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

"Having discussed power struggles and military power, we now move on to the third and most crucial level—the collapse and restructuring of the economic system."

As Zhu Dijun paced back and forth in the studio, the robot girl 50hi stepped forward and silently wiped away the previous writing on the blackboard with an absolutely dust-free nano-alloy cloth.

The screen switched to display a yellowed rubbing of a memorial to the throne—"Twenty Matters Concerning Salt Laws".

"In September of the second year of the Longqing reign, Gao Gong dispatched his trusted lieutenant Pang Shangpeng to oversee the salt production and storage across the country. A major upheaval in the salt industry that swept the nation began."

Zhu Dijun turned around and began speaking at a rapid-fire pace, like a machine gun.

"In ancient China, what was salt? It was the country's second most vital financial resource. The profits from salt in Lianghuai and Changlu were so great that they could buy half the country. During the Jiajing reign and the first year of the Longqing reign, this most lucrative piece of meat was firmly grasped and divided up by Xu Jie's Jiangnan faction, powerful nobles and relatives, and palace eunuchs."

"Pang Shangpeng's Twenty Measures on Salt Law seem to be beneficial to the country and the people. For example, cracking down on the private salt trade by powerful officials and eunuchs; the government's unified purchase of surplus salt; and the redrawing of salt merchants' sales territories."

"But listen to this policy translated into political jargon: Gao Gong is wielding a butcher's knife to seize the core financial resources of the Jiangnan civil official group!"

Zhu Dijun drew arrows indicating the flow of funds on the screen.

"Eunuchs were strictly forbidden from interfering in the salt industry. This move completely cut off the last avenue for the emperor to independently raise money through the imperial treasury. Even buying an ice pop required the emperor to ask the Ministry of Revenue for help."

"Crack down on smuggled salt and clean up the salt merchants. Who were the ones who were reshuffled? They were all the big salt merchants from Jiangnan who had been attached to Xu Jie and Zhang Juzheng in the early period. The vacant quotas and salt permits immediately fell into the hands of northern merchants and privileged merchants who were attached to the new cabinet."

"The most ruthless measure: salt certificates would be converted into silver and directly sent to Taicang, exclusively for the military pay of the nine border regions!"

Zhu Dijun slammed his hand on the table.

"Did you all understand? The salt profits from the South are no longer circulating in local finances; they've been forcibly diverted and packed up for shipment to the North! They're being used to pay the soldiers in the northern border towns and to build the Great Wall. This is like taking the blood of the South to give IV fluids to the warlords and civil officials in the North! Is this what you call national allocation? This is called winner-takes-all!"

Viewers in the live stream were horrified by the raw and unfiltered analysis.

"Good heavens! I used to think the Longqing era was a peaceful transition when I read history books. Turns out, this wasn't a transition at all, it was outright robbery!"

"The North-South divide is that severe? No wonder that by the late Ming Dynasty, the Southern Ming court had already lost the north to the Jurchens, while the south was still locked in internal strife. That's the root of the problem!"

Zhu Dijun didn't stop, and continued to probe the bottom line.

"Domestic salt administration was reshuffled, and overseas trade was not spared from being exploited as well."

"Control over Yuegang was further tightened. The first year of the Longqing reign was just a trial run, but by the second year, the court realized that this business was too profitable. What to do? Refine the rules for releasing ships and raise the tax on ships going to sea! Moreover, it was explicitly prohibited to smuggle to Japan without authorization."

"With this series of combined measures, small and medium-sized maritime merchants simply could not afford the high costs and the risk of being raided at any time, leading to widespread bankruptcies. In the end, only those wealthy and powerful maritime merchant families who were in cahoots with local provincial and prefectural officials were able to obtain seagoing permits."

A cold, hard graph showing the flow of silver covered the entire screen.

"The whole world is saying that the Ming Dynasty was a black hole for global silver at that time. Silver from the Americas flooded into the Ming Dynasty. But, my friends, the Ming Dynasty's treasury was still empty!"

Why?

Judy Jun's eyes were terrifyingly cold.

"Because after this silver arrives at Yuegang, it is skimmed off at every level. Local prefectures and counties take 30%, the provincial administration takes 30%, and the wealthy maritime merchants keep 40%. The amount that can actually be transported to the Ministry of Revenue's granary is only a drop in the ocean."

"And what about the common people? The massive influx of silver caused prices to skyrocket. But the common people, who farmed and paid rent, only had copper coins, no silver. The government, however, only accepted silver for taxes. The common people had no choice but to grit their teeth and go to the money shops run by the gentry to exchange their copper coins for silver ingots at several times the discount rate. The common people didn't even get a whiff of the profits from overseas trade; instead, they became the ultimate victims of the silver scissors!"

He pulled up a shocking set of accounting records from the Ministry of Revenue.

"Let's look at this historical record. The annual income of Taicang was a mere 201 million taels. However, the salaries of officials in the capital and the military pay for the nine border regions amounted to more than 370 million taels a year! The national treasury was in a state of huge deficit for many years."

"The imperial court, with this account book of fiscal deficit, openly began to do things: continuously increasing sea tax and salt tax; constantly investigating private estates and recovering debts; and then telling the world that the country was in great difficulty and everyone should be understanding."

Zhu Dijun picked up the chalk and wrote the final summary on the blackboard.

"Now, let's connect the entire conspiracy logic of the first and second years of the Longqing reign."

"The first year of the Longqing reign was the time for the Jiangnan Group. Taking advantage of the emperor's lack of power base after his ascension to the throne, they formed a group to reap the benefits of maritime trade and salt administration, and suppressed imperial power."

"In the second year of the Longqing reign, the imperial power turned against the northern faction. Emperor Muzong took advantage of the regional conflicts between the north and south among the civil officials, dismissed Xu Jie and recalled Gao Gong. Politically, he dismantled the monolithic alliance of the Jiangnan officials; militarily, he stripped the private armies in the south and handed over military power to the northern civil officials; economically, he used the salt reform to cut off the source of wealth in Jiangnan."

He took a half step back and precisely tossed the chalk in his hand into the wastepaper basket beside him.

"This is the glorious 'Longqing New Deal' that appears in history books."

"No policy was established purely for the benefit of the people. All reforms and rectifications were essentially a brutal division of wealth and a reorganization of power among the four forces: the emperor, the civil officials in the south, and the border officials in the north."

"The common people, the taxes reduced by the post stations were ultimately levied on them; the border soldiers, who shed blood to build the city walls, received nothing more than coarse rice mixed with sand. Throughout the entire process, they were merely the price and tools squandered at will in this grand narrative."

"The Ming Dynasty, this dilapidated house riddled with holes, was destroyed brick by brick by these people in their struggle for the beams and pillars. The brief peace during the Longqing era was nothing more than a fatal anesthetic before the Ming Dynasty slid completely into the abyss."

Parallel to the end of a parallel Chongzhen era.

Li Zicheng's army has already reached the area outside Juyong Pass.

Emperor Chongzhen, Zhu Youjian, stood before the ruins of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, surrounded by an empty square. Most of the court officials who usually spoke eloquently and classically had already fled home to rummage through their belongings and prepare to submit their surrender documents.

Zhu Dijun's last words in the sky were like a poisonous thorn piercing Chongzhen's heart.

"The country is having such a hard time..."

Emperor Chongzhen let out a bitter laugh, a laugh more mournful than that of a night owl.

"When I first ordered these ministers to donate funds to resist the rebels, the Grand Secretary Wei Zaode cried and shouted that his family was so poor they couldn't even afford to eat, and he only donated five hundred taels! The gentry in Jiangnan didn't even give a single copper coin!"

"So, as early as the Longqing era, they were already accustomed to this trick of squandering the country's wealth to enrich their own private homes. My defeat was not unjust. The fall of the Ming Dynasty was not unjust!"

Emperor Chongzhen turned around and stumbled towards the inner palace. He went to find Princess Changping, to find the white silk ribbon that was originally destined for him.

A live-streaming room.

Zhu Dijun turned off the projector. All the studio lights came on.

"Alright, this is only the second year of the Longqing reign. The internal strife in the third year will be even more exciting. After all, the Longqing Emperor is not his father, the Jiajing Emperor Zhu Houcong; he doesn't have that ability."

Zhu Dijun stared directly into the camera, his eyes devoid of any pity.

"Then let's see how they clash in the third year!"