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

The piercing alarm in the studio did not stop; instead, it grew even more desolate as the crimson seawater appeared on the holographic screen.

The dark golden light was completely drained, and the entire space was enveloped in a chilling, blood-red hue.

"Family members, look at this map!"

Zhu Dijun kicked the side of the podium hard, causing the microphone to emit a piercing buzzing sound. The red laser pen in his hand was like a bloodstained dagger, stabbing fiercely into the coastline of Zhejiang and Southern Zhili.

On the screen, the timeline of the thirty-first year of the Jiajing reign jumped wildly.

Countless densely packed red skull markings, like malignant tumors, surged wildly from the sea towards the garrisons and counties along the southeastern coast of the Ming Dynasty.

"In the spring of the thirty-first year of the Jiajing reign! This was the first truly devastating disaster that the Ming Dynasty faced after it used bad money to drive out good and the corrupt Yan faction to empty the national treasury—the full-scale outbreak of the Japanese pirate raids!"

A horrific scene immediately appeared on the large screen: several dilapidated Japanese pirate ships docked, and hundreds of ronin wielding samurai swords and wearing tattered loincloths rushed ashore. Meanwhile, the Ming Dynasty garrison soldiers responsible for defense didn't even fire a single shot; they simply threw down their rusty spears, cried out, and turned to flee!

They crumble at the slightest touch! They flee at the mere sight of the enemy!

"Many people ask, what about the mighty Ming Dynasty navy that fought alongside Zhu Yuanzhang in the legendary naval battles of Poyang Lake?! What about the invincible fleet that sailed with Zheng He on his voyages to the Western Ocean, crushing the entire Southeast Asia?!"

Zhu Dijun gripped the edge of the podium tightly with both hands, his knuckles turning a ghastly bluish-white.

"These corrupt officials have squandered our entire population! The Ming Dynasty's garrison troops have long been turned into slaves by local generals and coastal gentry! Military funds have been embezzled, and warships are rotting in the harbor. The common people can't even get enough to eat, and you expect them to fight these vicious thugs with sticks in their hands?!"

"Don't forget that from the very beginning when Emperor Zhu Gaochi of the Ming Dynasty stopped the voyages to the more than 200 large ships that were wiped out by Zhu Qizhen, to the recent loss of control of the Maritime Trade Office after Emperor Wuzong of the Ming Dynasty was deprived of power, and now we are in the Jiajing period. These are all the bad consequences of hundreds of years of planning."

The live stream chat was instantly filled with a barrage of bloody and furious insults.

"This is the ultimate price of corruption! It's all falling on the shoulders of ordinary people!"

"A few hundred men chasing and killing tens of thousands of Ming soldiers—what a disgrace, it's like they've brought shame all the way to the Atlantic!"

[It can only be said that the smuggling rings and the civil service in the Ming Dynasty never treated the common people as human beings.]

"A bunch of beasts who deserve to die!"

A parallel Chongzhen era of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Youjian stared intently at the Ming border troops fleeing without a fight on the sky, and spat a mouthful of blood onto the muddy ground in front of him.

"Escape... escape again..."

Emperor Chongzhen's withered hands frantically tore at his tattered sleeves, his eyes bloodshot like those of a dying beast.

"In my Battle of Songshan, Wang Pu also fled in the same way! It turns out that this cowardly nature of theirs was already rotten to the bone back in the Jiajing era! The Ming Dynasty has nurtured these military generals for two hundred years, and when the country is in peril, they are all cowardly cowards!"

After finishing his tirade, he gave a bitter smile.

"This can't be entirely blamed on these guys. Everyone makes mistakes, but why should only the Ming imperial family take the blame? Are these nobles and civil officials clean?"

On the sky, Judy Jun's rage not only did not subside, but instead ignited into a raging inferno.

He suddenly grabbed a handful of black markers and wrote three large characters on the whiteboard with extreme ferocity: "[True or False Japanese Pirates]!"

"The most damn despairing truth is yet to come!" Judy Jun approached the camera, his eyes gleaming with a murderous glint.

"Family members, do you really think that all those who burned, killed, and looted along the southeastern coast were Japanese? You are sorely mistaken!"

He drew a huge circle over those three large characters:

"Of these Japanese pirates who landed, seven out of ten are Ming Dynasty people themselves! They are bankrupt merchants who couldn't make it along the coast, local thugs, and, most importantly, black gloves hired by smuggling tycoons in Jiangnan!"

The holographic screen shook violently, and portraits of Jiangnan gentry dressed in fine silks and drinking Longjing tea were superimposed on those of pirates holding bloodstained Japanese swords.

"As we mentioned before, these Jiangnan tycoons made their fortunes through smuggling! Now that the imperial court has tightened its maritime ban, cutting off their source of income, what are they going to do? They've resorted to colluding with foreign enemies and funding pirates! This isn't just a simple foreign invasion; it's a terrorist massacre against their own compatriots launched by Jiangnan smuggling groups in conjunction with external forces to force the Ming court to lift the maritime ban and protect their interests!"

The studio alarm sounded like a mournful wail of a ghost.

Zhu Dijun ripped off his tie and gripped it tightly in his hand.

"But the Ming Dynasty, during the utterly rotten Jiajing reign, once sent a truly tough nut to crack, a war god of iron will who wanted to mend this hole in the sky single-handedly!"

On the large screen, four stark white characters crashed down—[Governor Zhu Wan]!

"Zhu Wan! Right Vice Censor-in-Chief and Commander-in-Chief of the Zhejiang-Fujian Coastal Defense! He is a truly ruthless man! He should not be erased or slandered; his name must be cleared!"

Judy Jun slammed his pointer heavily onto that name.

"After he arrived in Zhejiang, what did he do? He didn't bother with the social niceties of those officials and gentry in Jiangnan. He directly ordered: blockade the sea! Crack down on smuggling! Anyone who dares to collude with the Japanese, no matter what kind of prestigious family you are, no matter who your backer is, execute them on the spot!"

A gruesome scene of beheadings appeared on the screen. More than ninety smuggling bosses, who wielded considerable influence in the coastal areas and were backed by powerful gentry families in Jiangnan, were beheaded in the bustling marketplace on Zhu Wan's orders.

"Well done! That was a satisfying kill!"

"These beasts who profit from the blood of their fellow countrymen deserve to be punished with swift and decisive physical force!"

But then, the fervor on his face vanished instantly, replaced by a despair that made one feel as if they had fallen into an ice cave.

"But Zhu Wan forgot that he wasn't facing a few pirate ships; he was facing the largest and most vicious interest group in the entire Ming Dynasty!"

Zhu Dijun wrote the six characters "Yan Party" and "Min-Zhe-Jing Officials" on the whiteboard with great force.

"Zhu Wan killed over ninety people, essentially desecrating the ancestral graves of the Jiangnan smuggling tycoons! These tycoons panicked and immediately activated their ultimate protective umbrella in the capital!"

Zhu Dijun pointed at the screen,

"Officials from Fujian and Zhejiang provinces in the imperial court, along with Yan Song's faction, jumped out like a pack of mad dogs! They submitted memorials to the Jiajing Emperor overnight, frantically impeaching Zhu Wan!"

"What did they impeach him for? Corruption? No! Cowardice? No! They've pinned an extremely vicious charge on Zhu Wan—[unauthorized killing, abuse of power]!"

The live stream chat fell into a terrifying silence for a moment. Then, it erupted with a fury powerful enough to overturn the screen.

"Killing a traitor has become a capital offense?! What kind of surreal world is this, where right and wrong are turned upside down?!"

"The soldiers at the front are fighting desperately, while the officials in the capital are stabbing them in the back! This is the civil service of the Ming Dynasty!"

"So you're not killing your own people, but only keeping them around to kill loyal subjects, huh!"

A parallel Hongwu era of the Ming Dynasty.

Inside the Fengtian Hall.

"Bang!"

Zhu Yuanzhang slammed his palm on the imperial desk, creating a horrifying crack in the thick sandalwood.

"Unauthorized killing and abuse of power... What a fine example of unauthorized killing and abuse of power!" Old Zhu's eyes were bloodshot, like a resurrected ancient god of war, and the killing intent emanating from his entire body caused the temperature in the entire hall to drop sharply.

"Our great Ming Dynasty's high-ranking officials, for killing a few traitorous smugglers and collaborators, were actually impeached by the court officials and sentenced to death! These officials from Fujian and Zhejiang, these beasts sitting in the capital taking their cut of smuggling profits! They are the biggest Japanese pirates!"

Zhu Yuanzhang drew his imperial sword, its blade pointing straight at the heavens outside the palace, and roared like a ferocious beast: "Mao Xiang! Send the entire Embroidered Uniform Guard to Jiangnan! Any gentry whose family has even a single plank of wood involved in smuggling, any gentry with even the slightest connection to this trade, have their entire family executed by slow slicing! We will use the blood of these traitors to cleanse the coast of the Ming Dynasty!"

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's voice was hoarse to the extreme, carrying a heartbreaking sorrow.

"In the thirty-first year of the Jiajing reign, that emperor who hid in the Western Garden refining elixirs, constantly guarding against military generals seizing power and his ministers forming cliques, actually listened to the slander of these traitors!"

Zhu Dijun casually threw the crumpled tie in his hand onto the ground.

"Jiajing issued an edict dismissing Zhu Wan from his post and ordering his arrest and escort to the capital!"

The image on the large screen dimmed.

A gaunt old man in prison clothes stood in the desolate cell, holding a bowl of poison in his hand.

Zhu Wan knew she was not going to survive.

Zhu Dijun gripped the podium tightly with both hands, his eyes red and swollen as he approached the camera.

"He knows all too well the ruthlessness of these Jiangnan gentry. Once he's in the imperial prison in the capital, not only will he suffer unimaginable torture, but these traitors will also completely ruin his reputation!"

"On his deathbed, Zhu Wan looked up to the sky and sighed, leaving behind a final, chilling statement that sealed the fate of the Ming Dynasty's coastal defenses and sent shivers down the spines of future generations!"

On the large screen, a line of blood-red characters crashed down:

Even if the Emperor doesn't kill me, the people of Fujian and Zhejiang will surely kill me!

"This is the fate of upright officials in the Ming Dynasty!"

Zhu Dijun slammed his fist on the control panel, producing a dull thud.

"Zhu Wan committed suicide by drinking poison! With his own life, he tolled the final death knell for this desolate southeastern coast!"

The red lights in the studio stopped flashing and turned a lifeless, deathly red.

"After Zhu Wan's death, the entire Ming Dynasty's officialdom understood a bloody truth: whoever seriously fought against the Japanese pirates, whoever cracked down on smuggling, was risking the lives of their entire family!"

Zhu Dijun sneered, his laughter tinged with extreme sorrow.

"From then on, all the coastal officials just lay down and pretended to be dead! When the Japanese pirates attacked, they either stayed indoors or used the people's hard-earned money to bribe the pirates in exchange for peace. Officials and soldiers colluded with pirates, and collusion between officials and civilians with the Japanese pirates became rampant!"

Zhu Dijun drew a heavy black period on the screen.

"The imperial court had no choice but to temporarily appoint an official named Wang Yu as the commander of the Zhejiang-Fujian coastal defense." Zhu Dijun's eyes were as cold as ice.

"But by this time, the coastal defenses had already been turned into a mess by Yan's faction and smuggling groups. When Wang Yu came to power, he lost every battle in the early stages, suffering defeat after defeat. The garrison commanders fled at the mere sight of him, and cities and territories were lost one after another. In the end, he was punished and executed by the court!"

He looked at the camera, his chest heaving violently, as if the anger stuck in his chest could never be released.

"I stand here, feeling a nameless sorrow and extreme anger."

Zhu Dijun suppressed his sobs, each word sung with a tearful voice.

"I grieve for those low-ranking soldiers who were brutally murdered on the front lines while defending their country. They didn't even get a full meal before becoming cannon fodder in the Ming Dynasty's officialdom."

He suddenly raised his head, his eyes like a drawn sword.

"But I am even more furious at those Jiangnan bastards who, for their own dirty money from smuggling, did not hesitate to betray their nation, frame loyal officials, and stand by and watch tens or hundreds of thousands of their compatriots be slaughtered by Japanese pirates!"

In the background noise of the studio, the sinister laughter of the Japanese pirates and the screams of the common people intertwined once again, piercing the nerves of every viewer.

"In the thirty-first year of the Jiajing reign, the Ming Dynasty's coastal defenses were completely dismantled by its own people."

Zhu Dijun pointed his pointer firmly at the blood-stained map of Jiangnan on the screen, his voice suddenly turning icy.

"But do these beasts think they've won?"

The large screen suddenly flickered violently, and a phantom image of the Qi Family Blade, radiating a chilling light, slowly emerged from the darkness.

"They don't know that in this bottomless abyss of despair, the Ming Dynasty is about to give birth to an ultimate war machine driven to the brink of destruction. When that battle flag bearing the character 'Qi' is raised, all the traitors and both genuine and fake Japanese pirates will be willing to pay with their lives!"

----split line----

Zhu Wan has already been mentioned, but he was truly wronged. There was also Qi Jiguang, as well as the Ming soldiers and civilians who sacrificed their lives. They were clearly trying to save their homeland, but under the smear campaign of the civil official group, they were portrayed as people who undermined unity with foreign countries.