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

"When many people see these four words, their first reaction is that the Ming Dynasty has finally lifted the maritime ban, fully embraced maritime trade, and silver is flowing into the national treasury, marking the official blossoming of capitalism. This is an extremely naive and irresponsible textbook-style brainwashing interpretation."

Zhu Dijun's tone became extremely sharp and penetrating.

"Where is the designated port for the opening of the sea? Yuegang Port in Zhangzhou, Fujian. Why choose this poorly developed place with underdeveloped transportation, instead of one of the established deep-water ports in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas? The underlying logic of profit distribution cannot stand up to scrutiny."

A topographical map of the southeastern coast of the Ming Dynasty appears on the screen. The location of Yuegang is highlighted in red.

"The Japanese pirate problem was at its worst during the Jiajing reign. Qi Jiguang and Hu Zongxian barely managed to suppress it under immense pressure. Where did those pirates come from? As we discussed earlier, most of them were smuggling fleets armed by gentry and wealthy merchants from Jiangnan. After Xu Jie and his group seized control of the central government, the lucrative maritime trade could not be stopped. However, they faced a major practical obstacle."

Zhu Dijun listed two core contradictions on the whiteboard.

"First, smuggling can no longer be carried out under the guise of Japanese pirates. The risks and costs are too great, and it is easy to attract a new round of government troops to crack down on them, or to expose their ugly crimes that cannot be seen in the light of day."

"Secondly, smuggling is tax-free, but its overall scale is limited. If we were to legalize trade, we would have to hand over real money to the imperial court to replenish the national treasury. The Jiangnan tycoons are extremely greedy and stingy. They came up with a brilliant but wicked trick—to open a small opening at someone else's doorstep to launder their own dirty money."

The live stream chat was filled with questions.

A netizen asked: [Was Yuegang chosen because Fujian is closer to overseas shipping routes?]

"Completely wrong. The reason for choosing Yuegang is because Fujian is far from the reach of the central government and is not the core interest area of ​​the Jiangnan financial groups at all. It's like you're a transnational drug lord; you would never manufacture drugs in your own mansion. You would have to set up a processing plant in that poor village next door. If something goes wrong, the blame will be shifted eastward."

Zhu Dijun tapped the Moon Harbor icon on the screen with his fingers.

"The opening of the sea during the Longqing era was essentially a smuggling operation by wealthy gentry groups along the Jiangnan coast, using the compliant cover of court officials as their agents, to legitimize their illegal maritime trade! They transported silk and porcelain produced in Jiangsu and Zhejiang to Yuegang Port for export. In name, they lifted the sea ban to silence public opinion, but the actual throughput of Yuegang Port was extremely small and could not meet the enormous trade demands of the nation. In this way, they both fulfilled the court's political task of opening the sea and preserved the deep-seated unspoken rule in their home region of Jiangsu and Zhejiang that most smuggling did not have to pay taxes."

The hazy filter of history has once again been shattered by this brutal deconstruction.

"After the opening of the port, how much tax did the Ming Dynasty actually collect? An audit at the end of the Longqing era revealed that the annual commercial tax from Yuegang was a mere tens of thousands of taels of silver. The profit from a single voyage of a large galleon to Manila was more than that! The Ming Dynasty's treasury didn't even have enough to fill a small portion; the real gold and silver mountains all flowed into the cellars buried deep underground by those powerful families in the southeast."

The spacetime connection port below the podium glowed with a faint light of data.

The Ming Dynasty, in a parallel universe.

Emperor Wanli, Zhu Yijun, slumped on his wide dragon throne, his obese body appearing unusually weary. The principles of benevolent governance that Zhang Juzheng had taught him in his early years now seemed like a complete joke of deceit and treachery under the scrutiny of the heavens.

"A mere tens of thousands of taels of silver. What a fine example of Longqing's opening of trade, in accordance with the will of the people."

Zhu Yijun's laughter was more pathetic than his tears.

"Later, when the imperial treasury ran out of money for war, I sent mining supervisors and tax commissioners to Jiangnan to collect taxes. These civil officials knelt in the court every day, cursing me for competing with the people for profit. Competing with the people for profit? I was competing with these bloodsucking beasts for profit! The lifeblood of the Ming Dynasty's wealth had long been cut off and drained by them at its root."

"These scoundrels, step by step, have been plotting against my Great Ming imperial family. From the very beginning, Emperor Chengzu, to me, how many of my ancestors died unjustly!"

Zhu Dijun gave his predecessors no chance to catch their breath and continued to push forward.

"Let's look at the second political achievement project that has been praised to the skies by scholars throughout history: the tribute system established by Anda."

The screen displayed portraits of the Mongol leader Altan Khan and Wang Chonggu, the Ming Dynasty's governor-general of Xuanfu and Datong.

"During the Jiajing reign, Altan Khan ravaged the northern border of the Ming Dynasty, even bringing the capital to its gates. In the Longqing reign, Altan Khan's grandson, Bahannaji, enraged that his wife had been taken by his elders, fled to the Ming Dynasty alone. The Ming Dynasty used this as leverage to facilitate trade between the areas inside and outside the Great Wall. The northern defense line of Xuanfu and Datong was temporarily relieved."

"It sounds wonderful; the people won't have to fight anymore. But how exactly is this calculated?"

Zhu Dijun put forward the core interest division line,

"In the border trade, what hard currency did the Ming Dynasty use to trade? Ironware, grain, and cloth. What did they get in return? Mongolian horses."

"Wang Chonggu was a representative figure of Shanxi merchants. They completely took over and monopolized the trade channels with Mongolia. Shanxi merchants bought goods at extremely low prices and sold them to Mongolian nobles at high prices; they also drastically reduced the purchase price of Mongolian horses and resold them to the imperial court at high prices to serve as military horses for the border army. They profited from both upstream and downstream partners."

He drew striking arrows on the whiteboard showing the two-way flow of funds.

"Moreover, the military risks on the northern border were not completely eliminated. Shanxi merchants tasted the sweetness of tax-free profits through the border trade, forming an extremely large transnational military trade interest group that was completely unregulated by the central government. This interest group developed like a malignant tumor by the end of the Ming Dynasty, which is what we know as the Eight Great Imperial Merchants. They smuggled grain, ironware, and gunpowder to the Jianzhou Jurchens beyond the Great Wall without restraint, which fattened Nurhaci's Eight Banners army. The foundation for this traitorous business was laid as early as the Longqing era."

"The Longqing New Deal was not a beacon of imperial revival at all. It was a targeted dismantling of the Ming Dynasty's state apparatus by cabinet ministers like Xu Jie and Zhang Juzheng to satisfy the private interests of the southern maritime merchant groups and the northern Shanxi merchant groups. They ruthlessly cut off the Ming Dynasty's last remaining lifeblood to feed these local powerful clans!"

The conclusion was resounding, striking the eardrums of every listener.

The so-called false prosperity was nothing more than a reflection of class stratification and comprador revelry. And the Ming Dynasty, this dilapidated ship riddled with holes, was irreversibly sailing towards the quagmire of the Wanli Dynasty, a period of mixed reputation, amidst this false prosperity.

"Next time, let's talk about the true and false history of Longqing's ascension to the throne in the New Year."

Zhu Dijun cut off the live stream signal from the main camera. The mecha girls behind him still stood like metal sculptures. This modern building, ravaged by war, welcomed the first rays of dawn. The thorough purge of those parasites lurking in the shadows, consuming the nation, had only just begun.