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

The studio's cold white light turned into a dull, earthy yellow, like dry, cracked yellow earth.

"money."

Zhu Dijun wrote the word on the whiteboard, the pen tip making a creaking sound as it struck the surface.

"During this period, the Ming Dynasty was so poor that even rats entering the national treasury had to leave with tears in their eyes. This is not an exaggeration, folks."

Two bar charts popped up on the holographic screen. One side showed expenses, and the other showed income. The bars on the expense side were so tall they almost broke through the screen's border.

"We fight Japanese pirates in the southeast and defend against Altan Khan's Mongol army in the north. These two fronts are constantly at war, and the annual military expenditure exceeds three million taels of silver!"

Zhu Dijun pointed to the shocking figure, "How much cash can the national treasury collect in a year? It's not enough to cover the expenses! Even paying military salaries requires robbing Peter to pay Paul."

"At this critical juncture when people were struggling to make ends meet, in the first month of the lunar calendar, the Jiajing Emperor suddenly issued an imperial edict."

Zhu Dijun pulled up a restored image of the yellowed imperial edict. "The Grandmaster of Cultivation, I don't know what got into him, maybe he saw how hard the soldiers on the border were suffering, or maybe he wanted to show off the Emperor's boundless benevolence. He issued an edict to the Ministry of Revenue: allocate 20,000 taels of silver, and the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Works will each contribute 10,000 taels. A total of 40,000 taels, to be used to reward the soldiers on the nine borders!"

"Forty thousand taels! Back when Yan Song was in power, if the emperor asked for money to repair a Taoist temple, Yan Song would dare to sell his pots and pans and plunder the people for millions of taels. But this time, Xu Jie, the chief minister of the Qingliu faction, stepped forward."

Zhu Dijun crossed his arms, his tone revealing an extremely complex scrutiny.

"Xu Jie submitted a memorial directly, which immediately refuted Jiajing's claim. Xu Jie's reasoning was very high-sounding: 'Sufficient provisions and salaries, and rewards for meritorious service.' In other words, the current funds were not even enough to pay regular provisions and salaries, and should not be used for such indiscriminate rewards. Rewards should only be given to those soldiers who have truly made contributions in battle, and should not be given to everyone indiscriminately."

"Gentlemen, this is interesting."

Zhu Dijun walked towards the camera.

"Jiajing was extremely proud; in the past, anyone who dared to stop him from spending money would be flogged to death in court. But this time, Jiajing actually swallowed his pride and withdrew his order!"

Several comments floated across the public chat screen in the live stream.

"Xu Jie is truly courageous! Finally, we have a chief minister who dares to stand up to the emperor head-on."

"A good official! He uses money wisely!"

Zhu Dijun stared at the screen and let out a very short, cold sneer.

"Hold firm? Do you really think Jiajing was persuaded by Xu Jie's reasoning?"

He grabbed the papers from the table, crumpled them into a ball, and threw them at the table.

"That's because they're broke! They really can't squeeze a single drop out of them!"

"Jiajing knew very well that the national treasury was truly clean on paper. Xu Jie wasn't unwilling to give the emperor face; his Ministry of Revenue simply couldn't produce the 40,000 taels of silver. If they pressed him further, they would only pressure the common people, potentially leading to a popular uprising. Who would clean up that mess then?"

Parallel Chongzhen era.

The wind howled across Coal Hill. Zhu Youjian, wrapped in a tattered cotton robe, stared intently at the sky. Upon hearing the words "three million taels for military expenses" and "the national treasury is running a deficit," his body convulsed uncontrollably.

"No money... So even Emperor Jiajing was broke back then..."

Emperor Chongzhen gritted his teeth, blood seeping from his lips. He knew this feeling all too well. His subordinates wanted military pay, Liaodong needed money, and the suppression of bandits required funds. Every time he asked for money in court, the chief minister and the six ministers would use Xu Jie's "empty treasury" argument to shut him up.

"It's not that Xu Jie is short of money; the wealthy landowners of Jiangnan have mountains of silver!"

Emperor Chongzhen pounded the frozen earth like a madman, shouting, "The Grand Secretary, who owns 240,000 mu of fertile land, is crying poverty to the Emperor! These bloodsuckers! The Ming Dynasty was slowly drained to death by these misers!"

In the studio, Zhu Dijun's autopsy continued.

"Due to war and the depletion of the national treasury, the Ming Dynasty was forced to halt some projects aimed at maintaining the dignity of the imperial family during this period."

He pointed to several production areas on the screen.

"Pearls from Guangdong and gemstones from Yunnan. These were originally local luxuries supplied to the imperial treasury and exclusively for the emperor and his harem. Around the thirtieth year of the Jiajing reign, local families were driven to ruin and death in their efforts to collect these tributes."

"Why has it stopped now? It's not because the emperor had a change of heart and cared about the people's strength. It's because the anti-Japanese war in the south and the internal peasant uprisings have completely destroyed these transport lines and production lines! Local officials can't even afford to suppress the bandits, so how can they have the energy to deal with these stones and pearls?"

Zhu Dijun drew a huge funnel on the whiteboard.

"Military spending is leaking, the imperial treasury is leaking, and official corruption is leaking. Xu Jie, the chief minister of the upright faction, inherited such a dilapidated house full of leaks. Increasing revenue and reducing expenditure is the dead end faced by all financial officials."

"Formal agricultural taxes aren't coming in because most of the land has been seized by powerful figures like Xu Jie, so there's no need to pay taxes. What can we do then?"

Zhu Dijun turned around, his marker heavily circling the bottom of the funnel.

"The only way to squeeze profits is from other sources. The two biggest cuts of fat in the history of the Ming Dynasty: salt and currency!"

"In the latter half of the 41st year of the Jiajing reign, the upright officials of the Ming court, in their pursuit of money, orchestrated two disastrous economic micro-management operations."

The mockery in his eyes grew stronger.

"Are you ready to see how the Ming Dynasty's bureaucratic system turned reforms into a tool for embezzlement? Let's start with the first knife—the salt tax reform!"

A flash of red light, and the funnel on the holographic screen transformed into a white salt mountain.

Zhu Dijun stood before the salt mountain, his tone unusually cold: "Salt, the most profitable monopoly industry in feudal dynasties. By the mid-to-late Jiajing period, the salt laws of the Ming Dynasty had become a pile of rotting flesh."

"In September, something extremely outrageous happened."

He pulled out a copy of the official gazette file.

"The Salt Commissioner submitted a memorial to Emperor Jiajing, formally accusing a group of rampant salt smuggling. Who? The Ming Dynasty's Embroidered Uniform Guard!"

There was a brief pause in the live stream.

"What? The Imperial Guards are selling smuggled salt?"

"Isn't this the emperor's private bodyguard and intelligence agency? They're shooting themselves in the foot!"

"Doesn't it seem absurd?"

Zhu Dijun sneered repeatedly.

"Why did the Embroidered Uniform Guard sell smuggled salt? Because of inflation. The meager salaries from the imperial court weren't even enough to support their families. They had special privileges, so why not use them? The Embroidered Uniform Guard officers loaded official boats with smuggled salt and cruised recklessly on the waterways. Who dared to check them at local tax checkpoints? They'd just draw their swords and attack!"

"What do you call this? This is called the state's violent apparatus engaging in business, directly taking away from the Ministry of Revenue's salt tax revenue!"

"The salt inspector couldn't take it anymore. The corrupt clique wanted to make money, and this hole had to be plugged. So, a new salt law reform plan was introduced."

Zhu Dijun wrote three policies on the whiteboard.

"First, the transport office will uniformly package and distribute the salt; smuggling is strictly prohibited. Second, no official or clerk in any government office is allowed to purchase salt on their own. Third, violators will be severely punished."

"Doesn't this policy look exceptionally good? Exceptionally fair? It combats corruption and safeguards national tax revenue." Zhu Dijun tapped the blackboard.

"But if you just look through the local county records, you'll find that this policy didn't actually kill the Embroidered Uniform Guards!"

He walked to the holographic screen, and the scene shifted to the salt fields at the bottom. Countless ragged salt farmers were boiling salt in highly toxic brine.

"Once the policy was announced, the Embroidered Uniform Guard dared not openly sell goods anymore. The local officials in charge of transportation saw that they could no longer make a profit, and might even have to pay for their own travel expenses. What to do? A mass exodus!"

Zhu Dijun suddenly raised his voice, his voice booming like thunder.

"With the officials gone, who will transport the salt? Who will sell it? The government's whip has lashed directly at the lowest level of salt producers! Salt producers not only have to endure the arduous labor of salt production, but also have to pay out of their own pockets for transportation losses! The already struggling poor people have been driven to the brink of despair in this so-called 'pure stream salt administration reform'!"

A parallel Hongwu era of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang stared intently at the sky, his breathing heavy and labored, like a bellows.

"The Embroidered Uniform Guards were smuggling salt..."

Old Zhu gritted his teeth. He had created the Embroidered Uniform Guard himself, initially to monitor officials and investigate corruption. He never dreamed that in his descendants' hands, this weapon meant to punish corrupt officials would become their own biggest embezzler and smuggler!

"If the lower beam is crooked, the upper beam will be crooked too!"

Zhu Yuanzhang smashed the armrest of the chair with a single blow.

"The government doesn't provide a livelihood for the officials, so they bleed the people dry. So-called reforms are nothing more than gods fighting, and mortals suffering. These scholars have never valued the lives of the common people!"

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's autopsy was not yet over.

"The salt administration was a complete mess, and the currency department was in utter chaos."

The white salt on the holographic screen instantly transformed into a pile of copper coins. Most of them were brand-new, officially minted coins, while the other half were thin, cicada-wing-like, and rusty, inferior privately minted coins.

In November, the Ministry of Revenue urgently reported: copper coins were not selling well, private minting was rampant, and prices were soaring!

Judy Jun pointed to the pile of cheap copper coins.

"What is a monetary crisis? It's when unscrupulous merchants melt down the good copper coins issued by the imperial court, mix them with lead and sand, and cast them into inferior copper coins, which are then released into the market!"

"The common people aren't stupid; nobody wants to accept this kind of rubbish. Market circulation has completely stalled, and grain prices are skyrocketing! There's widespread discontent in the capital, and it looks like a popular uprising is imminent."

"How did our Jiajing Emperor and Grand Secretary Xu deal with this kind of macroeconomic inflation and monetary credit collapse?"

Zhu Dijun took a half step back, his expression a half-smile, carrying an extreme sadness as if he had seen through the absurdity of history.

"Jiajing issued an extremely magical imperial edict."

He picked up the laser pointer and drew three circles on the screen.

"First, we will crack down on illegal minting, and the Baoyuan Bureau will suspend minting. In other words, since you are making counterfeit money, the national bank will also suspend operations for rectification, and no one will print money anymore."

"Secondly, he ordered Nanjing and Yunnan to send ten million cash to Beijing every year for reserve purposes. This was essentially forcibly draining resources from the south to fill the hole in the north."

"The third, and most brilliant, one!"

Zhu Dijun slammed the laser pointer onto the podium, making a crisp sound.

"Investigate the officials at the Beijing Baoyuan Bureau who embezzled copper and cut corners. How many were arrested? Eighteen low-level coin-minting craftsmen were arrested and thrown into prison!"

The live stream went silent for a moment, then the screen was filled with a string of speechless ellipses.

Zhu Dijun placed his hands on the podium, getting close to the camera.

"Have you figured out the fatal flaw that led to the collapse of the Ming Dynasty's economy? A nationwide financial crisis and a bankruptcy of monetary credit—instead of reflecting on this rotten and rigid system, and instead of cracking down on the large merchant groups in Jiangnan who were hoarding and speculating, the court chose the simplest and most brutal solution—arresting eighteen lowly workers to take the blame!"

"Eighteen artisans were imprisoned. Did prices drop? Did the phenomenon of Gresham's Law disappear? Absolutely not! The Ming Dynasty's treasury was slowly drained of its last drop of blood by this extremely short-sighted and foolish internal strife and blame-shifting."

He slowly straightened up, and the studio lights gradually dimmed.

"Xu Jie's first year in power. He won the factional struggle and reshuffled the personnel. But when it came to the country's purse strings, the supposedly upright officials, who spouted the teachings of sages, behaved no differently than Yan Song, and were even more covert and ruthless in their methods."

"The Ming Dynasty fell during the Wanli era, beginning with the Jiajing era. Today, we've seen the true story behind this statement. In the next episode, we'll examine the absurd end that awaited this emperor who went from cultivating immortality to demonic possession."

The screen went black. Only the last comment flashed in the darkness:

"When a dynasty prospers, the people suffer. When a dynasty falls, the people suffer."