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

A parallel Hongzhi era.

Inside the Qianqing Palace.

Emperor Xiaozong of Ming, Zhu Youcheng, slumped onto the cold gold bricks.

He wasn't wearing a dragon robe, but only a thin undergarment.

He seemed to have aged ten years in an instant.

He stared intently at the sky in mid-air.

Looking at his son, who was only fifteen years old and should have been growing up carefree under his wing.

At this moment, however, he stood like a lone wolf, covered in blood, in the court surrounded by wolves.

Alone, he faces the intrigues of civil officials, the greed of the imperial relatives, and the poisonous schemes of the harem.

Zhu Youcheng's tears welled up and streamed down his cheeks.

"Huzhao..."

"It is Father who has wronged you..."

"It's because Father is incompetent!"

He finally saw clearly what he had gained from a lifetime of "kindness" and "decency".

In return, he was poisoned to death.

What they got in return was a Ming Dynasty riddled with problems.

In return, he had his only child, and in the fourth month of his reign, he had to risk being killed to fight against the entire court!

Zhu Youcheng felt as if his heart had been crushed by an invisible hand.

Heartbreaking.

He suddenly raised his head.

The gentle and timid look in his eyes vanished completely at that moment.

Instead, a terrifyingly menacing light appeared.

It was the madness of a beast driven to the brink, ready to tear everything apart.

He slowly got up from the ground.

His gaze swept across the threshold of the Qianqing Palace and locked onto the direction of the inner palace.

There lived his wife, Empress Zhang.

His stepmother, the Queen Mother, lived there.

The imperial physician Liu Wentai, who prescribed poison for him, lived there.

"kindness?"

"Decent?"

Zhu Youcheng let out a mournful laugh, the sound echoing in the empty hall like the cry of a night owl.

"I don't want this bullshit mercy anymore!"

"I no longer want this absurd facade of dignity!"

He pulled out the Emperor's Sword hanging on the wall.

The sword's edge gleamed with a bloodthirsty cold light in the dim candlelight.

"You want the Ming Dynasty's throne, you want my son's life."

"Then I'll take your lives first!"

Zhu Youcheng's features were contorted with extreme anger.

He knew that what he was about to do would be condemned by the censors as the actions of a tyrannical ruler like Jie and Zhou.

They would be nailed to the pillar of shame in history books for violating human ethics, being unfilial and unjust.

But he didn't care anymore.

Even if it means bearing eternal infamy.

Even if one falls into the deepest hell after death.

He also wanted to kill all the poisonous snakes in the palace before he breathed his last!

He wanted to leave his son a clean and peaceful Ming Dynasty!

"Someone come here!"

Zhu Youcheng's roar shattered the silence of the Qianqing Palace.

"Summon Mu Bin, Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard!"

"Mobilize the three major military camps of the capital, seal off the nine gates, and surround the inner palace!"

"Without my decree, anyone who dares to step out of the palace gates will be executed without mercy!"

The gears of a parallel universe, spoiled by the backdrop of the sky, begin to spin wildly in an extremely bloody direction.

Meanwhile, in the modern live-streaming room...

Zhu Dijun's voice rang out again, revealing the fatal truth that forced Zhu Houzhao to forcibly overturn the table.

"Family members, the reason why Wu Zong is so eager to take action is not only to avenge his family."

"There is also an extremely realistic and cruel reason."

Zhu Dijun's fingers tapped heavily on the screen.

Two large, blood-red characters occupied the entire screen.

No money!

"That's right, we don't have any money!"

"The Ming Dynasty's treasury is so empty that even a rat that goes in would leave with tears in its eyes!"

Judy Jun's tone was filled with an unbelievable sense of absurdity.

"In May of the eighteenth year of the Hongzhi reign, Emperor Xiaozong of Ming, Zhu Youcheng, passed away."

"As a son, Zhu Houzhao wanted to hold a funeral for his father and build an imperial mausoleum."

"This will require a huge expense."

"Therefore, Zhu Houzhao naturally asked the Minister of Revenue for money."

"And guess what happened?"

Zhu Dijun sneered, his eyes filled with disdain.

"The then Minister of Revenue knelt before Zhu Houzhao and pleaded poverty."

"He told the newly enthroned emperor that the Ming Dynasty's treasury currently held all the silver in cash..."

"Only a mere one million taels!"

boom!

The emperors of all realms and timelines were stunned when this number was announced.

The Yongle Era of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Di picked at his ear in disbelief.

"How many?"

"One million taels?"

"When I sailed the Western Ocean, the amount of silk and porcelain I casually bestowed upon the vassal states was far more than this!"

"The mighty Ming Dynasty, possessing a vast empire and generating tens of millions of bushels of grain in taxes annually, yet its national treasury holds only one million taels of silver?"

"Are these civil officials treating the Ming Dynasty's national treasury as their own personal money bag?!"

On the screen above, Zhu Dijun's revelations continued.

"Family members, one million taels is not even enough to build a decent mausoleum for the late emperor."

"Not to mention the need to pay military salaries, provide disaster relief, and maintain the operation of the country."

Looking at the hypocritical old face of the Minister of Revenue, Zhu Houzhao knew that he couldn't squeeze any money out of the national treasury.

"So he turned and went to the inner treasury."

"That is, the emperor's own private treasury."

The scene on the screen switched to a heavily guarded royal treasury.

The heavy bronze door was slowly pushed open.

"Based on the accumulation of wealth by the emperors of the Ming Dynasty throughout history, the imperial treasury should have at least several million taels of silver in reserve."

"However, when Zhu Houzhao entered the inner treasury full of hope..."

"What he saw were empty shelves!"

Zhu Dijun slammed his hand on the table, the sound deafening.

"The money's gone!"

"Several million taels of silver have vanished without a trace from the heavily guarded inner treasury of the Forbidden City!"

"Whereabouts unknown!"

"There were no account books, no records, not even a single copper coin left for Zhu Houzhao!"

The entire live stream room fell into a deathly silence.

Then, the barrage of comments erupted like a volcanic eruption.

"Holy crap! This is blatant robbery!"

"The imperial treasury is the emperor's private property. How dare these eunuchs and civil officials steal even the emperor's private savings?"

"Incredible! Millions of taels of silver, that's millions of catties! How were they transported out? Do they think the Embroidered Uniform Guards are dead?"

"The Ming Dynasty is utterly rotten; it's full of traitors from top to bottom!"

As Zhu Dijun looked at the comments, a chilling smile curled at the corner of his lips.

"Family members, do you now understand the situation Zhu Houzhao is facing?"

"Fortunately, this is the imperial palace in the capital, right under the emperor's nose."

"If it were a local granary or treasury..."

"I guarantee that on the very night Zhu Houzhao was checking the accounts, there will be a sudden fire that will burn the entire treasury to the ground."

"The Ming Dynasty officials are incredibly adept at this 'fire dragon burning the granary' charade!"

Zhu Dijun stared directly at the camera, his eyes conveying a suffocating sense of oppression.

"Without money, there's no way to reward the army."

"Without money, you can't cultivate your own loyal followers."

"Without money, Emperor Zhu Houzhao couldn't even leave the Forbidden City!"

"He was completely sidelined by civil officials and eunuchs, and even his last bit of means of survival was taken away from him."

"So, he has to rob it!"

"He must wrest the Ming Dynasty's salt tax back from those bloated and complacent imperial relatives!"

"Abolishing the salt permit system wasn't him courting death."

"It was his most desperate and frantic roar, a desperate attempt to survive in this cannibalistic palace!"