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

Inside the live stream, Zhu Dijun's voice was no longer simply angry, but carried a hint of calm, as if dissecting a corpse.

The image on the screen began to rewind.

From the Forbidden City during the Hongzhi era of the Ming Dynasty, we traveled back several hundred years to the Zhao Song Dynasty, which claimed to "govern the world together with the scholar-officials."

"Family members, do you think that the practice of Ming Dynasty civil officials colluding with the imperial harem and using the empress's relatives was invented by this group of Ming Dynasty civil officials?"

"Too naive."

"These Ming Dynasty civil officials were, at best, a bunch of clumsy imitators."

"The script they have was already written by those 'wise men' three hundred years ago, during the Song Dynasty!"

Zhu Dijun slammed the pointer in his hand onto the two comparison images that appeared on the screen.

On the left is the family of Consort Zhang during the reign of Emperor Renzong of the Northern Song Dynasty.

On the right is the Zhang family during the Hongzhi period of the Ming Dynasty.

"Look at the astonishing similarity!"

"Emperor Renzong of the Northern Song Dynasty favored Consort Zhang, and her uncle Zhang Yaozuo, who was originally an insignificant official, rose through the ranks like a rocket."

"The Commissioner of the Imperial Secretariat, the Military Governor, and the Commissioner of the Three Departments (the highest financial officials)!"

"One person held four positions, wielding immense power!"

"Back then, Bao Zheng and others with backbone spat in Emperor Renzong's face, creating the famous 'Four Impeachments of Zhang Yaozuo'."

"But what was the result?"

"Although the Zhang family's reputation is ruined, they remain incredibly wealthy and powerful, and still act with impunity in the imperial court!"

Zhu Dijun sneered and turned his gaze to Zhu Youcheng in the Hongzhi era.

"Zhu Youcheng, look at your two brothers-in-law, Zhang Heling and Zhang Yanling."

"Those who are favored by the emperor in the harem rise to power and become tyrannical because of the emperor's weakness."

"Isn't this just a carbon copy of the Zhang family from the Northern Song Dynasty?"

Why didn't the civil service stop it?

"Because in the Song Dynasty's narrative, as long as the imperial relatives didn't rebel, allowing them to act as the 'dirty knife' to restrict imperial power and disgust the emperor was exactly what the civil officials wanted!"

The Hongwu Era.

Zhu Yuanzhang looked at the sky, his brows furrowed into a deep frown.

"Song Dynasty..."

"We always thought the Song Dynasty was weak because of its military, but we never imagined that the root of the problem was its military weakness."

"These civil officials are just copying what they've been doing!"

On the sky, Judy Jun's offensive continued.

"If the Zhang family of the Northern Song Dynasty was merely 'arrogant,' then the drama of the Southern Song Dynasty was far more bloody and blatant!"

The scene changes.

A man in armor with a sinister look appeared—Han Tuozhou.

"During the reign of Emperor Ningzong of the Southern Song Dynasty, there was Han Tuozhou."

"He was the nephew of Empress Wu, the wife of Emperor Gaozong, making him a legitimate maternal relative."

"But he wasn't just a relative of the emperor; he was also a powerful minister!"

"He supported Emperor Ningzong's ascension to the throne, held absolute power for thirteen years, and launched the 'Qingyuan Party Purge,' exterminating all the disobedient Neo-Confucian scholars!"

"His official title is Pingzhang Junguo Shi (Pingzhang Military and State Affairs), but in reality, he is a 'retired emperor' who is above the emperor!"

Zhu Dijun's voice suddenly rose in pitch.

"Family members, did you understand?"

"Although the Song Dynasty's system of maternal relatives did not, in principle, allow them to control the central government, in the later Southern Song Dynasty, the system became lax, and maternal relatives directly evolved into powerful ministers!"

"And what about the Ming Dynasty?"

"The Ming Dynasty never strictly restricted the granting of titles and ranks to relatives of the emperor! This is because the princes during the early reign of Emperor Taizu were all formed through marriage alliances between the imperial family and the nobles of the Hongwu era."

"The timeline has moved to the Zhang brothers during the Hongzhi reign, who held power over the Embroidered Uniform Guard and the Beijing Garrison. Although they hadn't yet reached the level of Han Tuozhou, their niche was the same!"

"They were a buffer zone in the power struggle between the emperor and the civil service, but also a rope used by the civil service to hold the emperor hostage!"

"The civil officials keep saying they're 'preventing interference from the emperor's relatives in politics,' but what do they actually do?"

"When the emperor wanted to implement reforms or touch the interests of civil officials (such as when Zhu Youcheng inspected the granaries), the civil officials would immediately kneel at the feet of the Empress Dowager and the Empress, shouting 'Your Majesty!' and begging their relatives to step in and 'purge the court of corrupt officials!'"

"This is the Ming Dynasty version of the 'Han Tuozhou model'!"

"However, this time, power isn't held by a single maternal relative, but by a community of interests comprised of the empress's family, maternal relatives, and civil officials!"

"In the face of this community."

"Zhu Youcheng, what are you going to fight with?"

"Take a look at the history books, from Emperor Renzong of Song to Emperor Ningzong of Song, and then to Emperor Renzong, Emperor Xuanzong, Emperor Yingzong, Emperor Xianzong of Ming, and then to Emperor Hongzhi."

"Which emperor who tried to struggle within this iron cage ever met a good end?"

Yongle Time and Space.

Zhu Di felt a chill that went straight to his bones.

He always looked down on the Song Dynasty, thinking it was a weak and incompetent dynasty.

But now he discovers that the political climate of subtle, insidious manipulation has spread like a virus to his Ming Dynasty.

"What a wonderful 'family heirloom craft'!"

Zhu Di gritted his teeth, his eyes filled with murderous intent.

"No wonder those civil officials always mention 'Song Confucianism' and talk about 'Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism'."

"So what they learned wasn't the principles of sages, but how to turn the emperor into a puppet and how to turn the country into their private property!"

"If it weren't for the clear explanation from future generations, how much longer would I have been kept in the dark? It's fortunate that Miaoyun isn't that kind of woman."

On the sky, Zhu Dijun gave his final summary.

"Family members."

"The civil service group of the Song Dynasty invented the original code of 'using civil officials to control military forces and internal forces to control external forces'."

"The Ming Dynasty's civil service, during the Hongzhi reign, took this system to its extreme. The four emperors we mentioned earlier—Ren, Xuan, Ying, and Xian—were all victims of this system."

"These relatives of the emperor did not need to directly usurp power like Han Tuozhou."

"They only need to cling to the bones of imperial power like parasites, taking advantage of the greed of the harem and the stupidity of the imperial relatives to weave a large net."

"The emperor in the net is helpless, crying out to heaven and earth in vain."

"This is one of the truths behind the 'Hongzhi Restoration'"

"A perfect hunt for imperial power spanning three hundred years from the Song to the Ming dynasties!"

Zhu Dijun put down his pointer, his voice tinged with a heavy sigh.

"Family members."

"After seeing all the rotten things that happened in the Song Dynasty, and then looking at the Hongzhi reign of the Ming Dynasty, doesn't everything make sense now?"

Why did Empress Dowager Zhou dare to set fire?

"Because in the script of the Song Dynasty, it was commonplace for empress dowagers to rule as regents and depose and install emperors (such as Empress Wu of Emperor Gaozong of Song)."

Why did Zhang Yanling dare to kill the Prefect of Shuntian Prefecture?

"Because in the Song Dynasty's narrative, as long as the imperial relatives didn't rebel, what did it matter if they killed a few people? It was considered 'royal dignity'!"

Zhu Youcheng believed he was fighting against several treacherous officials.

"In reality, he's fighting against a political organism that has evolved over five hundred years!"

"This kind of creature eats people without spitting out the bones."

The AI-simulated scene restarted.

This time, it's not war, nor is it the imperial court.

Instead, it was late at night.

Emperor Renzong of Song shed tears late at night because of Consort Zhang's pillow talk.

Emperor Ningzong trembled in the dead of night due to Han Tuozhou's coercion.

Zhu Youcheng vomited blood in the middle of the night because of the tragic deaths of his children and the loss of his military power.

The three faces gradually overlapped.

It transformed into a mask called "Puppet".

"Zhu Youcheng lost."

He had completely resigned himself to his fate.

"After the thirteenth year of the Hongzhi reign, he never mentioned any reforms again."

"He attended court on time every day, listened to the lectures given by the civil officials, and stamped the memorials on time."

"He became a perfect 'sage ruler'."

"The civil officials sang his praises, and the historians wrote his daily records in lavish style."

"But only he knows."

"His heart had already died on the night of the great fire at Qianqing Palace in the eleventh year of the Hongzhi reign."

Hongzhi Era.

Zhu Youcheng looked at the sky, and two lines of tears silently slid down his cheeks.

He finally understood.

It turns out that his weakness and his compromises were not just due to his personality.

Rather, it was because he was facing a wall of sighs.

"Father..."

"Your subject has done his best."

"Your Majesty, I cannot overcome these five hundred years of accumulated problems!"

Zhu Youcheng slumped on the dragon throne, like a puppet whose soul had been drained.