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

The Fengtian Hall was in complete chaos.

"Father!"

"His Majesty!"

Zhu Biao scrambled to the dragon throne, his hands trembling as he checked Zhu Yuanzhang's breath.

When he heard that faint but still present breath, he went limp and collapsed to the ground, panting heavily.

Empress Ma was already in tears. She rushed up the steps and held Zhu Yuanzhang's cold hand, crying her heart out.

The imperial physicians, like startled quails, scrambled forward, some administering acupuncture, others feeding medicine, turning the entire hall into chaos.

The civil officials all had their heads down, wishing they could shrink into the ground.

fear.

An unprecedented fear gripped them.

The Hongwu Emperor was "talked down" by his descendants in the sky!

They were not afraid of the emperor killing people.

What they feared was that once the emperor regained his senses, he would use ruthless methods to correct the mistake he had made—a mistake that could have led to the downfall of the country!

Cutting off vassalage?

No, given the Hongwu Emperor's personality, it was definitely not as simple as just reducing the power of the princes.

That would be a bloody purge targeting the entire royal family!

……

The fifteenth year of the Yongle reign.

Zhu Di stared blankly at the image on the sky: his father lying on the dragon throne, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

Once upon a time, this figure was an insurmountable mountain in his heart, the goal he pursued throughout his life.

But now, that mountain has collapsed.

He was brought down by himself, and by Zhu Di himself.

"Pig farming..."

A dry sound came from Zhu Di's throat.

He thought of his brothers and nephews whom he had confined in his fiefdom.

He stripped them of their military power and gave them endless riches and honors, thinking this was the best arrangement for them and the best way to give back to the country.

He thought he had plugged a loophole.

It turns out that he himself had carved an even bigger hole in the giant ship of the Ming Dynasty, enough to make it sink a hundred years later!

And those civil officials...

Zhu Di's gaze slowly swept over Yang Shiqi and the others in the prince's presence.

He remembers it perfectly clearly.

When he implemented the policy of reducing power and lavish salaries, without exception, all these people praised him!

What nonsense about "Your Majesty's wisdom far surpasses that of Emperor Taizu," what nonsense about "solving the problem of the imperial clan once and for all," what nonsense about "ushering in an era of peace for all generations"!

Looking back now, every word of praise was like honey laced with deadly poison!

They are not assisting him.

They admire him! Admire how he gradually pushes his family into the abyss of slow death!

"puff……"

A surge of blood rushed to Zhu Di's throat, which he forced down, leaving his mouth filled with a metallic taste.

He cannot fall.

My father has fallen.

If he were to fall, wouldn't that be fulfilling the wishes of those traitors?

……

Above the sky, Zhu Dijun's voice rang out again after a brief pause.

His tone had lost its previous fervor, replaced by a deep sorrow.

"Family members, the system of vassal kings was the first time that the Taizu and Chengzu jointly planted for the Ming Dynasty."

"It exhausted the nation's strength financially and militarily, and dulled its fighting spirit."

"But that's not the most fatal thing."

"The most deadly thing was the second time they planted a landmine themselves."

"This bomb, politically and fundamentally, destroyed the very foundation upon which the Ming imperial power depended for its rule!"

The second bomb?

besides?

Emperors from all time and space felt a chill run down their spines.

A single feudal system is enough to bring about the downfall of a nation.

There's a second error of the same level?

How exactly did the Ming Dynasty end up in such a hopeless situation under the rule of two great rulers?

In the Hongwu Hall, Zhu Yuanzhang, who had just been slowly awakened by the imperial physician pinching his philtrum, weakly opened his eyes.

He heard the sound of the sky, and his unfocused gaze refocused.

What else did we do wrong?

"Before we talk about this second mistake, we must first talk about a system design by Emperor Taizu Gao that can be described as a stroke of genius."

Zhu Dijun's tone was full of admiration.

"This system is the [Grand Hall]!"

"Ohondo?"

This name was unfamiliar to everyone except Emperor Hongwu and his ministers.

"Emperor Taizu was keenly aware of one thing at the very beginning of the founding of the country."

"A dynasty cannot be sustained by the emperor alone."

"An emperor needs a 'core team' that is absolutely loyal to him and whose interests are highly aligned with his!"

Who makes up this team?

Judy...Jun drew a pyramid on the screen.

"At the top of the tower are the Crown Prince and the other princes."

"They are the successors and extensions of imperial power."

"The bodies of the tower are the direct descendants of founding heroes! For example, Chang Mao, son of Chang Yuchun, and Li Jinglong, son of Li Wenzhong!"

"They are the empire's top military nobles, the representatives of the elite elite group!"

"Taji is the most outstanding scholar selected from among the common people and the Imperial Academy!"

"They are the future pillars of the court, the reserve force of the civil service!"

"And the 'Grand Hall' is the place where these three forces have been united since childhood!"

Zhu Dijun's voice suddenly rose in pitch!

"The founding emperor decreed that his sons, along with the sons of meritorious officials and gifted students, should study, learn, and grow together in the 'Great Hall'!"

"They ate together, lived together, and listened together to the teachings of great Confucian scholars of their time, such as Song Lian and Liu Bowen!"

"What they studied was not only the Four Books and Five Classics, but also the Great Ming Code, the Imperial Edicts, and the rise and fall of dynasties throughout history!"

"Family members, do you understand what this means?"

"This means that the future emperor, the future prince, the future general, and the future prime minister are all classmates! Childhood friends! Brothers who have grown up together!"

"They share common teachers, a common knowledge system, and common memories of their youth!"

"What a strong political alliance this is!"

"When the civil service tried to use 'ancestral laws' to oppose imperial power, the emperor was accompanied by his brothers, Xun Gui and Xun Gui, who had grown up with him!"

"When the powerful and influential clique acted arrogantly and lawlessly, the emperor was accompanied by his fellow civil officials who had studied the Great Ming Code with him!"

"This is a perfect iron triangle! A political community centered around the Zhu family princes, firmly uniting the nobility and future civil service elites under imperial power!"

"With this community, what can the 'Khazar' or the 'remnants of the former Yuan' use to infiltrate? What can they use to sow discord?"

boom!

Emperors from all time and space, all of them stood up!

A startling light shone in Ying Zheng's eyes as he gazed upon the Great Qin!

"Wonderful! Wonderful!"

"I only knew how to burn books and bury scholars alive, and how to unify the world with Legalist thought. I never imagined that I could use this method to unite princes, meritorious officials, and scholars! To establish a ruling core that is loyal to me and loyal to the Great Qin, both ideologically and emotionally!"

Emperor Wu of Han slapped his thigh in exasperation!

"I established the Imperial Academy and exclusively promoted Confucianism to train officials for me! Yet my sons remain in the palace, taught individually by the Grand Tutor! They are disconnected from the future ministers!"

"This 'Grand Hall' has solved this problem! It allows the ruler and his subjects to become brothers, to become classmates, before they even become ruler and his subjects!"

Emperor Taizong of Tang was deeply moved by what he saw!

He suffered greatly from the constraints imposed by powerful clans and implemented the imperial examination system in order to break the monopoly of these clans.

However, those from humble backgrounds who passed the imperial examinations were still separated from the Li Tang imperial family and the military aristocracy of Guanzhong.

And this "Grand Hall" was practically tailor-made for him!

It combines princes, sons of noble families from Guanzhong and Longxi, and elites of the imperial examinations into one!

Given time, why worry about not eliminating powerful and aristocratic families!

At this moment, all the emperors cast heartfelt glances at Zhu Yuanzhang, a mixture of envy and admiration.

This emperor, who rose from humble beginnings, possessed an astonishingly far-sighted vision in designing systems!

However, at the height of this praise, Judy Jun's voice, like a Siberian frost, instantly froze everyone's enthusiasm.

"This is a near-perfect system."

"This is a 'god-level' plan that is enough to guarantee the stability of the Ming Dynasty for at least three hundred years."

"Later, it was abolished."

He paused, his gaze seemingly piercing through the opportune moment, directly targeting the Forbidden City in the fifteenth year of the Yongle reign.

"And it was none other than the one who abolished it."

"It was the son whom Emperor Taizu Gao was most proud of, who single-handedly created the Yongle era of prosperity—"

"Emperor Yongle, Zhu Di!"