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

Zhu Dijun slowly closed the booklet that contained blood, tears, and injustice, his movements gentle, as if comforting a departed soul.

He looked up, his gaze piercing through the camera lens, and saw the anger and bewilderment in the live stream room that seemed to burst the screen.

"Family members."

His voice was hoarse, as if he had just experienced immense grief.

"I know that when the truth about Tumubao was revealed in such a bloody way, many people, like me, probably felt devastated as their first reaction."

Zhu Dijun did not deny this emotion; instead, he put himself in the shoes of the audience, instantly bridging the gap between himself and millions of viewers.

"We would think, how is that possible?"

"This is the Ming Dynasty! The Ming Dynasty, which has just experienced the Yongle era of prosperity and is at the height of its national strength!"

"If it were the end of a dynasty, when the world was in chaos and a treacherous minister like Dong Zhuo emerged, holding the emperor hostage and slaughtering court officials, we might be able to understand it."

"After all, the house was about to collapse, and everyone wanted to go up and take a couple of pillars home to use as firewood."

"But when did the Tumu Fortress incident occur?"

Zhu Dijun's voice suddenly rose, like a bolt of cold lightning, cleaving through everyone's thoughts!

"That was during the reign of the fifth emperor of our Great Ming Dynasty, or the sixth if you count the Jianwen Emperor!"

"It is a dynasty, in the prime of its life!"

"With centralized power firmly established and the state apparatus functioning normally, the entire realm, in name and in fact, belongs to the emperor!"

"At this critical juncture, a shocking upheaval occurred: border troops openly defected on the battlefield, massacring the emperor's personal guards and attempting to assassinate the emperor!"

"Family members, do you know what this means?!"

"This means that this is not a simple rebellion!"

"This is ten thousand times worse in nature than the rebellion of Dong Zhuo, or the An Lushan Rebellion of the Tang Dynasty!"

Zhu Dijun spoke slowly and deliberately, each word like a poisoned ice pick.

"Because what Dong Zhuo and An Lushan wanted was to overturn the table and sit on the dragon throne themselves!"

At this time, all the Tang emperors except Li Longji and the emperors after him wanted to know: Who was An Lushan? What exactly was the An Lushan Rebellion? They wanted their descendants to explain it to them clearly.

Their ambition is written all over their faces!

"But the planners of Tumu Fortress were different."

A chilling smile curved at the corners of Zhu Dijun's lips.

"What they want is for the emperor to sit obediently on the dragon throne, acting as a mascot to be manipulated at will."

"What they want is to sit down and eat!"

boom!

"Let's eat!"

These four words, simple and crude, yet incredibly precise, express an ultimate ambition that would send chills down the spines of all emperors!

The Yongle Palace of the Ming Dynasty.

The overwhelming killing intent in Zhu Di's bloodshot eyes instantly froze.

He wasn't a young man like Zhu Qizhen. He had crawled out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, and had spent his whole life playing the game of power struggles. He instantly understood the suffocating meaning behind those four words!

What is a table?

The Ming Dynasty's empire was just a table!

Who can come to the table to eat?

Previously, there was only one emperor!

Whoever he commands to eat, that's who gets to eat! Whoever he commands to die, that's who gets to die! The chopsticks and bowl given to the military general Xun Gui were for picking up meat!

And now, a group of accountants and scribes in his eyes actually dare to dream of... sitting on equal footing with him, eating chopsticks together at this table?!

Do not!

Their ambitions are even greater than that!

They wanted to kick him, the master, under the table, so they could take the seat of honor and make the Zhu family's descendants watch them eat meat!

"Good...good...good to have dinner at the table!"

Zhu Di was so angry that he trembled all over, his teeth grinding together. The intense pain of being betrayed instantly transformed into boundless hatred for a class and a tradition!

Zhu Zhanji felt as if he had fallen into an ice cave; he finally understood.

Why did Yang Shiqi and his companions risk their lives to stop their grandfather from moving the capital?

Because in Beijing, right under the emperor's nose, the power of the imperial authority was too strong!

Why did they condone the uprising and use the burning of the palace with heavenly fire to create panic?

Because they wanted to undermine Zhu Di's prestige and make the world believe that the Yongle Emperor was not ordained by Heaven!

Why did they frame Zhu Gaoxu and Zhu Gaosui?

Because they want to eliminate all disobedient royal forces that might threaten their plans!

Why did they go to such lengths at Tumu Fortress to slaughter all the military generals and nobles, led by Zhang Fu?

Because they were the emperor's last henchmen! They were the only violent machine that the emperor could directly command without going through their civil service system!

Everything is connected!

This is not a simple power grab!

This was a comprehensive castration of imperial power—ideologically, politically, and militarily!

Above the sky, Zhu Dijun's voice confirmed his conjecture, and he spoke even more bluntly!

"Family members, it's a very simple principle."

"This newly emerging civil service group from the Song Dynasty wants it all, wants it all, and wants it all!"

What does "must" mean?

Zhu Dijun held up one finger.

"They want political power!"

"They want to control the cabinet, sideline the Six Ministries, and prevent the emperor's edicts from leaving the Forbidden City! They want their 'drafts' to become the true will of the state! The emperor only needs to nod and stamp them!"

"This is what they mean by 'sharing the world with the scholar-officials'!"

What does "again" mean?

Zhu Dijun extended a second finger, his voice growing increasingly cold.

"They want economic power!"

"They are representatives of the landowning class! What are they studying so hard for? Isn't it to become officials, protect their families, acquire land, and be exempt from taxes?"

"And our great Ming Dynasty's two great rulers, Taizu and Chengzu, one wanted to conduct a nationwide land survey, and the other wanted to launch voyages to the Western Ocean, wage a northern expedition, and compile the Yongle Encyclopedia. Which of these didn't require money? Where did the money come from? It could only be squeezed from these gentry and wealthy families!"

"This is tantamount to taking their lives!"

"Therefore, they must control the nation's purse strings! They must prevent any national policy that might harm their class interests! Even if such a policy is, in the long run, a tremendous benefit to the entire country and the entire nation!"

"Then what does 'want more' mean?"

Zhu Dijun extended his third finger, and his eyes became incredibly sharp, as if they could pierce through time and space!

"They also want...military power!"

"Once they seized political and financial power, they discovered that there was always something hanging over their heads, like the Sword of Damocles!"

"That is, the absolutely loyal group of military nobles under the emperor's command, who enjoy the privilege of hereditary succession!"

"This force is a weapon left to their descendants by the Taizu and Chengzu emperors to check and balance the civil officials!"

"As long as this knife remains, those civil officials will never dare to claim themselves as the masters of the table!"

"Therefore, this knife must be broken!"

"Therefore, the clique of nobles led by Zhang Fu, the Duke of England, must die!"

"Therefore, all the elite troops of the Beijing garrison who followed Emperor Zhu Qizhen on the expedition at Tumu Fortress, and those generals who disobeyed their orders, must die!"

"Use a crushing defeat, use the capture of an emperor, to completely rejuvenate the entire Ming army! To thoroughly purge the old military aristocracy that is not under their control!"

"From now on, the Minister of War will be a civil official! The Governor-General of the Borderlands will be a civil official! The promotion and appointment of generals will be decided by the Ministry of Personnel!"

"They also have a firm grip on the gun barrels!"

Zhu Dijun's voice resonates in every time and space.

"Now, family members, do you understand?"

"Politics, economics, military!"

"After these three things were firmly in the hands of the civil service group."

"Is the emperor sitting on the dragon throne still an emperor?"

"No!"

Zhu Dijun spoke slowly and deliberately, giving the cruelest, yet most truthful, answer.

"He was merely the most expensive, most lavish... prisoner, kept in the Forbidden City by this vast rent-seeking corporation!"