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

The studio was so quiet that the only sound was the faint hum of the equipment running.

Zhu Dijun leaned back in his chair, watching the rapidly scrolling comments on the holographic screen. Without the uniform, frantically copied and pasted posts from the paid commenters stirring up trouble, the atmosphere in the live stream instantly became incredibly pure. Besides anger, there was a lingering fear of the abyss-like history of China.

"Ah, it seems the online trolls have all left."

Zhu Dijun picked up his teacup to moisten his throat, a cold, emotionless smile curling at the corner of his lips.

"Those crippled wrecks who can only crawl on the ground, their masters don't send helicopters to pick them up, so of course they can't type. Okay, let's ignore this trash and continue."

He put down his teacup, twirling the marker between his knuckles.

"You've all probably seen the recent news. The Japanese Prime Minister, whom netizens jokingly call the 'Car Power Giant,' is constantly making a fuss at various international conferences, always repeating one phrase—"

Zhu Dijun wrote eight large characters heavily on the whiteboard.

If something happens in Taiwan, something happens in Japan.

"Many people online criticize her for being ambitious and interfering in internal affairs. But what if I told you that, from the perspective of a deeply buried historical truth, her statement was actually a profound truth?"

Before the comments could react, Zhu Dijun swiped his tablet.

The holographic projection instantly filled the entire large screen. It showed several nautical and geomantic maps, bearing the top-secret watermark of the Ming Dynasty imperial family, which had just been rescued from a hidden underground imperial tomb. Next to them were scanned copies of the original secret scrolls from the Annals of the Goryeo Dynasty, which had not been censored by the Qing Dynasty.

"Now, we've unearthed this evidence. The historical and geographical coordinate system has been completely reversed by those barbarians."

Zhu Dijun picked up the pointer and pointed to the yellowed yet exceptionally accurate Ming Dynasty nautical chart.

"Look at the 'Dawan' or 'Wanwan' in the real records of the Ming Dynasty. Ancient books describe it as follows: 'Dawan is located north of the icy sea, with many volcanoes. In the depths of winter, heavy snow closes off the mountains, while in the height of summer, it is warm and rainy. It is a vast area, long and narrow like a knife.'"

He tapped the screen with his pointer, the sound like a war drum.

"Fellow family members, think about this carefully. Taiwan Province is located near the Tropic of Cancer. Does it border an icy sea to the north? Does it experience blizzards that block its mountains in winter? Can its topography support such an extreme description?"

Zhu Dijun pointed his pointer sharply upwards, landing on the four long, narrow islands in the northeast of the map.

"Honshu, Hokkaido, Shikoku, Kyushu! This long, narrow archipelago, home to Mount Fuji, prone to earthquakes, and bordering the Siberian Sea to the north, is the true Great Bay recorded in ancient Ming Dynasty books!"

The comment section exploded, with countless exclamation marks and "Holy crap!" flooding the screen.

"So what exactly is Taiwan now?"

Zhu Dijun drew a circle around the location of present-day Taiwan Province.

"In the top-secret archives of the Ming Dynasty, it wasn't called 'Wanwan' at all. It was the southern extension of the ancient Ryukyu Islands, known as 'Little Ryukyu.' After the Manchus entered the Central Plains, in order to cooperate with the Western powers in carving up China's territory, they forcibly attributed the name 'Greater Bay' to 'Little Ryukyu'!"

This is a geographical "transfer of one thing to another." By subtly changing the subject, the Manchu Qing dynasty not only erased the history that the Ming dynasty had actually controlled and named the Japanese archipelago, but also concealed the fact that foreign ethnic groups had taken over the islands overseas.

The Ming Dynasty. A parallel Yongle era.

The imperial desk in Fengtian Hall had been smashed into two pieces by Zhu Di.

He stared intently at the real nautical chart belonging to the Ming Dynasty on the sky. This was the nautical chart brought back by Zheng He from his voyages to the Western Ocean! It turned out that in later generations, the civil officials not only burned Zheng He's nautical logs, but also changed the names of the Ming Dynasty's territorial waters.

"What a clever example of a cuckoo taking over someone else's nest!"

Zhu Di's eyes were bloodshot, and the veins on the back of his hand, gripping the Emperor's Sword, bulged.

"The Japanese were originally just pirates entrenched in a small corner of the world, yet they dared to occupy my great bay and even dared to change their name to Ryukyu!"

Zhu Di suddenly turned his head and looked at the Minister of War and the naval commanders kneeling outside the hall.

"Issue an edict to Zheng He! Halt the fleet's voyages to the Western Ocean! Transfer all treasure ships equipped with the Shenji Battalion's heavy cannons to the East China Sea. No need for appeasement, no need for proclamations! Point the cannons at the bay, and blast any breathing Japanese pirates you see into mincemeat! Leave no one alive!"

Modern studio.

Judy Jun watched the rapidly scrolling comments on the screen. Soon, someone in the audience noticed something amiss.

"Ugh (f*** you), this is the truth! Those damned Japanese devils have occupied our territory!"

"Then the question arises: historical records show that the Japanese initially only occupied a small area like Kyushu, living like primitive people. How did they suddenly expand rapidly and occupy the entire Greater Bay Area and its four islands in just a few hundred years?"

"Good question."

Zhu Dijun put down the teaching pointer.

"How did a dwarf tribe that originally ate sashimi on Kyushu Island and whose members were less than 1.5 meters tall manage to expand their territory to what it is today? The answer is simple—leveraging external resources."

He wrote two names on the whiteboard: Manchu and Dutch.

A blood-red equal sign was drawn in the middle.

"Of course, it was conquered by the combined forces of the Manchus and the Dutch."

Judy Jun's voice was chillingly cold.

"There's a streamer in our country named Lao Ding who was recently banned from the platform in a flash just for casually mentioning 'the Netherlands is Yamato' during a live stream. You think this is a normal violation? This touched a nerve with the most stubborn remnant of European barbarians in East Asia!"

On the holographic projection, the roadmap of the Age of Exploration lit up in red.

"During the Age of Exploration, the Manchus dug tunnels in the Changbai Mountains of Northeast China, tearing apart the Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty from the land. Meanwhile, European pirates and knights, especially the Dutch fleet, outflanked the Ming Dynasty's coastal defenses from the sea. They were the Zheng family's army attacking China from two directions!"

Zhu Dijun tapped the table with his knuckles.

"Why are they called Yamato? Why are their behavior patterns and their inherent pirate-like plundering logic exactly the same as those of European colonists? Because the so-called Japanese and the so-called Yamato are simply another variant branch of Western barbarians left in the East Asian seas, besides the Manchus!"

The screen switched again. This time, it wasn't a map, but two extremely incongruous yet strangely overlapping comparison images.

On the left is the famous Japanese mythological monster, the "Karasu Tengu." It wears a small black hexagonal cap called a "Tokin."

On the right is a Middle Eastern religious group that controls the global financial lifeline, wearing a black prayer cap called a "kippah".

"Look at this hat, everyone. Aside from the subtle differences in size and material, whether it's the position it's worn in, the theological significance it represents, or the arrogant, foreign air it exudes, can you really say that this is just a cultural coincidence?"

In the live broadcast room, those hypocritical defenses about historical coincidences were completely shattered. Viewers, looking at the two almost identical photos, felt a chill creep up their spines.

"A tengu's hat looks like a kilt? That's fucking outrageous!"

"Are they too lazy to even change their props for their ghostly act?"

"I remember that many Japanese festivals and customs completely overlap with those strange Western rituals!"

"It's not just hats."

A cold glint of disgust flashed in Judy Jun's eyes.

"Now that I've exposed the disguises of those non-human species in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, let's just strip the Japanese devils clean too."

He pulled up a set of close-up photos. The photos showed the feet of Japanese women wearing traditional kimonos. They were wearing white socks called "tatami" (foot bags).

These socks have a very unique design. The big toe is forcibly separated from the other four toes, forming a noticeable gap to hold the straps of the clogs in place.

"In the past, those intellectuals and scholars who were kept by Western capital told us that Japanese women wore these socks to make it easier to wear wooden clogs, due to the climate, and as a lifestyle habit."

Zhu Dijun pressed the zoom button, and the foot wearing split-toe socks took up the entire screen. At high resolution, the outline of the separated toes looked particularly eerie.

"Is it really just for wearing shoes?"

Zhu Dijun's voice was lowered to an extremely low level, carrying a chilling certainty.

"Everyone, turn this foot upside down and look at it. Compare the shape of this deliberately separated front end to that of a certain animal on the grassland."

At the edge of the holographic projection, a close-up of the hoof of an even-toed ungulate silently appears. A cow's hoof.

It splits in the middle, with hard sides.

"In the human skeletal structure, the big toe and the other four toes are tightly connected side-by-side. Forcing them apart for a long period can lead to severe deformities and difficulty walking. Unless—"

Judy Jun stared at the camera, as if looking through the screen at the deformed race hiding on the island.

"Unless it's under that thick white sock, it's not a human foot at all."

The Ming Dynasty. A parallel Jiajing era.

Qi Jiguang, a famous general who fought against Japanese pirates, stared intently at the forked foot in the sky, his molars grinding together.

"A man with ox hooves. No wonder..."

Qi Jiguang slammed his fist on the table and stood up abruptly.

He finally understood why the real Japanese pirate spies he eliminated always carried an indelible stench; and why the captured Japanese generals would rather commit seppuku than remove their cloth socks to verify their identities.

"These bastards are nothing but beasts in human skin! They're imitating how humans walk!"

Modern studio.

"The Yamato branch of the Netherlands, a cattle hoofed species disguised as humans."

Judy Jun drew a huge gallows on the whiteboard with a red pen.

"Take off that sock and look at the bone structure of that foot. It's not a deformity. It's a unique physiological characteristic that they retained during the evolutionary process."

He rested his hands on the table.

"Why are they so eager to say 'If Taiwan is in trouble, Japan is in trouble'? Because every inch we expand our maritime power outward is encroaching on their nest hidden beneath icy seas and active volcanoes. We are not playing a game with a single nation."

Zhu Dijun cut off the projection, and the live broadcast room fell into a brief darkness, with only his voice clearly hitting the ears of tens of millions of people.

"We are eliminating a group of monsters that have taken over Chinese territory and have grown up eating human flesh."