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

Zhu Dijun pulled up a yellowed photocopy of a memorial, and the infrared pen's light moved back and forth across it.

"The Ten-Section Brocade Method sounds like a martial arts manual from a wuxia novel. In reality, it was a radical fiscal and tax reform bill from the Ming Dynasty. Wen Ruzhang was a typical member of the emperor's faction, and Jiajing released him to provoke the gentry in Jiangnan."

The holographic screen switched to a traditional Chinese ink painting map of Songjiang Prefecture in Jiangnan. On the map, thousands of acres of fertile land were divided into extremely uneven blocks of color.

What is the Ten-Section Brocade exercise?

Zhu Dijun drew a circle on the whiteboard and cut it into ten equal parts.

"Simply put, it means forcibly integrating all the land in the ten Jia into one, and uniformly distributing the silver and labor fees according to the amount of land."

"It's okay if you don't understand, I'll translate it into plain language for you."

He threw down his pointer, bracing his hands on the edge of the control panel. "In the past, the common people of the Ming Dynasty not only had to pay grain taxes, but also had to perform corvée labor. High-ranking officials and landlords used their privileges to register all their land under other people's names, a practice called 'deceptive registration.' They didn't pay a single penny or exert any labor, making the poor people at the bottom perform corvée labor and pay for it all. The people couldn't survive and had no choice but to give their land away to the landlords for free."

"Now Wen Ruzhang has overturned the table. Whether you're an official with tax-exempt privileges or an ordinary farmer, everyone must bring out their land and compile it together! We'll recalculate according to land area! If you have 240,000 mu of land, then you'll have to bear the corvée fees for 240,000 mu!"

Zhu Dijun burst into laughter, his laughter carrying a kind of exhilarating satisfaction, like the pain of cutting off flesh and bleeding.

"Is this move truly ruthless? This is the underlying logic behind Zhang Juzheng's later 'Single Whip Law.' Jiajing was using economic means to directly desecrate the ancestral graves of Xu Jie and his ilk!"

The live stream chat exploded with comments, with viewers exclaiming that this was the real killer move.

"But my family, you have underestimated the bottom line of the gentry in Jiangnan."

Zhu Dijun's tone shifted, and the ink-wash map on the screen was splattered with a layer of crimson blood.

"These interest groups that monopolize the nation's discourse and economic lifeline, do you think they'll obediently hand over money in the face of laws that threaten their lives? Dream on!"

He typed on the keyboard and brought up Wen Ruzhang's biography.

"Wen Ruzhang was a truly tough guy. When he was the inspector of the salt administration in Zhejiang and Jiangsu, he faced countless threats of execution and still managed to put forward a 'Five Measures for Salt Law' that pierced through the network of vested interests. All of them were inspiring, emphasized the importance of judicial power, and prohibited corruption! Every measure was designed to cut off the black hand of local powerful figures smuggling official salt. Later, when he came to Shandong, this guy was even more ruthless. He directly submitted a memorial to impeach Ma Tang, the tax supervisor who levied exorbitant taxes. When he was the magistrate of Huoqiu, a great plague broke out. He emptied his own pockets to buy medicine and managed to save tens of thousands of lives from the brink of death."

Zhu Dijun slammed his fist on the whiteboard twice, the sound like tearing silk.

"He was a capable minister with principles and shrewdness! What's more, he was a sharp knife sent by Jiajing to Jiangnan. But he underestimated the shamelessness of the Jiangnan gentry."

The holographic screen suddenly darkened, and a carefully prepared Chinese medicine prescription was magnified in close-up.

"We can't beat you in court, and we can't find fault with you in impeachments, so what do we do? Physically eliminate you!" Zhu Dijun gripped the podium tightly with both hands, his knuckles turning blue from the force.

"The civil service group secretly spent a lot of money to directly bribe Wen Ruzhang's personal physician. During a common cold, a bowl of medicine with added ingredients was served to him."

He suffered a sudden illness and died while in office!

Zhu Dijun kicked the side of the podium.

"Dead men tell no tales! A decisive and beloved imperial inspector, he fell silently on the eve of the implementation of the Ten-Section Brocade method. With his death, it became a dead end. In the early years of the Wanli reign, these upright officials killed Emperor Longqing, and taking advantage of the young Wanli emperor being a puppet who couldn't even speak properly, they abolished the Ten-Section Brocade method with a stroke of their pens!"

A parallel universe of the Ming Dynasty. The 44th year of the Jiajing reign.

Inside the duty room of the Ming Dynasty's Inspectorate, the air was so cold that water would freeze into ice.

Wen Ruzhang, dressed in the official robes of an imperial censor, sat upright in his grand chair. The verdict displayed on the screen was piercingly incisive. He slowly turned his head, his gaze sweeping over his colleagues who usually spoke of benevolence and righteousness and addressed him as brother.

Upon meeting his gaze, several officials averted their eyes as if electrocuted, lowering their heads and pretending to peruse case files; some even had fine beads of sweat on their foreheads.

"Great, that's great."

Wen Ruzhang did not become hysterical. He picked up the hot tea on the table, gently skimmed off the foam, and let out a chilling laugh.

"You beasts with human faces and beast hearts. You dare to commit regicide and rebellion, you are good at harming the people of Jiangnan, and now you have even resorted to the despicable method of poisoning your colleagues." He slammed the teacup heavily on the table, the porcelain shattered, and the scalding tea spilled all over the table.

"I am right here."

Wen Ruzhang stood up, smoothed out the wrinkles in his official robes, and his gaze swept across the entire duty room like a sharp blade.

"The Ten-Section Brocade Method is approved by this official. Those who have the guts, go and bribe the physician now; those who don't, wash your necks clean and await my memorial!"

In the studio, Zhu Dijun's scalpel had already cut into the more fatal lifeline of military power.

"The forced abolition of the Ten-Section Brocade exercise is only the first step in the Jiangnan civil official group's purge of dissidents."

He drew an extremely sharp cross line on the screen.

"To prevent Jiajing from resorting to desperate measures and using the army to forcibly implement reforms, Xu Jie and his team set their sights on the southeastern stronghold. They wanted to pull out Jiajing's last and sharpest tooth in the military."

Suddenly, a majestic figure clad in armor and holding a commander's seal appeared on the big screen.

"Hu Zongxian! Governor-General of Zhejiang and Zhili, the supreme commander in the southeastern resistance against Japanese pirates, and the superior of Qi Jiguang and Yu Dayou!"

Zhu Dijun grabbed the blackboard eraser, wiped out Wen Ruzhang's name, and replaced it with the three characters "Hu Zongxian".

"What was their excuse? Confiscating property! When they went to confiscate the property of Luo Longwen, a remnant of Yan's faction, they 'coincidentally' found several private letters that Hu Zongxian had written to Yan Shifan, as well as a so-called 'forged imperial edict' that they had drafted to appease the pirate Wang Zhi."

"If you want to find fault, you can always find a pretext!"

Zhu Dijun burst into laughter, a laugh tinged with sorrow. "When Hu Zongxian was the Governor-General of Zhejiang and Zhili, the annual military expenditure shortfall was over a million taels. If he hadn't bribed Yan Shifan or written letters to flatter him, would Yan Song have approved funds for him to fight the Japanese pirates?! As for the forged edict to pacify Wang Zhili, that was a stopgap measure personally approved by the Jiajing Emperor himself!"