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

The studio lights slowly shifted from a deathly pale white to a warm red tinged with blood and tragedy.

Zhu Dijun stood behind the podium, his chest heaving. He looked at the holographic screen, where the live stream chat, after experiencing extreme despair and rage, was now witnessing an unprecedented torrent of tributes.

Countless names, gleaming with golden light, swept across the screen like swords cleaving through the darkness.

【"Hu Zongxian!"】

"Qi Jiguang! Yu Dayou!"

"Lu Tang! Ren Huan! And Lady Wa, who led the Guangxi wolf soldiers a thousand miles to the nation in its time of crisis!"

The screen flickered. One after another, photos taken by modern people were pushed to the top of the screen by the barrage of comments: they were anti-Japanese pirate sites preserved in various parts of the southeast coast, monuments to the Qi Family Army, incense that never goes out in front of the heroes' shrine, and flowers and libations spontaneously laid by later generations!

"The civil officials of the Ming Dynasty smeared you, but history will not forget you!"

"Three hundred years later, the sons and daughters of China offer incense to the martyrs who fought against the Japanese pirates!"

"We may not be able to fight alongside our fallen heroes, but future generations will also defend our country."

The story takes place in a parallel timeline of the 32nd year of the Jiajing reign in the Ming Dynasty.

In the anti-Japanese pirate camps along the southeast coast, the sea breeze was salty and fishy.

Qi Jiguang, who was still a lieutenant general; Yu Dayou, who was covered in scars; Lu Tang and Ren Huan, who had just been re-employed and were still struggling; and Madam Wa from Guangxi, who was stationed outside the camp and had silver hair but wolf-like eyes.

They stood outside the muddy military tent, looking up at the flowers and candles placed by future generations against the sky, listening to the calls of "offering incense" and "offering wine" from descendants hundreds of years later.

Yu Dayou wiped his red-rimmed eyes with his rough hands, then laughed loudly, looking up at the sky:

"It's worth it! It's absolutely worth it! Even if the court is full of wolves, what does it matter if I throw my life into the East Sea for the sake of my descendants hundreds of years from now!"

Qi Jiguang gripped the long sword at his waist tightly, his knuckles cracking, and a fierce fighting spirit burned in his eyes.

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's eyes were also slightly red. But he quickly closed his eyes, shook his head violently, and when he opened them again, that chilling murderous aura of dissecting history once again took over.

"Family members, with these tough guys around, shouldn't the Ming Dynasty's southeastern coastal defenses be saved?"

Zhu Dijun slammed his fist on the podium, instantly shattering his newly formed enthusiasm.

"Wrong! Utterly wrong!"

The warm red lights in the studio were instantly replaced by an extremely eerie dark purple.

"As I just said, the greatest enemy of the Ming Dynasty has never been the Japanese pirates at sea, but rather our own people sitting in the Forbidden City!"

Zhu Dijun grabbed a red pen and wrote four characters on the whiteboard with extreme violence: "[Thirty-third year of Jiajing]".

"Let's continue looking at the central government after the thirty-third year of the Jiajing reign! These vampires not only don't help, they also stab the soldiers on the back with the most lethal poison!"

On the large screen, a portrait of a Ming Dynasty official wearing a bright red robe and with a fawning and cunning expression suddenly appeared.

Next to it was a glaringly obvious name: [Zhao Wenhua]!

"Who is this old Deng? He's the Vice Minister of Works, and the most favored godson of Grand Secretary Yan Song!"

Zhu Dijun, his face full of disdain, pointed his pointer at the portrait. "In the thirty-third year of the Jiajing reign, Yan's faction realized the southeast was being fought so badly that it was getting out of control. So, Zhao Wenhua was given an utterly ridiculous assignment—to go to Jiangnan to 'offer sacrifices to the sea'!"

"A sea sacrifice?!"

Zhu Dijun laughed in anger.

"Is he going to burn incense and pray to the sea god for protection? Nonsense! This old scoundrel is carrying out Yan Song's secret orders to inspect military affairs on the southeastern front; his real aim is to seize absolute command of the anti-Japanese army!"

The red laser pointer drew a dead line on the screen, directly connecting to the portrait of another high-ranking official—[Anti-Japanese Governor-General: Zhang Jing].

"Zhang Jing was the highest-ranking military officer in charge of the Southeast at the time. He understood military affairs, and he knew that the garrison soldiers under his command were all useless and could not defeat the Japanese pirates."

Zhu Dijun gets closer to the camera.

"So what is Zhang Jing doing? He's waiting! He's waiting for Lady Wa's Guangxi wolf soldiers, waiting for all the truly capable elite troops to assemble! He will not blindly go into battle until they are fully assembled!"

"But this is something Zhao Wenhua absolutely hates!"

"Zhao Wenhua was eager to claim credit and prove his loyalty to his godfather Yan Song. He ran to the military camp, pointed his finger at Zhang Jing, and forced him to immediately send troops to suppress the bandits!"

"Zhang Jing was a man of principle, completely disregarding this lackey of Yan's faction. And what was the result?"

Judy Jun drew a bloody skull on the whiteboard.

"Zhao Wenhua immediately submitted a secret memorial to the Jiajing Emperor, fiercely impeaching Zhang Jing!"

Eight characters from Zhao Wenhua's folded paper were displayed on the screen: "[Fearing the thief and missing the opportunity; playing with bandits and bringing disaster to the people]!"

"Can you believe it? A governor who worked tirelessly and steadily on the front lines was slandered by a Beijing official who came to Jiangnan to seize power, accusing him of being a sinner who feared Japanese pirates and harmed the people!"

Zhu Dijun pressed his hands firmly on the podium, veins bulging on his forehead.

"What's most despairing is that Jiajing believed it! In April, he impeached them, and in May, Jiajing directly issued an imperial edict, throwing the anti-Japanese governor Zhang Jing, along with the valiant general Tang Kekuan who had fought valiantly on the front lines, into prison carts and escorting them to the capital for questioning!"

On the big screen, Zhang Jing, wearing heavy shackles, was roughly pushed onto a prison cart by the Imperial Guards amidst the cries of the people of Jiangnan.

"Shortly after Zhang Jing's arrest, Emperor Jiajing issued an imperial edict ordering the execution of this meritorious commander in the fight against the Japanese pirates!"

Zhu Dijun felt an indescribable anger and sorrow.

"Slaying a general in the midst of battle! Killing the frontline commander-in-chief! This caused complete chaos and the collapse of the entire southeastern anti-Japanese defense line!"

The live stream chat instantly erupted in a suffocating outrage.

"What the hell is the difference between this and the twelve imperial edicts issued by the Southern Song Dynasty to execute Yue Fei?!"

"Those who do the work are killed, while those who steal the credit are promoted! This Ming Dynasty court is rotten to the core!"

"Is Jiajing's brain filled with shit? He believes everything Zhao Wenhua says?!"

"Will the Jiajing Emperor be sidelined? Otherwise, why would he believe everything Yan Song says?"

"It's hard to say, after all, Jiajing's entourage consisted mostly of undercover agents and spies."

A parallel Chongzhen era of the Ming Dynasty.

Under the old crooked tree on Coal Hill, Zhu Youjian heard the words "execute a general in battle" and "escort him to the capital to be executed," and he was struck dumb.

His withered hands clutched his head tightly, and a mournful howl, like that of a dying wild beast, escaped his throat.

"Killing the governor-general...Emperor Jiajing also killed the governor-general..."

Emperor Chongzhen frantically slammed his head against the cold, muddy ground, staining the earth red with blood.

"My Sun Chuanting! My Lu Xiangshan! It turns out that my habit of indiscriminately killing hardworking ministers is all inherited from those immortal ancestors of the Zhu family! The Yan faction... deserve to die! They all deserve to die!"

A parallel Hongwu era of the Ming Dynasty.

Inside the Fengtian Hall, Zhu Yuanzhang cleaved the wooden armrest of the dragon throne in two with a single blow. The splinter pierced his hand, drawing blood, but he was completely oblivious.

"What a cowardly act of missing an opportunity! What a fine example of Yan Song's adopted son!"

Old Zhu's eyes were bloodshot, and his murderous intent raged throughout the hall like a tangible force.

"The commander-in-chief at the front was actually driven to his death by a mere memorial from a vice minister of one of the Six Ministries! Is the military power of our Great Ming Dynasty just a toy for these sycophants to amass wealth and claim credit?! Mao Xiang! Remember the names Yan Song and Zhao Wenhua on the iron plate of the imperial prison! Find out who their ancestors were during the Hongwu era, and we won't mind performing a pre-death ritual for them."

On the sky, the rage on Zhu Dijun's face gradually subsided, transforming into the posture of a cold-blooded dissector.

"Zhang Jing is dead, and Tang Kekuan is in prison. Yan's faction has completely purged the military power in the southeast." Zhu Dijun grabbed the pointer and pointed to another name on the whiteboard—[Hu Zongxian].

"At this time, Hu Zongxian came to power. He was promoted from Governor of Zhejiang to Governor-General of Zhejiang and Zhili, taking charge of the overall situation of the anti-Japanese pirate campaign in the southeast. He began to recruit Qi Jiguang and Yu Dayou, and used the tactics of 'combining suppression and appeasement, and sowing discord' to deal with the pirate leaders Wang Zhi and Xu Hai."

Zhu Dijun crossed his arms and stared coldly at the camera.

"Many people, upon seeing this, might think that the Yan faction did something good, since they promoted Hu Zongxian, a capable person. My friends, if you think that way, you're seriously underestimating the viciousness of these bloodsucking vampires in the Ming Dynasty's civil service!"

The studio lights instantly switched to a stark white.

Why did Yan Song and his son promote Hu Zongxian? Was it because they wanted to completely eradicate the Japanese pirates?

Judy Jun let out a chilling laugh that shattered all moral compass.

"Wrong! Absolutely wrong! Because the Yan faction itself, in particular, was the biggest beneficiary group of the Jiajing-era Japanese pirates!"

On the holographic screen, a complex web of vested interests appeared. The silver from the Jiangnan smuggling tycoons flowed into Yan Song and Yan Shifan's treasury in the capital like rivers flowing into the sea.

"As we discussed earlier, the smuggling rings coerced the imperial court by luring Japanese pirates into their territory! This was called 'nurturing pirates to enhance their own power!' If the Japanese pirates were completely wiped out, and the maritime ban was either relaxed or tightened, the smuggling tycoons' exorbitant profits would disappear! The Yan family's source of income from protection money would also be cut off!"

Zhu Dijun's finger jabbed heavily on the line of profit on the screen.

"Therefore, the Yan faction's true strategy towards the Southeast is extremely perverse—they need this war to go on indefinitely! They need the Southeast to remain in a bizarre balance of being 'rotten, but not completely rotten'!"

"The Japanese pirates couldn't invade Nanjing, because that was the Ming Dynasty's stronghold; if they lost it, Jiajing would behead them. Therefore, they needed to find a capable person to go to the front lines to shield them and clean up their mess—that person was Hu Zongxian!"

"However! The Japanese pirates absolutely cannot be eradicated! These bandits must be kept alive as leverage to continue extorting local people, monopolizing smuggling profits, and suppressing dissent!"

The studio was deathly silent, with only Judy Jun's cold, piercing voice echoing through the room.

"Why must Zhang Jing die? Because Zhang Jing was about to mobilize a massive army to sweep through the enemy's strongholds; he wanted to wipe out all the Japanese pirates with one blow! This directly touched the ultimate sore spot of the Yan faction and the Jiangnan gentry's 'raising bandits for profit' policy!"

"This is the truth about the Ming Dynasty court. It was a war in which hundreds of thousands of ordinary people risked their lives, but in the eyes of Yan's faction and the smuggling gentry, it was nothing more than a giant reality show used to launder money, seize land, and consolidate power!"

The parallel Yongle era of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Di sat on the dragon throne, his facial muscles twitching violently. His worldview had been completely shattered at that moment.

"Raising bandits...making money..."

As Zhu Di managed to squeeze out those four words, he felt a chill run from his feet straight to his head.

He had fought his entire life, from the Jingnan Campaign to the Five Expeditions to the Mongolian steppes, witnessing countless conspiracies and intrigues. But he never imagined that the Ming Dynasty's officials could be so vicious as to treat foreign enemies like their own dogs, using them to tear apart the Ming Dynasty's own territory and people, all for the sake of those cartloads of smuggled silver!

"These demons in human skin..."

Zhu Di overturned the broken imperial desk in front of him.

"If they are not completely wiped out, the Ming Dynasty will surely suffer divine retribution!"

On the sky, Zhu Dijun casually tossed the broken red pen into the wastepaper basket.

The dark purple light gradually went out, leaving only a spotlight shining on his bloodshot eyes.

"Yan Song and his son used the Zhang Jing case to completely eliminate their political opponents. Under their manipulation, the court's policy toward the Japanese pirates became even more volatile, and the blood shed by the soldiers at the front turned into red wine in their glasses."

Zhu Dijun lowered his voice to an extremely low level.

"Yan's faction thought they had a perfect plan. They thought Hu Zongxian was just an obedient dog in their hands, and Qi Jiguang and Yu Dayou were just rags to clean up their messes."