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

The Ming Dynasty, a parallel Hongwu era.

A thin layer of frost covered the glazed tiles of the Fengtian Hall, yet the temperature inside was several degrees colder than outside. Zhu Yuanzhang sat upright on the dragon throne, the veins on the back of his withered hands bulging like the gnarled roots of an old tree. He stared at the sky, a chilling laugh rumbling from his throat.

"Wow, that's impressive. You've really gotten better."

Old Zhu laughed so hard his shoulders were shaking, the laughter echoing in the empty hall, carrying a strong smell of blood.

"Fire couldn't kill that blind, immortal-seeking Zhu Houcong, but these bookish sages actually considered flooding it. And what's more, they wanted to flood Beijing, the city where the fourth prince would later move the capital!"

He slammed his hand on the imperial desk, causing the ink in the inkstone to splatter everywhere.

"A bunch of beasts in human form! A bunch of living devils in official robes! The flooding of the capital has brought suffering to hundreds of thousands of people. If chaos erupts in the north, the Mongol Tatars will seize the opportunity to march south. What will become of the Ming Dynasty? Aren't they afraid of dying without a burial place?!"

The civil and military officials knelt below, none daring to respond at this critical juncture.

At this moment, Prince Yan, Zhu Di, stepped forward. He raised his head, meeting his father's murderous gaze, and spoke with surprising calm.

"Father, you overestimate the integrity of these scholars. As long as the Tatars are willing to cooperate with this group of civil officials from later generations and restore the so-called tax farming system and trade monopoly, what is there to fear?"

Zhu Di turned around, pointed towards the sky, and spoke very bluntly:

"From the time of my future great-grandson Zhu Qizhen, when smuggling occurred along the border, all the way to Zhu Houcong's generation, the collusion between civil officials and generals and the forces outside the Great Wall has lasted for at least a hundred years. In places we can't see, these two forces have long been bound together as a community of interests through intermarriage, shareholding, and profit sharing."

He spread his hands, making no attempt to conceal his disdain for the officialdom of later generations.

"The reason we didn't directly welcome the Tatars into the interior is simply because we couldn't agree on the terms, or the Tatars didn't offer enough benefits to justify a complete break with us. Country and the world? They're nothing compared to real money."

Crown Prince Zhu Biao, listening from the side, was terrified and secretly thought to himself: "Fourth Prince, you really dare to throw a torch into a powder keg!" But upon closer reflection, he realized that these words had stripped away the true nature of the so-called loyal civil officials.

The Ming Dynasty, in a parallel Yongle era.

As Zhu Di gazed at the sky, he couldn't help but laugh in fury when he saw that those beasts of later generations actually planned to flood Beijing.

"Hahaha, ahahaha, good, really good! The ministers of my Great Ming Dynasty are no longer satisfied with burning the city to kill their emperor; they've changed it to flooding Beijing. Emperor Wuzong Zhu Houzhao was pushed into the water and drowned, and he died because the imperial physicians wouldn't treat him. Now it's that little bastard Zhu Houcong's turn. He's got quite a few methods."

The officials below were like turtles hiding in the ground, not daring to utter a sound. The Three Yangs and their students had already been executed here by Zhu Di, their entire families, men and women alike, killed! They did not want to follow in their footsteps; it was not worth it, not worth it at all.

Zhu Gaochi, standing beside him, hesitated to speak, but finally sighed helplessly. He said that he must firmly carry out his father's plan in the future and not make any mistakes. This was for Zhanji, for his second and third brothers, and for the people of the Ming Dynasty in the future!

In the studio, Zhu Dijun's autopsy continued.

"Beijing flooded. Doesn't that sound exactly like a conspiracy theory circulating online?"

Judy Jun stood in front of the holographic screen, holding a piece of paper in his hand, and waved it in mid-air.

"We're not going to play games today. We'll directly confront each other with official meteorological records and local historical materials from the Ming Dynasty. Everyone, look here."

He threw the piece of paper in his hand onto the podium, and the holographic screen suddenly unfolded two sets of shocking historical photocopies.

"In his book 'Qixiu Leigao,' the Ming Dynasty historian Lang Ying wrote in black and white: In June of the 25th year of the Jiajing reign, Beijing was hit by continuous heavy rains, resulting in severe flooding. How severe was the disaster? 'Many houses collapsed, and countless people died.'"

Zhu Dijun's pointer slammed heavily on the screen. "The most fatal part is the last four words—'Straight into the Imperial City'! The floodwaters have directly poured into the Forbidden City!"

"This is nothing. In June of the thirty-third year of the Jiajing reign, the capital was hit by another massive flood."

He circled another number with an infrared pen.

Historical records indicate that the floodwaters reached "more than ten feet deep on flat ground." To put that into perspective, the water was more than three meters deep on flat ground! The offices of various ministries were turned into giant pools of water, and houses of officials and civilians collapsed in large numbers. The number of dead and injured was impossible to count.

The live stream chat exploded instantly.

"Three meters on flat ground? Is this Beijing or Venice?!"

"Doesn't the Forbidden City have a top-notch drainage system like the Nine Dragons Spouting Water? How could it have been flooded so badly?"

Judy Jun rested his hands on the control panel, leaned slightly forward, and looked extremely mocking.

"You've hit the nail on the head. The drainage system in the Forbidden City is indeed impressive, but what about the rest of Beijing? It's like having a top-of-the-line toilet in your home, but the main sewer system in your neighborhood is completely blocked. In the end, the sewage will still flow back into your living room, won't it?"

He quickly drew three lines on the whiteboard.

Why did Beijing frequently transform into an underwater palace during the Jiajing era? The answer lies in a perfect conspiracy between the natural climate and the man-made disasters perpetrated by the civil service.

"First, geography and climate. Beijing is a place where the northwest is high and the southeast is low. When the summer monsoon comes into play, heavy rain falls down the terrain, which makes it prone to flooding."

"Secondly, the ecosystem was completely destroyed. During the Yuan and Ming dynasties, and later the Qing dynasty, the forests in the upper reaches of the Yongding River were completely cut down to build the capital and palaces. Without trees, soil erosion became severe. The sediment content of the Yongding River increased dramatically, and the silt accumulated in the downstream riverbed, creating a 'suspended river above ground.' During the flood season, breaching the dikes was as easy as playing with them."

Zhu Dijun put down his pen and tapped his knuckles rapidly on the table.

"The key is the third point! The drainage system is largely unusable! The Ming Dynasty law originally stipulated that the ditches inside and outside the city must be dredged every spring. But this work costs money, and we need to recruit laborers."

He raised his voice, his tone filled with sorrowful accusation, "During the Jiajing era, we were fighting Japanese pirates in the southeast and defending against the Mongols in the north. The national treasury was already empty. The Ministry of Revenue cried poverty every day, saying they had no money. What did they do when they had no money? They stopped construction!"

On the screen, an image of a culvert overgrown with weeds and clogged with silt was magnified.

"The sewers have been in disrepair for years, so clogged with silt that even a rat can't squeeze through. During heavy rains, the entire city is flooded. The civil service controls the purse strings; don't they know that neglecting the sewers will lead to drownings? They know it all too well!"

Judy Jun walked around with a cold smile.

"But Xu Jie and his ilk were happy to see it happen. They tried every means to resist paying agricultural taxes in Jiangnan, and the infrastructure in the north was a complete mess, which they used as an excuse to avoid paying. As long as the fire didn't reach their grand mansions in Jiangnan, what did it matter to them how many ordinary people drowned in Beijing?"

"Therefore, the extremely insidious theory that has been passed down to later generations is that the civil official group led by Xu Jie deliberately allowed the infrastructure to collapse. If the fire didn't kill you, Jiajing, then let the torrential rain turn the Forbidden City into your crystal palace. If the emperor really drowned, it would be Heaven's misfortune, and the civil officials would not be blamed."

The scrolling numbers in the live stream paused for a few seconds, followed by a barrage of insults.

"These beasts, inhuman and monstrous, dragged an entire city's inhabitants down with them just to kill the emperor!"

"Isn't this just a disguised scorched earth policy? It's too ruthless!"

"Old Zhu was too gentle when he was skinning people alive back then!"

Zhu Dijun looked at the comments on the secondary screen and reached out to tug at his collar.

"In this quagmire of high pressure, oppression, and the entire officialdom putting on a show, the air in the Ming court had become unbearably foul. But at this critical juncture, history arranged for an absolute outlier to smash open the tightly closed vermilion gate of the West Garden."

He turned around and wrote three words on the whiteboard in a flourish.

【Hai Gangfeng】.