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

"puff--"

In the first year of the Xuande reign, Zhu Zhanji once again coughed up a mouthful of blood.

His gaze swept unfocusedly across the main hall.

His gaze swept over his mother, Empress Dowager Zhang, whose face was deathly pale and who seemed on the verge of collapse.

His gaze swept over his wife, Sun Ruowei, who was kneeling on the ground, her face pale with shock.

In his heart, there was no warmth left, only endless coldness and resentment from being deceived and betrayed.

Above the sky, Judy Jun's trial continues.

He was like a master executioner, slowly and painstakingly dismantling Zhang Shi and Sun Ruowei's glamorous facade in the history books.

"Family members, if we say that they conspired to murder two generations of monarchs, it is still only at the level of 'suspect'."

"Then, what I'm about to present is irrefutable evidence of their collusion with the civil service to usurp the Ming Dynasty's imperial power!"

As soon as Zhu Dijun finished speaking, a line of bloody characters appeared on the sky.

The text came from the so-called "last will and testament" in the "Veritable Records of Emperor Xuanzong of Ming" compiled by Yang Shiqi later.

Important state affairs must be carried out by the Empress Dowager and the Empress!

These twelve short characters, however, struck like a bolt from the blue, resounding in the minds of all the Zhu family emperors!

"Did you see that?"

Zhu Dijun's voice was filled with suppressed rage!

"This is their true intentions revealed!"

"With this so-called 'last will and testament,' Zhang and Sun Ruowei, this mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, no longer need even the fig leaf of 'ruling from behind the curtain'!"

"They can legitimately, in their capacity as Empress Dowager and Empress, directly interfere in court affairs and decide matters of state!"

"Inside the palace were the two women, mother and daughter-in-law."

"Outside the palace are their 'good allies,' the cabinet headed by the Three Yangs."

"A seven-year-old emperor, Zhu Qizhen, was firmly trapped in the middle, isolated from both the inside and outside, becoming a complete puppet!"

"This is no longer just a matter of imperial power slipping away!"

"This is blatant usurpation!"

The Jiajing Era.

Inside the West Garden, Zhu Houcong, dressed in a Taoist robe with the Bagua symbol, smashed the glass cup in his hand to the ground!

"Excellent! A fine 'must be reported to the Empress Dowager and Empress'!"

He laughed in fury, his eyes revealing a murderous intent.

"I finally understand!"

"I finally understand why it was so difficult to contend for the 'Great Rites Controversy' back then!"

"Those bastards are using these so-called 'ancestral laws,' these 'rules' established since the Xuande era, to challenge me!"

"So, the root of this disease, this malignant tumor, was buried so deeply!"

He recalled how, at the beginning of his reign, the civil official group led by Yang Tinghe forced him to recognize his cousin as his father.

He recalled how those officials used the power of the cabinet to draft proposals to hinder him at every turn, treating him as a puppet that could be manipulated at will.

He fought his whole life and barely managed to wrest back a portion of the imperial power.

Only today did he realize that what he was fighting against was a regime that had been taking shape for over a hundred years and was constantly being perfected!

In the modern live stream room, the chat has completely gone crazy!

Holy crap! They even dared to forge a will?! This mother-in-law and daughter-in-law are truly something else!

[Major state affairs must be handled by the Empress Dowager and Empress... Isn't this just plain obvious to everyone?! They've practically written their usurpation of power on their faces!]

[I finally understand! I finally understand what Brother Jun meant when he said only five thousand people died at Tumu Fortress! This wasn't Brother War God's fault at all!]

[Yeah! I used to think Jun Ge was whitewashing Zhu Qizhen, but now it seems the Great Ming War God started with a hellish scenario! He's surrounded by traitors, and the army isn't even his own. How can he fight like this?]

[My heart goes out to our war god for a second, it turns out he was the biggest victim! History books portrayed him as a sinner for all time, but it turns out his parents (his adoptive mother) were the masterminds behind it all!]

[I'd call this script "My Empress Dowager Mother and the Grand Secretary Teamed Up to Kill My Father and Now They Want to Kill Me Too!"]

[Upstairs, you forgot about the good wife (the foster mother's pawn)! The whole family is together, just waiting for Brother War!]

Therefore, the decline of the Ming Dynasty did not begin with Zhu Qizhen at all; the root cause was the group of usurpers who started after his father, Zhu Zhanji, died! They were the gravediggers of the Ming Dynasty!

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's voice sounded like he was reading out a long indictment.

"And what did this group that usurped the country do after Zhu Zhanji's death?"

"First, they immediately secured enormous benefits for their own families!"

"Empress Zhang's two brothers, Zhang Chang and Zhang Sheng, were enfeoffed as Earl of Pengcheng and Earl of Huian, respectively. Both held the highest rank of the first grade and commanded the capital garrison!"

"Sun Ruowei's father, Sun Zhong, was an ordinary commoner with no merit whatsoever, yet he rose to prominence overnight, being granted the title of Marquis of Huichang! Moreover, the title was hereditary!"

"Family members, what were the rules set by Emperor Yongle (Zhu Di)? Those who were relatives of the empress and held titles could not inherit them without military merit!"

"But when it comes to them, rules are nothing but bullshit!"

"Because this bad precedent was set, it became commonplace for relatives of the emperor to be granted titles in the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty! The Jiajing Emperor went to great lengths to reinstate the clause 'no hereditary succession without military merit' in the Ming Code, but no sooner had he died than the situation returned to normal!"

"Secondly, they began frantically clearing obstacles for the civil service group behind them!"

"They abolished the position of 'Inspector' within the Provincial Administration Commission, which was directly under the emperor's jurisdiction and responsible for supervising civil officials! From then on, local officials became like wild horses, and corruption was no longer restrained!"

"They ordered a complete halt to all activities at the Songhua River Shipyard and exiled all craftsmen and officials! This utterly severed any possibility of the Ming Dynasty expanding northward!"

"They withdrew all their naval forces from Dinghai and Shenjiamen at the mouth of the Yangtze River in Zhejiang! They voluntarily abandoned our Great Ming's most important stronghold in Southeast Asia, the Old Port Pacification Commissioner's Office!"

"This is hardly an abandonment; it's clearly opening the floodgates for smuggling and trafficking to themselves and the gentry of the southeast! The root of the later Japanese pirate raids lies here!"

"They still think it's not enough!"

"They abolished six of the ten garrison offices in the Imperial Garden, which were directly controlled by the emperor! And they seized the entire 110,000-strong Beijing Garrison, which originally belonged to the emperor, under the pretext of 'controlling the border defenses,' and put it all into the hands of their civil official group!"

"They even copied the Song Dynasty's absurd system of using civil officials to control the military, and massively dispatched so-called 'garrison ministers' to the border garrisons!"

"A civil official, defecating on the head of a military general, an amateur giving orders to professionals!"

"By the time Zhu Qizhen, the Great War God of the Ming Dynasty, came of age, he, the emperor, had become a commander without troops!"

Zhu Dijun's voice carried a hint of sorrow.

"Beside me are a fake mother and a fake grandmother with ulterior motives."

"The imperial court wants to treat him like a clay puppet."

"The military is hampered at every turn by civilian interference!"

"Family members, now tell me, what can a seven-year-old child do when faced with such an inescapable trap?"

"Does he have any other choice but to become a puppet?"

"This is what those so-called 'wise empresses' and 'renowned ministers' meticulously prepared for our Great Ming's war god, Zhu Qizhen..."

"A seemingly unsolvable deadlock!"