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

Zhu Yuanzhang slowly closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, there was no longer any human emotion in them, only an abyss of deathly silence and coldness.

A complex entity of gentry and merchants!

What a complex!

He spent his life on the battlefield, driving out the Manchus and restoring China, believing he had laid a bright future for his descendants.

In the end, it was all just a feast prepared for a pack of wolves in human skin that could last for thousands of years!

He wasn't fighting against a corrupt official.

He was fighting an invisible and enormous monster that had been passed down for thousands of years and had become one with the rules of this land!

"I... understand."

These three words, squeezed out from between the teeth of the Hongwu Emperor, carried a bloody stench.

If you know, then he should be killed!

Just as all of space and time were plunged into an extreme sense of oppression and killing intent, Zhu Dijun's voice rang out again from the sky.

His expression was more solemn than ever before.

"Family members, we have just uncovered the economic essence of this decades-long conspiracy—a bloody struggle between state-owned enterprises and private conglomerates."

"So, aren't you curious?"

"As the head of this massive 'private conglomerate' alliance, Yang Shiqi, who was later praised to the skies by scholars and hailed as a 'wise prime minister,' what exactly was his background?"

Zhu Dijun's words were like a needle, precisely piercing the most itchy spot in everyone's hearts.

Yes!

The family backgrounds of Yang Rong, Yang Pu, and others can still be traced.

However, Yang Shiqi, the leader of the Three Yangs, who manipulated everything behind the scenes and was even regarded as a confidant by Zhu Di and Zhu Zhanji, had a somewhat "ordinary" background in historical records.

How could an ordinary landlord family in Jiangxi raise such a powerful and ruthless tycoon?

Inside Yongle Palace, Zhu Di's burning anger instantly transformed into a cold scrutiny.

He stared intently at the sky, wanting to know more than anyone else which dark place this minister, whom he had once trusted so much, had crawled out of!

Under the sky, Judy Jun took a deep breath, as if what he was about to say was too unbelievable even to himself.

"In our archaeological community, there have always been several very bold, even revolutionary, speculations about the true origins of Yang Shiqi."

"These speculations currently lack decisive archaeological evidence, but they are the most likely directions deduced logically from countless clues."

"Today, I will share this first hypothesis with everyone."

He paused, then spoke slowly and deliberately.

"The first hypothesis: Yang Shiqi was not born into an ordinary Jiangxi gentry family. His true identity was that of a thousand-year-old aristocratic family that had long been thought to have declined in the long river of history—"

"Descendants of the Yang family of Hongnong!"

boom!!!

These seven words, like a thunderbolt from the heavens, struck the land of every ancient time and space!

The Yang family of Hongnong!

Starting with the "four generations of three dukes" in the Han Dynasty, and continuing through the Western and Eastern Han Dynasties, the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and up to the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the name of this family was almost synonymous with the word "power and influence"!

The Sui Dynasty Imperial Family!

One of the four great prime ministers of the Tang Dynasty: Li, Wu, Wei, and Yang!

This is a truly ancient family with a history spanning thousands of years, a behemoth that has co-ruled the world with the imperial power for hundreds of years and even influenced the change of imperial power!

Although the family seemed to have fallen apart and withdrawn from the core stage of history after the late Tang and Song dynasties.

But who can guarantee that this sleeping behemoth isn't secretly prolonging its life in another way?

During the Zhenguan era of the Tang Dynasty.

Li Shimin suddenly stood up from his seat, his face filled with disbelief!

Beside him, Changsun Wuji, Fang Xuanling, Du Ruhui, and others exchanged bewildered glances, their eyes filled with horror.

"The Yang family of Hongnong?"

Li Shimin muttered to himself, a hint of apprehension in his voice.

"Their roots actually extended to the Ming Dynasty four hundred years later? And they were even capable of... committing such an act of regicide?"

As the emperor who single-handedly ended the Sui Dynasty, and whose predecessor was the Li family of Longxi, he was all too aware of the power of these thousand-year-old families!

Their power has long since extended beyond official positions in the imperial court.

It permeates every corner of the land, kinship, knowledge, and network of connections!

They are like an invisible net, seemingly declining, but in reality, their roots have long been deeply embedded in the soil of the entire China. They only need the right opportunity to grow into towering trees again!

Hongwu reign.

Zhu Yuanzhang's face instantly darkened to the point of being so gloomy it looked like it could be wrung out of water.

He came from humble beginnings and hated these self-proclaimed noble and monopolistic aristocratic families the most!

He believed that by establishing the Ming Dynasty, opening the imperial examination system, and promoting people from humble backgrounds, he was trying to break the millennia-old monopoly of powerful clans!

But now, Tianmu is telling him that his most trusted future advisors may actually be the remnants of the biggest aristocratic families of the old era!

"OK……"

Zhu Yuanzhang was so angry that he laughed instead.

"Just because you changed the shell doesn't mean we won't recognize you!"

"We don't care if you're from the Hongnong Yang clan or a stinking rock in a latrine!"

"If you dare to threaten the throne of our Great Ming, we'll wipe out your entire clan... no, we'll exterminate your entire so-called 'noble family' from the very roots!"

That domineering aura, rising from humble beginnings to sweep across the world, mixed with the emperor's supreme killing intent, caused the temperature in the entire Fengtian Hall to drop suddenly!

In the modern live stream room, the chat exploded!

[Holy crap! Holy crap! The Yang family of Hongnong? Isn't that the top aristocratic family from the Sui and Tang dynasties, as described in history textbooks? They still exist?!]

[My scalp is tingling! If this is true, then this is an incredibly grand scheme! From the Sui and Tang dynasties to the Ming dynasty, they lay dormant for four or five hundred years, just to regain power in another dynasty as civil officials?]

[This is what a true thousand-year-old family looks like! What does it mean to have a deep-rooted heritage? Emperors have come and gone, but their family has endured forever! It's terrifying!]

[This is chilling to think about! If Yang Shiqi was truly an agent of the Hongnong Yang clan, then everything he did makes perfect sense! He wasn't serving the Ming Dynasty, nor the Zhu family; he was serving the millennia-old interest group behind him, the 'Yang clan'!]

Their goal was never to serve a particular emperor, but to strip the emperor of his power and turn the country into a perpetual ATM for their families! Isn't this just a replica of the aristocratic politics of the Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties?!

On the screen above, Zhu Dijun looked at the boiling barrage of comments and slowly shook his head.

"While this hypothesis can explain the source of Yang Shiqi's innate political acumen and immense power, as I said, it lacks empirical evidence."

"Moreover, although the Yang clan of Hongnong was powerful, its core was the culture of the Central Plains gentry. Their methods were more of an open strategy, playing power games within the rules in a fair and square manner."

"The kind of ruthless malice that Yang Shiqi's group has shown, the kind of madness that is willing to kill emperors and overthrow the country, seems to be different from the traditional family's way of 'seeking stability'."

His tone suddenly shifted, and his eyes became incredibly sharp.

"Therefore, we in the archaeological community have come up with a second, more likely, and also more bleak, hypothesis!"

"This hypothesis will completely link Yang Shiqi with the one we mentioned earlier, the millennium-old enemy of Chinese civilization!"

Before the words were even finished, everyone in all time and space felt their hearts skip a beat!

A millennium-old enemy!

Khazars!