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

The cold, incandescent light in the studio acted like an invisible, sharp scalpel, completely slicing away the smoke of the naval battle on the big screen.

Zhu Dijun stood on the podium, grabbed the blackboard eraser, and frantically wiped the whiteboard, erasing all the blood-stained place names.

"Family members, we just finished talking about how the Japanese pirates were wiped out."

He gripped the holographic control panel tightly with both hands, the fervor in his eyes fading, replaced by a chilling, extremely sarcastic expression.

"The generals on the front lines risked their lives, treading on blood, to mend the broken pot that was the southeast of the Ming Dynasty. Now, pull your attention away from the mountains of corpses and seas of blood in the southeast!"

He struck the holographic keyboard three times with extreme violence.

"Back to where? Back to the political center of the Ming Dynasty—the Western Garden in the capital! Back to the 41st year of the Jiajing Emperor's reign!"

The large screen suddenly exploded. The raging sea vanished instantly, replaced by a magnificent palace, a smoke-filled alchemy furnace, and an emperor kneeling on a prayer mat, eyes closed in meditation, all of which crashed onto everyone's retinas.

"Let's rewind the timeline to the 41st year of the Jiajing reign!"

Zhu Dijun grabbed a red marker and drew a circle heavily in the center of the whiteboard.

"The war is won, and the external threat is temporarily contained. Shouldn't that enormous, fat pig that's been kept in the Forbidden City for over twenty years be put into the meat grinder?!"

The live stream chat exploded with comments, like it was on steroids.

"Finally, we're going to kill Yan Song!"

["I've waited over 600 chapters for this day! Kill that fat pig Yan Shifan!"]

"A prime minister for twenty years, that's a tree with deep roots, how do you cut it down?"

A cruel sneer curled at the corner of Zhu Dijun's mouth.

"Having dominated the court for twenty years, the Yan faction held absolute power! Even the inner court eunuchs and the ministers of the Six Ministries had to defer to Yan Shifan's one-eyed rule!"

He kicked the side of the podium, making a dull thud.

"But these people have gone too far, forgetting whose empire this Ming Dynasty truly belongs to! Jiajing had long since reached his limit in his tolerance of this father and son's autocracy and corruption!"

On the big screen, a memorial, its words dripping with sorrow, crashed down.

"In the 41st year of the Jiajing reign! Censor Zou Yinglong stepped forward!"

Judy Jun's pointer was firmly planted on the name on the screen.

"He wasn't afraid of death! He directly submitted a memorial impeaching Yan Shifan for corruption, forming cliques, and indulging in extravagance! Every charge was supported by irrefutable evidence, hitting the nail on the head regarding Yan's faction!"

"In the past, anyone who submitted such a memorial would never have survived more than three days! But this time is different!"

Zhu Dijun roared out.

"Yan Song is old! This eighty-year-old man can't even write the Qingci (a type of official document) that Jiajing valued most! In the eyes of this cultivation boss, his value has completely dropped to zero!"

In the holographic projection, the Jiajing Emperor, dressed in a Taoist robe, slowly opened his eyes, casually threw Zou Yinglong's folding paper on the ground, and uttered extremely cold words.

"Imperial decree issued!"

With bloodshot eyes, Zhu Dijun gritted his teeth and pronounced the verdict, "Yan Song is hereby ordered to retire and return to his hometown immediately! Yan Shifan is to be dismissed from his post, his property confiscated, and exiled to the harshest frontier to eat sand!"

The two huge, blood-red characters for "collapse" danced wildly on the screen.

"With a deafening roar! The once invincible and all-powerful Yan Party, the most powerful ministerial group in the Ming Dynasty, was utterly crushed by a single, seemingly casual imperial edict from Emperor Jiajing! Its core strength crumbled!"

A parallel Hongwu era of the Ming Dynasty.

Inside the Fengtian Hall, Zhu Yuanzhang slammed his hand on the imperial desk and let out a hearty laugh.

"Well done!"

Old Zhu, his face flushed, paced back and forth excitedly in the hall.

"Keeping this traitor alive to suck the blood of the people should have cost him a thousand lives long ago! That bastard Zhu Houcong, after all his years of cultivating immortality, has finally done something decent! Twenty years! Finally, the Ming Dynasty court can see some justice!"

A parallel Chongzhen era of the Ming Dynasty.

The cold wind on Coal Hill stung Zhu Youjian's cheeks. He slumped in the mud, watching the images of the Yan faction's downfall on the sky, a hint of indescribable sorrow in his eyes.

"A powerful minister for twenty years, dismissed with a single piece of paper..." Emperor Chongzhen's withered hands gripped the frozen earth tightly, and he suddenly burst into a bitter laugh that was more like a cry than a sob.

"So this is how firmly Emperor Jiajing held imperial power! He could use you whenever he wanted, and kill you whenever he wanted! And what about me?! Why can't I get rid of all the civil officials in the court! Why was even the eunuch I sent to collect taxes forced to be beaten to death by them?!"

He banged his head against the ground in despair, coughing up blood.

On the backdrop, the red light in the studio gradually transformed into an extremely deep dark gold.

"With the fall of Yan's faction, who will fill the power vacuum left behind?"

Zhu Dijun crossed out Yan Song's name on the whiteboard and wrote two large characters heavily—[Xu Jie]!

"Xu Jie! After enduring twenty long years! This Ming Dynasty ninja tortoise, who played the subservient role before the Grand Secretary and even went so far as to marry his granddaughter to the Yan family to demonstrate his loyalty, has finally rightfully ascended to the throne of Grand Secretary!"

Zhu Dijun grabbed half a piece of chalk and tapped it a few times in the air.

"As soon as Xu Jie came to power, he immediately changed Yan Song's style of blindly flattering superiors and suppressing dissent! He began to frantically win over the people, reorganize the court, and reopen channels for free speech! Those upright officials who had been suppressed, exiled, or even left to gather dust in prison by Yan Song's faction were all promoted and reinstated one after another!"

"At the same time, the great purge begins!"

On the screen, countless seals from confiscated property documents fluttered in the air.

"The imperial court will thoroughly investigate Yan's faction and its cronies! Those officials of the Six Ministries and local governors who have long been loyal to the Yan family and provided Yan Shifan with shares in their businesses will be demoted, dismissed, or imprisoned!"

Zhu Dijun spread his hands out.

"The most disgusting and corrupt practice of selling official positions in the Ming Dynasty court, which had persisted for decades, has finally received a large-scale physical disinfection!"

The live stream chat was filled with jubilation, with everyone celebrating that the Ming Dynasty was finally getting back on track.

"Feeling good? Do you think Emperor Jiajing's move to restore order was incredibly brilliant?"

Zhu Dijun suddenly changed the subject, his sarcasm vanished, replaced by an extremely cruel mockery, like that of a cold-blooded surgeon.

He slammed his fist on the holographic keyboard, and the studio's dark gold lights instantly turned into an extremely absurd, ghastly green.

"Family members! You're so wrong!"

Zhu Dijun moved closer to the camera, his knuckles white from clenching his fists, his voice carrying a chilling coldness that seemed to penetrate to the very marrow of his bones.

"Do you really think that Jiajing killed Yan Xiu's faction because they murdered loyal officials? Because they harmed the people?! Does the Ming Dynasty's leader care about the lives of the people?!"

He suddenly grabbed the list of those impeaching the Yen Party, banged it loudly on the podium, and pulled out one of the names.

【Yan Maoqing】!

"Let's see who this guy is! A core member of the Yan faction, the Salt Commissioner of the Ming Dynasty!"

Zhu Dijun roared out.

"Under the guise of inspecting the salt administration for Emperor Jiajing, this guy plundered the local area thoroughly! All the ill-gotten gains he extorted went into Yan Shifan's private coffers!"

The holographic screen suddenly switched to a high-definition clip from the modern hit drama "Da Ming Dynasty 1566".

In the scene, Chen Baoguo plays the Jiajing Emperor, with disheveled hair, resembling a vengeful ghost, clutching an account book in his hand, roaring madly in the palace, each word piercing the heart.

Zhu Dijun shouted simultaneously from the podium, his voice like thunder striking everyone's head!

"Everyone should check out that absolutely gorgeous historical drama. See how Jiajing roars in it?!"

Zhu Dijun grabbed a red, thick-tipped marker and wrote a huge, ink-splattered line on the whiteboard with extreme ferocity.

"Yan Maoqing, smoke billows! They got two million taels, and I only got one million! My money!!!"

"Did you understand?!"

Zhu Dijun kicked over the trash can next to the podium.

"This is the ultimate, underlying logic behind the downfall of Yan Xishan during the Jiajing reign of the Ming Dynasty!"

His eyes were bloodshot, and he pointed at the word "money" on the whiteboard through gritted teeth.

"Jiajing didn't care that Yan Song killed a few governors-general, he didn't care how Hu Zongxian exploited the people to extract military funds, and he cared even less whether the people in the southeast had their heads chopped off by Japanese pirates!"

"The only thing he cares about is that his damn money was stolen by these guys working for him!"

"I told you to be corrupt so you could raise money to build palaces and buy mercury for alchemy! You embezzled two million, and only handed over one million?! That fat pig Yan Shifan is taking more of the spoils than the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty!"

Judy Jun let out an extremely shrill and absurd laugh.

"With the Zhu family ruling the country, the emperor and his ministers divided the spoils, and the emperor ended up taking the small share! This is the real reason why Jiajing Emperor overturned the table and crushed the Yan faction!"

The live stream chat was completely frozen for three seconds before erupting into a tsunami of comments.

"Holy crap!!! My Dao heart has collapsed!"

"This isn't some kind of cleanup campaign; it's like a mob boss discovering his underlings are hiding money and pulling the trigger to purge them!"

"My money! Those three words are absolutely brilliant! They've stripped away the most disgusting layer of feudal imperial power!"

"I thought it was a loyal minister seeking justice, but it turned out to be a case of unfair distribution of spoils!"

A parallel Hongwu era of the Ming Dynasty.

"puff--"

Zhu Yuanzhang looked at the words "I only have one million" on the sky and could no longer suppress the churning in his chest. He spat a mouthful of blood directly onto the dragon desk.

"Father!"

Crown Prince Zhu Biao was terrified and rushed forward to support the swaying old Zhu.

"Don't touch me..."

Zhu Yuanzhang's withered hands gripped the gold bricks tightly, his eyes blazing with extreme terror and humiliation. He let out a mournful howl, like an old wolf whose spine had been broken.

"Our Zhu family's emperor... the supreme ruler... has actually stooped to sitting down with his civil officials and dividing the spoils..."

Old Zhu's tears, mixed with blood, fell to the ground.

"It's one thing to divide the spoils... but the mighty Emperor of the Ming Dynasty only got a tiny share! One million! You, the Son of Heaven, were made a fool of like a monkey by the Yan Party for twenty years for a mere one million taels of silver!"

He raised his head, pointed at the sky, and roared:

"Zhu Houcong! You've completely disgraced our Ming Dynasty ancestors!"

The parallel Zhengde era of the Ming Dynasty.

Inside the Leopard Room.

Zhu Houzhao looked at the phrase "my money" and laughed so hard he rolled off the animal-skin chair.

He clutched his stomach with both hands, rolled around on the ground frantically, and tears streamed down his face.

"Incredible! Absolutely incredible!"

The Zhengde Emperor laughed so hard he could barely breathe, pointing at the sky and slapping the ground with his fist.

"Back then, I was even subjected to an internal coup by that old man Yang Tinghe because of money! Liu Jin was killed because of it, and I was a puppet for many years. But Zhu Houcong, on the other hand, has gone mad with greed and actually started a business partnership with Yan Song! You're the manager, he's the chief administrator, and the accountant under you, the emperor, has been embezzled! Hahahaha!"

He picked up a glass of wine and poured it on the ground:

"My dear brother, you're not even as good as a nouveau riche as an emperor!"

On the backdrop, the studio's ghastly green lights were intensely bright.

Zhu Dijun casually threw the impeachment list on the ground and crushed it hard with his toe.

"This is the tragedy of the Jiajing era, rotten to the core. The Yan faction did fall, and Xu Jie did rise to power. But was the Ming Dynasty's officialdom truly cleansed? No!"

He crossed his arms and stared coldly at the camera.

"The system hasn't changed, the essence of imperial power seeking immortality hasn't changed, and Jiajing is still hoping for eternal life every day in the Western Garden. With the fall of Yan Song, the court has simply changed a group of people to continue operating according to this set of unspoken rules."

Zhu Dijun suddenly paused, a chilling glint flashing in his eyes.

"Furthermore, family members, do you really think that the biggest beneficiary of Yan Song's downfall was Jiajing? Wrong, terribly wrong. The biggest beneficiaries were the upright officials led by Xu Jie!"