Thirty-first Year of Jiajing: Major Case of Land Properties of Imperial Clan and Nobles]".

"We just talked about how in the 30th year of the Jiajing reign, the Ministry of Revenue levied taxes on the people, and the poor were so poor that they had no land to even put a needle in, yet they still had to pay ten times the taxes of the rich."

Zhu Dijun moved closer to the camera, his voice so suppressed it sent chills down your spine.

"Where the hell did all those fertile fields in the world go?"

On the large screen, a map showing the distribution of farmland across the Ming Dynasty suddenly exploded. Vast tracts of land in Beizhili, Shandong, and Henan were dyed a glaring blood red.

"They're all in the estates of princes, relatives of the empress, and nobles!" Zhu Dijun roared.

"These descendants of the founding heroes who helped the Zhu family conquer the country, along with the Zhu family's imperial relatives, are using their privileges to frantically seize land! They forcibly take the land from the common people and turn it into their private property, and then not only do they not pay a single penny of tax, they also make the local government clean up their messes!"

A thick virtual ledger landed in the center of the screen.

"In the thirty-first year of the Jiajing reign, the situation escalated to such an extent that local governments were completely unable to collect taxes. The imperial court reluctantly launched an investigation. And what they found was astounding! In the capital region, Shandong, and Henan, there were shocking cases of meritorious officials and relatives of the emperor concealing and illegally occupying farmland! Any marquis or earl you pulled out had tens of thousands of acres of illegally owned land!"

Zhu Dijun spread his hands, his face full of extreme mockery.

"The investigation has been completed. Logically, shouldn't they be beheaded and their property confiscated? But what happened? These powerful figures are deeply entrenched, all high-ranking partners of the Ming Dynasty! Our decisive and ruthless Jiajing Emperor, who wouldn't even blink an eye at the flogging of officials who dared to speak out, suddenly became incredibly merciful in front of these relatives!"

The teacher drew a big X on the ledger.

"A fine! Cutting off a few insignificant estates! That's it! A grand gesture followed by a lenient one! It's practically a slap on the wrist, a mere punishment, and this is the last time!" Judy Jun slammed his fist on the podium in anger.

"If ordinary people are even one day late in paying their taxes, the yamen runners will chain them up and sell their children! These parasites have devoured millions of acres of fertile land in the Ming Dynasty, yet they haven't even scratched a hair on the ground! The cancer of land annexation has not been resolved at all, and the very foundation of the Ming Dynasty has been hollowed out by these very people!"

The parallel Yongle era of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Di sat upright on the dragon throne, his eyes so cold they could freeze the air.

"Relatives of the emperor, descendants of founding heroes..."

Zhu Di coldly surveyed the trembling officials below.

"In the face of imminent disaster, instead of thinking of serving the country, they are sucking the people's blood and sweat within the borders of the nation. My good descendants have truly mastered the meaning of 'shamelessness' to the fullest extent."

He drew his sword from his waist and beheaded the bronze crane in front of him.

"If it were me, upon discovering that someone had concealed land, regardless of whether they were a prince or a duke, their entire family would be sent to fill in the moat of Liaodong!"

The studio camera switched again. This time, it showed a highly distorted power pyramid.

"The censors have been silenced, and the corrupt officials are left unchecked. Fellow citizens, in this chaos, who has completed the final loop of power?"

Judy Jun's marker heavily touched the very top of the pyramid.

Two large characters suddenly appeared: 【Yan Party】.

"That old fox Yan Song reached the pinnacle of his life in the thirty-first year of the Jiajing reign!" Zhu Dijun sneered repeatedly.

"Because he discovered that in the entire Ming Dynasty court, no one dared to, and no one could, pose a threat to him!"

A diagram of the cabinet's power structure popped up on the big screen.

"The cabinet should have been a place of collective wisdom and effort. But in this year, Yan Song completely crushed all the secondary ministers in the cabinet! Those who disagreed with him were either dismissed from office like Li Mo, or imprisoned like Shang Dajie. The entire cabinet was reduced to a tool for Yan Song's personal rule!"

Zhu Dijun swept the pointer in his hand across the plaques of the Six Departments one by one.

"The officials of the Ministry of Personnel, the Ministry of Revenue, and the Ministry of War! To keep their official hats and avoid being beaten to death in court, all the officials of the six ministries of the Ming Dynasty have chosen to side with the Yan faction! There are no longer any loyal ministers in the entire central government of the Ming Dynasty; they are all Yan family slaves!"

"What were the consequences? Extremely low administrative efficiency and complete ineffective implementation of government orders!"

Zhu Dijun moved closer to the camera, his knuckles clapping loudly against the podium.

"The reports submitted from below aren't judged by the urgency of the matter, but by how much silver was bribed to Yan Shifan! Without money, no matter how many people die on the front lines, it's all suppressed! With money, even a pig can be promoted to Vice Minister of War!"

The dark golden lights in the studio gradually dimmed, leaving only a cold spotlight shining on Judy Jun's face.

"The Ming Dynasty was a giant ship riddled with holes. The captain was cultivating immortality and refining elixirs in the cabin, the first mate and the sailors were frantically dismantling the deck to sell for money, and the people responsible for early warning in the watchtower had long been thrown into the sea by them."

Zhu Dijun's voice was extremely suppressed, and in the background, the eerie sound of waves rose again, growing louder and louder.

"The cavalry of Anda in the north are still rampaging, but these insects are completely unaware. While they are closing their doors to carve up the last bit of flesh and blood of the Ming Dynasty, the ultimate monster bred by the maritime ban and smuggling interest groups in the southeast coast—the Japanese pirates—have already landed completely, brandishing their blood-stained swords."

On the holographic screen, a Japanese samurai sword gleaming with cold light forcefully cleaved through the misty, rainy landscape of Jiangnan in the Ming Dynasty.

"When the corruption of the Yan faction collided with the vicious Japanese pirates, the most devastating meat grinder of the Jiajing era officially began."