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

The Ming Dynasty, in a parallel Hongwu era.

Inside the Fengtian Hall, the sandalwood incense burned to its end, then broke into two pieces and smashed against the bottom of the bronze incense burner.

Zhu Yuanzhang had stopped writing with his imperial brush for half an hour. He stared intently at the comparison chart of "the positive and negative aspects of the Longqing New Policies" displayed on the sky by Zhu Dijun, his rough hands rubbing against the armrest of the dragon throne, scraping off a layer of gold paint.

"What a refreshing change! What a group of civil servants! What a Judy Jun!"

Old Zhu roared three times, his voice echoing across the dome of the hall, causing the civil and military officials below to hold their breath and not dare to utter a single word.

He strode down the steps, grabbed Crown Prince Zhu Biao who was standing at the front, and pointed to the image on the screen.

"Biao'er, do you see that? These are the scholars you usually protect! Even we have to admit, their schemes and tricks are admirable. They're incredibly patient. They outlasted Jiajing, and while the new emperor was still consolidating his power, they swiftly and decisively stripped the Zhu family of their military, financial, and even media power. Their methods are more ruthless than a wolf biting someone's throat on the grasslands!"

Zhu Biao hung his head, cold sweat beading on his forehead. He had always felt that his father had been too ruthless in killing, but now, looking at the bloody chain of vested interests in the sky, his Confucian ideal of benevolence shattered completely.

Zhu Yuanzhang turned his head and looked at Zhu Di, who stood tall and straight in the ranks of military officers.

"Fourth brother."

Old Zhu walked over and patted Prince Yan, Zhu Di, on the shoulder with astonishing force.

"That Judy Jun is your descendant. This young man truly lives up to his reputation as the 'Emperor Zhongzu of Ming' in some AI simulation; his meticulous analysis of imperial psychology reveals the inevitable outcome. Such ruthless insight, such thunderous methods!"

Extreme regret flashed in Old Zhu's eyes, and his sigh was mixed with suppressed anger:

"What a pity. What a pity to be born in later generations. If we had been born in a dynasty after our Great Ming, even just one, how could the Great Ming have been torn apart and swallowed whole by traitors and the remnants of the Pu family? The Central Plains have been submerged for four hundred years! This is like digging up the ancestral graves of our Zhu family!"

The entire court of civil and military officials knelt on the ground. They knew that this popular science education that transcended time and space had completely shattered the Ming Dynasty officials' dream of replicating the "figurehead emperor with real power."

Meanwhile, in the Han Dynasty, in a parallel timeline of Emperor Wu of Han.

The water clock in Weiyang Palace drips water, each drop a mournful lament.

Liu Che sat cross-legged on his couch, the table in front of him piled high with newly submitted financial reports from various regions. The analysis of the first year of the Longqing reign, emanating from the sky, was like a cold chisel, directly piercing through the blind spot of fear he had deliberately avoided.

A figurehead ruler. A powerful minister. A usurper.

These words were rapidly rearranged in Liu Che's mind, eventually settling into several extremely familiar faces.

He thought of his eldest son, Crown Prince Liu Ju.

A while ago, when Tianmu was recounting anecdotes from other dynasties, it briefly revealed the trajectory of the Han Dynasty. The witchcraft scandal led to a falling out between father and son. Liu Ju was defeated and committed suicide, while Empress Wei Zifu hanged herself with a white silk ribbon. Half of the Han Dynasty's territory was ravaged by bloodshed due to a frame-up.

Liu Che's hands trembled violently as he swept the bamboo slips off the table.

The wooden sticks shattered on the floor tiles with a piercing sound.

"Jiang Chong... Huo Guang..."

Liu Che squeezed out those two names through gritted teeth.

He had always believed himself to be a man of great talent and ambition, capable of controlling the entire court. But look at how the Ming emperors in the imperial court were effectively sidelined: Jiajing was cut off from his elixirs, and Longqing was deprived of his imperial treasury. The safest way for powerful ministers to seize power or change dynasties was to first create a tragedy within the imperial family, forcing the rightful heir to commit suicide, and then installing a powerless young ruler or puppet.

Liu Ju was gentle and close to Confucian officials, which was very similar to Emperor Muzong of Ming, who was manipulated by civil officials!

Thinking further back, after Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang, passed away, Empress Lü seized power; during the reign of my grandfather, Emperor Wen of Han, the financial power was almost completely emptied by local powerful clans and marquises, forcing us to compromise with them.

History repeats itself, with the same methods.

The cold wind outside the main hall swirled fallen leaves past the windowpane.

Liu Che abruptly stood up and drew the Crimson Sky Sword hanging on the screen. The sword was drawn three-tenths of an inch from its sheath, the frosty blade reflecting his bloodshot eyes.

"Someone come here!"

Liu Che's voice exuded an endless aura of killing intent.

The commander of the Qimen army strode into the hall and knelt on one knee, saying, "Your subject is here!"

"Investigate for me! Immediately seal off Chang'an. The Grand Censor, the Minister of Justice, and all the palace eunuchs connected with sorcerers and shamans—imprison them all!" The veins on the back of Liu Che's hand, gripping his sword, bulged.

"Investigate those high-ranking officials who constantly preach Confucian benevolence and righteousness—how much land have they secretly annexed in Guandong! Investigate which powerful princes and nobles have befriended behind cruel officials like Jiang Chong!"

"Anyone who dares to obstruct the investigation, whether they are high-ranking officials or imperial relatives, will be executed first and reported later!"

The Qimen Army obeyed and departed. The gloom hanging over Weiyang Palace was completely torn apart by an impending great purge. The great emperor of the Han Dynasty would never allow his later years to become a stepping stone for powerful ministers and clans to divide the spoils.

In the real world, the smoke of battle at the clubhouses on the outskirts of Beijing has cleared up.

The hotel assassination was quickly covered up and classified as a terrorist attack by foreign forces after the military intervened forcefully. Those clown-like cultural brokers and pseudo-experts are now sitting in the interrogation chairs of the National Security Bureau, trembling like leaves in the face of piles of overseas financial transaction records.

Zhu Dijun did not interrupt the live stream. He sat at the control panel, and 36Ji behind him handed him a glass of oolong tea with ice. The metal fingers clinked against the glass, making a crisp sound.

The audience's senses had long been numbed by the cyberpunk-style visuals, and they were more focused on the historical bombshell that Judy Jun was about to unleash.

"Let's continue to expose the Ming Dynasty's true colors."

Zhu Dijun took a sip of iced tea, and the year on the tablet jumped to the second year of the Longqing reign (1568).

"In the first year of the Longqing reign, the Jiangnan civil official group, under the pretext of purging the Yan faction, lined their own pockets with all the political, economic, and maritime trade benefits. Xu Jie was riding high. But by the second year of the Longqing reign, the imperial court was in turmoil."

Two portraits appeared on the holographic screen. On the left was Xu Jie, with white hair and beard, and on the right was Gao Gong, with a sinister gaze.

"According to official historical records, in May of the second year of the Longqing reign, Grand Secretary Xu Jie was forced to retire, that is, he returned to his hometown. How did he retire? The historical records say that Xu Jie was a very loyal minister who repeatedly advised Emperor Muzong not to indulge in wine and women and to be frugal. The emperor was annoyed by him. At this time, a censor named Zhang Qi submitted a memorial impeaching Xu Jie's sons for being domineering and tyrannical in the countryside and for seizing land. The emperor took the opportunity to accept the situation and approved Xu Jie's resignation."

Zhu Dijun scoffed and threw the laser pointer in his hand onto the table.

"Listen to this, what a great upright prime minister! He offended the emperor by speaking out for justice, and in the end, he left in disgrace, full of integrity. This beauty filter is extremely thick."

He leaned forward, his fingers interlaced and pressing against his chin, staring intently at the camera with an air of menace.

"Ladies and gentlemen, in the study of politics, never look at what others say, but only at whose flesh the knife ultimately cuts."

"Xu Jie's downfall was not due to any remonstrance. It was an extremely bloody conflict between two major interest groups of civil officials from the north and south of the Ming Dynasty, vying for power!"

Zhu Dijun pulled up a map showing the regional distribution of bureaucratic factions in the Ming Dynasty.

"Who does Xu Jie represent? The gentry of Jiangnan and the maritime merchants of the Southeast. In the first year of the Longqing reign, they were well-fed. But the court wasn't just made up of people from Jiangnan. Gao Gong represented the northern landlords, the civil officials of the nine border regions, and the old officials of the Prince Yu's mansion. Xu Jie swallowed up all the fat meat of maritime trade and salt administration, leaving not even a drop of soup for the northern faction. The northern group was starving; how could they not retaliate?"

"What's even more fatal is that Xu Jie's actions in the first year sealed off the imperial treasury's coffers. Although Emperor Muzong of Ming, Zhu Zaihou, was a weakling, he was still a living emperor. The emperor wanted to spend money, but the Ministry of Revenue wouldn't give it to him. The eunuchs were expelled, and no one went to the provinces to collect money. Emperor Muzong was horrified to discover that he had been kept under the control of these old scholars from Jiangnan."

On the whiteboard, Zhu Dijun drew three circles: Imperial Power, Jiangnan School, and Northern School.

"Emperor Muzong wasn't stupid. He deliberately allowed the censors to investigate the Xu family's background. Why was Zhang Qi able to impeach them successfully? Because the emperor was using someone else to do his dirty work! He used the northern clique to eliminate the powerful Jiangnan faction. The essence of imperial strategy is balance. He could not allow only one voice to remain in the court. This was to prevent the situation of Yan Song's monopoly of power from being repeated in the form of Jiangnan civil officials."

Immediately afterwards, Gao Gong's name was enlarged and occupied the center of the screen.

"In December, Gao Gong entered the cabinet for the second time."

Judy snapped her fingers.

"Gao Gong's return was the most significant turning point of the second year of the Longqing reign. Upon his return, he immediately took control of the Ministry of Personnel. What is this called? This is called controlling the lifeline of promotion for officials throughout the country."

"The first thing he did upon entering the cabinet was to ally with Zhang Juzheng and ruthlessly purge the officials and protégés of Xu Jie who had remained in the court. Yesterday's righteous censors who were pointing out the flaws of the country were today exiled to remote and impoverished areas to eat sand. The public opinion in the court changed overnight."

"With Gao Gong's ascension to the throne, the imperial court issued an edict: dispatching four groups of censors to various provinces to conduct a nationwide audit of finances and grain!"

Zhu Dijun drew two heavy lines on the three characters "大盘查" with a red pen.

"This move is extremely ruthless. What are they investigating? Local taxes, inventory, and farmland. On the surface, it's anti-corruption, but in reality, it's a precise, two-way harvest."

"The first blow was specifically aimed at the local officials in Jiangnan who were allied with Xu Jie. They investigated their hidden landholdings and the silver they had smuggled and embezzled. Where did the confiscated property go? Part of it was used to replenish the imperial granary and was directly sent to the nine border regions to appease the border generals and officials in the north; the other part quietly flowed into Emperor Muzong's private treasury. The emperor could finally breathe a sigh of relief and had money in his pocket."

"The second tactic was to shift the blame. In order to cover up the fact that the gentry had seized land on a large scale, the court deliberately tightened its control over the imperial family, princes, and nobles. They strictly investigated their encroachment on private land. When the people of the whole country saw this, they thought, 'Oh, so it is these imperial relatives who are harming us.' All their anger was directed at the Zhu family, while the so-called upright officials in Jiangnan who owned hundreds of thousands of acres of tax-exempt land continued to live their wealthy lives peacefully."

The story takes place in the 45th year of the Jiajing reign of the Ming Dynasty.

The Jiajing Emperor, who had just finished killing Xu Jie and his faction, looked at the sky, and his gaunt face twitched twice.

"High arch..."

Jiajing murmured the name. He turned to look at Gao Gong, who was waiting outside the hall, his eyes unfathomable.

"None of these scholars are easy to deal with. Even with a new group, their greed remains unbearable. That's how they shredded the Ming Dynasty piece by piece."