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

"Bahannaji. Anda Khan's grandson."

Zhu Dijun pulled up a map on the holographic screen showing the route from the Mongolian grasslands to the Great Wall defense line, and marked Hannaji's marching route with a red arrow.

"In the tenth month of the fourth year of the Longqing reign, this young man was furious because his wife had been taken by his grandfather Altan Khan—yes, his own grandfather had taken his own grandson's wife; the marriage ethics on the grasslands were quite different from those in the Central Plains—and he took a dozen followers and went to Datong to surrender."

Someone in the comment section couldn't help but laugh.

"This plot is even more melodramatic than a TV drama."

"Grandpa stealing his granddaughter-in-law—this family drama could go on forty episodes."

Judy Jun didn't smile; her expression was very serious.

"Don't just treat this as gossip. The chain reaction this event triggered in the Ming Dynasty court is more exciting than any palace drama."

He pointed to Datong on the map.

"When Bahannaji arrived in Datong, Wang Chonggu, the governor-general of Xuanfu and Datong, immediately reported to the cabinet. Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng strongly advocated accepting the surrendered person and treating him well. Then the Ming Dynasty proposed exchange conditions: hand over the traitor Zhao Quan and others, the court would return Bahannaji, and allow subsequent tribute and trade."

Zhu Dijun wrote the two characters "Zhao Quan" on the whiteboard.

"Who is Zhao Quan? A traitor. He has long served Altan Khan, building cities on the grasslands, training Tatar soldiers, and leading Mongols to raid the border year after year. He is one of the root causes of decades of war on the border. It is perfectly reasonable for the Ming Dynasty to want his head."

He paused for two seconds.

"Historical records give this event a very high evaluation. They say that accepting Bahannaji was a brilliant diplomatic strategy that quelled a century-old border conflict at minimal cost. Treating Altan Khan's grandson well gave them leverage in negotiations, allowing them to exchange traitors for peace and avoid widespread bloodshed."

Zhu Dijun wrote this on the whiteboard and then drew a big question mark next to it.

"There's nothing wrong with interpreting it positively. But let's look at it from a different angle."

He walked in front of the camera and placed his hands on the podium.

"Gao Gong, Wang Chonggu, and their fellow northern border officials have been profiting from war expenditures for years. But the war costs are too high, and the national treasury can't keep up. They judged that if a tributary trade agreement were reached, a new and highly profitable channel would emerge for the trade of tea, silk, and horses between the grasslands and the Central Plains. Moreover, the trade management rights would be entirely in the hands of the northern civil officials of Xuanfu and Datong, and the profits would not have to be shared with the maritime merchants of Jiangnan."

Zhu Dijun drew a chain of interests on the whiteboard.

"Gao Gong and his people surrendered Hannaji to the Ming Dynasty not out of kindness, but because they had seized a bargaining chip to force Anda to open the market. The young man himself is not important; what is important is the trade pricing power attached to him."

He tapped the whiteboard.

"Let's talk about Zhao Quan. He's definitely a traitor, he deserves to die. But he also has another identity—a middleman on the grasslands. Zhao Quan secretly trades with smugglers and sea merchants from the southeast, bypassing the northern border towns to trade directly. This harms the interests of the Northern Group."

Zhu Dijun held up one finger.

"Eliminating Zhao Quan not only eliminated traitors, but also 'cross-regional trade routes not controlled by the Northern Group.' From then on, trade between the grasslands and the Central Plains could only go through the official trade markets of Xuanfu and Datong. The Northern civil officials became the only middlemen, profiting immensely from the price difference."

The live stream chat exploded.

"Holy crap, so traitors deserve to die and traitors blocking the path to wealth are two different things, but the result is the same."

"These people can even calculate the profit margin of war; war is an investment, and peace talks are dividends."

[“Bahanagi: Am I just a tool?”]

Zhu Dijun ignored the comments and continued pushing forward.

"Let's talk about the southeast. In the fourth year of the Longqing reign, the naval forces along the southeast coast were disbanded on a large scale. The reason given was that the Japanese pirates had been completely quelled, so there was no need to maintain a large navy, thus saving on financial expenditures."

He wrote the words "disarmament" on the whiteboard, and then added a line next to it: "Military funds transferred to the north".

"It seems reasonable on the surface. But what is the underlying logic? In the southeast, there is no army to check the government, and private naval forces have completely disappeared. The right to go out to sea from Yuegang is completely monopolized by the officials and gentry of Jiangnan and the local government. The military expenses saved are transported north, which indirectly weakens the self-defense power of Jiangnan and prevents the gentry of Jiangnan from relying on the navy to confront the central government."

Zhu Dijun threw the pen on the table.

"The construction of the Great Wall, the building of watchtowers, and the stockpiling of grain, fodder, and weapons in the north were all handled by northern civil officials. The procurement of materials and the allocation of funds for projects provided enormous opportunities for corruption. Every year, the imperial court diverted silver from the salt tax and the commercial tax of Yuegang in Jiangnan to supply the northern frontier. This was tantamount to continuously using the wealth of the southeast to support the military and political interest groups in the north."

He walked to the whiteboard and drew the entire logic line.

"The southeast provides the money, the north spends it. The southeast reduces its military, the north expands its military. The silver from the southeast flows to the Great Wall, watchtowers, military pay, and corruption in the north. This one-way blood transfusion channel was laid in the first year of the Longqing reign and was fully formed in the fourth year of the Longqing reign."

The Ming Dynasty, in a parallel Hongwu era.

Fengtian Temple.

Zhu Yuanzhang stood on the steps with his hands behind his back, his face ashen.

"Fourth brother."

Zhu Di stepped forward: "Your subject is here."

"Did you see that? Gao Gong and his gang fight wars to get military funds, and they want military funds to embezzle. When they don't have enough money, they set up border markets to monopolize trade. From beginning to end, whether the Mongols attack or not is completely unimportant. What matters is that all the money in this chain has to pass through their hands."

Zhu Di nodded:

"Father is right. I saw this kind of thing in Beiping. What border generals fear most is not the Mongols, but the court not fighting. No war means no military funds, and no military funds means no personal gain."

Zhu Yuanzhang snorted coldly:

"But Gao Gong was smarter than ordinary border generals. He not only made money through war, but also through peace. He profited from the court through war, and from merchants through peace. He profited from both."

The courtiers inside the palace were silent as if trembling with fear.

Zhu Dijun's live stream is still ongoing.

"Alright. That concludes our discussion of the politics and military affairs of the fourth year of the Longqing reign. Next, we'll move on to the economic sphere. Pang Shangpeng's salt reforms were thoroughly solidified that year. This stuff was even more ruthless than the performance evaluation system. The performance evaluation system was about seizing power, while the salt reforms were about taking lives."

He picked up the tablet and brought up the next set of data.

"Take a five-minute break. We'll talk about salt, river works, and Yuegang Port later. The final piece of the puzzle from the fourth year of the Longqing reign is where the real bloodshed begins."

"I'm back. The last paragraph."

Without wasting any words, Zhu Dijun wrote the word "salt" directly on the whiteboard.

"Pang Shangpeng's salt laws were implemented in the third year of the Longqing reign and consolidated in the fourth year. The vast majority of the salt revenue from the Lianghuai salt fields was transferred to the border towns of Xuanda and Jiliao. Funding for water conservancy and livelihood projects in Jiangnan was continuously reduced. All officials in the Salt Transport Office were replaced by the Gao Gong faction. The huge profits of the salt industry were divided up by the northern military and political groups, and the profits of Jiangnan salt merchants were greatly squeezed."

He drew a chart of fund flows on the whiteboard.

"The salt fields of Lianghuai are located in Jiangnan, but the salt revenue does not remain in Jiangnan. What is this called? Harvesting in another region. You produce salt on my territory, but the salt revenue goes to the north. If the salt merchants in Jiangnan want to survive, they have to pay protection money to the salt transport officials sent from the north. After paying the protection money, who gets the cost? The salt producers and the ordinary people who buy the salt."

At the end of the arrow chain, Zhu Dijun wrote "stove household" and "common people".

"The government forcibly bought up the surplus salt from salt-producing households, driving the purchase price down to the lowest possible level. Instead of decreasing, the retail price of salt rose. The extra money that ordinary people spent on salt went into the military pay for the nine border regions, the bricks and stones for the Great Wall, and the gray income of civil officials in the north."

He put down his pen and walked in front of the camera.

"Let's talk about the Yellow River again. In the fourth year of the Longqing reign, the Yellow and Huai Rivers continued to be managed. Taxes were reduced or exempted in disaster-stricken areas, and silver from horse prices and salt taxes were used to subsidize river works. Historical records say this was to appease disaster-stricken refugees and restore agricultural production in the north."

Zhu Dijun wrote the words "big landlords in Henan and Shandong" on the whiteboard.

"Who are the main beneficiaries of the tax reduction and exemption? The large landowners and civil officials in Shandong and Henan. They owed taxes every year, and the local officials turned a blind eye. Now, with an imperial decree, all debts are forgiven. It's like the northern landowning class has collectively taken a bath. What about ordinary tenant farmers and vagrants? Their corvée labor is not exempted, and they still have to do the river work. The gray profits from the purchase of materials for river repair and the collection of corvée labor all end up in the pockets of officials in the Central Plains and the North. Where does the funding come from? From the trade taxes in the Southeast."

He tapped the whiteboard.

"The people of Jiangnan paid for the repairs to the rivers in the north, the officials in the north embezzled the project funds, and the large landowners in the north waived their tax arrears. It was a win-win situation for all three parties. The only losers were the ordinary taxpayers in Jiangnan and the laborers in the north who had to work on the repairs."

Zhu Dijun retrieved the data from Moon Harbor.

"In Yuegang, by the fourth year of the Longqing reign, the management system was mature. The ship permit and commercial tax system was stable, and silver continued to flow inland. However, after raising the permit tax and restricting the size of ships, small and medium-sized merchants were unable to go overseas, and trade was monopolized by the powerful families of Fujian and Jiangnan. Overseas silver was intercepted layer by layer by the prefecture, province, and cabinet, and very little flowed into the lower levels."

He drew a funnel on the whiteboard.

"When silver from the Americas entered Yuegang, it passed through three layers of filtering: local prefectures and counties, the provincial administration, and the cabinet. Only a small fraction reached the national treasury. What reached the common people? Not even a fraction. The common people only had copper coins, while the court demanded silver for taxes. When the common people went to the money shops run by local gentry to exchange for silver, the loss rate was extremely high. During a bumper harvest, grain prices were suppressed, and when taxes were paid, silver prices were raised. They were fleecing both ends."

Zhu Dijun erased everything on the whiteboard and redrawn a master plan.

The three-year timeline spans from the first year of the Longqing reign to the fourth year.

"In the first year of the Longqing reign, the Xu Jie faction in Jiangnan seized power, monopolized the maritime trade and salt industry, and cut off the emperor's private treasury. The gentry in Jiangnan feasted on meat, while the court starved for air."

"In the second year of the Longqing reign, Emperor Muzong, taking advantage of the balance of power, recalled Gao Gong. The interests of the North and South were redistributed."

"In the third year of the Longqing reign, Gao Gong became the sole prime minister, and the political, military, and economic systems were completely reshuffled. The south provided the funds, while the north spent them."

"In the fourth year of the Longqing reign, the harvest was completed. The performance evaluation system purged officials in Jiangnan, the Hannaji incident opened up trade routes to the grasslands, the salt law stabilized the financial resources of the north, and Yuegang monopolized maritime silver trade. The wealth of the southeast was transported to the north in one direction through three channels: salt tax, maritime tax, and river works expenses."

Zhu Dijun wrote the last line below the master plan: "All the appearances of pacifying the people, securing the borders, and combating corruption are essentially about different regional interest groups at the top redistributing the national profits from commerce, land, and military spending."

"The ordinary people are merely the cost of this lucrative feast from beginning to end. No one has ever asked them if they were willing to participate."

"There are still two years left in the Longqing reign. In the fifth year, Anda was granted tribute, and in the sixth year, Emperor Muzong drank himself to death. Gao Gong's reign as prime minister is also coming to an end. Zhang Juzheng has been sitting idly by for four years; it's time for him to make his move."