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

The light and shadow on the large screen in the live broadcast room changed rapidly.

One after another, the rejected memorials and the draft proposals bearing the official seal of the cabinet flew across the screen like snowflakes.

Zhu Dijun picked up the water glass on the table and moistened his throat.

"Oh, my family."

"Faced with the civil service group's airtight list of interests to protect, if he had a choice, Zhu Houzhao would definitely want to learn from his grandfather, Emperor Xianzong of Ming, Zhu Jianshen, or his father, Emperor Xiaozong of Ming, Zhu Youcheng."

"If I can't beat you, I'll at least hide, okay?"

"Under the guise of cultivating Taoism, they hid directly in the inner palace, closed themselves off, and used non-violent non-cooperation to resist the cabinet's interference in politics."

Zhu Dijun slammed the water glass down on the table with a thud.

"But there was nothing he could do; he simply couldn't use that trick back then!"

Why?

"Because he's not an adult yet!"

"He's just a fifteen-year-old boy emperor!"

A portrait of a young man wearing a dragon robe, with a somewhat immature face but eyes full of arrogance, appeared on the screen.

"Under the Ming Dynasty's system of rites and patriarchal clans, an underage emperor was nothing more than a puppet to be manipulated at will."

"What's even more deadly is that, besides being the leader of the civil officials in the court, Grand Secretary Liu Jian also holds an extremely prestigious and ruthless position!"

Zhu Dijun pointed to Liu Jian's name on the screen, enunciating each word clearly.

"The Emperor's teacher!"

"The Imperial Tutor!"

Upon hearing these two words, the expressions of emperors throughout history across countless worlds instantly became incredibly complex.

Within the moral framework woven by Confucianism, the roles of teacher and ruler are intertwined with the concepts of Heaven, Earth, ruler, parents, and teacher. In this framework, the teacher's role can even supersede the young ruler's authority to some extent.

The era of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang let out a cold laugh.

"These pedantic scholars love nothing more than using the grand principles of sages to manipulate young monarchs."

"Becoming the emperor's tutor is like having a get-out-of-jail-free card to reprimand the emperor."

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's narration confirmed Zhu Yuanzhang's judgment.

"The time came to the third month of the first year of Zhengde."

"After a month-long fierce battle of wits with Zhu Houzhao, the Grand Secretary Liu finally couldn't hold back and unleashed the Emperor's tutor's trump card."

On the large screen, a memorial with extremely sharp words was displayed.

"Liu Jian submitted another letter."

This time, he wasn't discussing state affairs; he was directly berating Zhu Houzhao!

In his memorial, he bluntly questioned the young emperor: "You brat, you never come to class, and we can't find you for days on end. What exactly are you trying to do?"

"Under the guise of paying respects to your birth mother, Empress Dowager Zhang, and your grandmother, Empress Dowager Wang, you frequently sneak away from the Qianqing Palace, treating the daily lectures on the classics as a joke!"

"You completely disregard the ancestral laws, and you certainly don't respect me, the Grand Secretary and Imperial Tutor!"

In modern live streaming rooms, the barrage of comments instantly flies up.

"Good heavens! This isn't a cabinet minister, it's more like a high school homeroom teacher catching truants!"

[“This is hilarious! The fifteen-year-old emperor was publicly shamed by the prime minister for skipping school, and the essay he wrote was displayed in the court!”]

"Brother Zhao is suffering. He can't beat them in a fight, he can't win an argument, and even skipping class gets him a nationwide public reprimand."

Judy Jun looked at the jokes in the live chat, but his expression turned extremely serious.

He shook the folding fan in his hand.

"Family members, do you think this is just a simple teacher-student conflict?"

"wrong!"

"To be honest, if it were just a matter of dealing with those old foxes in the cabinet, Zhu Houzhao could have continued to use the tactic of keeping the money in reserve and not issuing it, and continued to ignore their nagging."

"But during this political tug-of-war that lasted for more than a month, Zhu Houzhao discovered a truth that chilled him to the bone!"

Zhu Dijun's voice suddenly lowered, carrying a chilling aura that sent shivers down one's spine.

"The palace is on fire!"

"His birth mother, Empress Dowager Zhang, and his grandmother, Empress Dowager Wang, actually tried to protect the meager salt permits of their own maternal relatives."

"They turned around and colluded with the cabinet!"

"The spies in the inner palace, working in conjunction with the civil officials of the previous dynasty, kept a close watch on Zhu Houzhao's every move, his eating, drinking, and even his bodily functions, within the Forbidden City!"

"This is tantamount to telling Zhu Houzhao: In this palace, whether it's the imperial court or the harem, everyone here wants to control you!"

The era of the Zhengde reign of the Ming Dynasty.

In the main hall of the Leopard Room.

Sitting on the tiger-skin chair, Zhu Houzhao suddenly crushed the walnut in his hand.

The words on the sky tore open the deepest wound in his heart.

He was horrified to discover that the palace maids and eunuchs serving him had relayed a joke he made in his bedchamber to Liu Jian verbatim.

That magnificent Forbidden City was not home to him at all.

It was a giant cage filled with eyes and fangs!

"The palace is no longer safe!"

On the sky, Zhu Dijun uttered these words with unwavering certainty.

"Realizing that he was in a desperate situation where he could be deposed at any moment by the combined forces of the harem and civil officials, or even be sent to his death by a cup of poison."

"Zhu Houzhao made an extremely bold decision!"

"Since this dilapidated palace is full of your spies, I'm not staying here anymore!"

Zhu Dijun pulled up an extremely detailed electronic map of the Ming Dynasty's imperial city.

He picked up the laser pointer and quickly drew circles on the screen.

"Family members, please look at the map."

"This was the Forbidden City, the imperial palace of the Ming Dynasty at that time. It was a dead zone that was closely monitored by civil officials and relatives of the empress."

"This is the West Garden, a vast royal garden."

"And here, in a remote area in the northwest corner of the imperial city!"

The red circle on the screen was flashing wildly.

"This was where the eunuchs lived, and also where the royal wild animals were kept!"

"Zhu Houzhao has his eye on this territory."

"He wants to establish a new power center here, on the site of what later became the Leopard House, completely free from the control of the civil service and the old hag in the harem!"

The emperors of all realms and timelines gasped in astonishment.

Why abandon the orthodox imperial palace and run off to a place where eunuchs and wild beasts gather to start anew?

This is absolutely insane!

Zhu Dijun's narration became increasingly rapid, pushing this power struggle to a new climax.

"This kind of place is dirty and chaotic, so it naturally cannot become the emperor's temporary residence."

"It needs a major overhaul!"

"But repairing houses requires approval from the cabinet, funding from the Ministry of Revenue, and craftsmen from the Ministry of Works."

"How can we bypass the resistance from those civil servants and legitimately undertake large-scale projects?"

A fat man dressed as a eunuch appeared on the screen.

Zhu Houzhao immediately ordered his trusted eunuch Chen Gui to handle the matter.

"Chen Gui was very politically astute. Instead of saying that the emperor wanted to build a new palace, he submitted an extremely absurd memorial to the cabinet."

The memorial stated: "The horse stables in the northwest corner of the imperial city have been causing the imperial horses to fall ill lately."

"This is definitely a major problem with the feng shui of the horse stable!"

"Immediately afterwards, Zhu Houzhao arranged for officials from the Imperial Observatory to conduct an on-site investigation."

"The officials of the Imperial Observatory had already received the emperor's instructions. After making a quick trip to the site, they immediately gave an authoritative conclusion."

"That's right, the feng shui of Mafang is extremely inauspicious!"

"It must be leveled immediately and a large-scale reconstruction undertaken to ensure the prosperity of the Ming Dynasty!"

Zhu Dijun sneered repeatedly.

"With the report out, Zhu Houzhao naturally issued an imperial edict."

"Send this to the Cabinet, requesting the Ministry of Revenue to allocate funds immediately, and the Ministry of Works to send people to do the work right away!"

In modern live streaming rooms, the screen is filled with thumbs-up emojis.

"Incredible! This is what you call using a big name to intimidate others!"

"I know this trick well! In modern companies, if you want to create a slush fund, you just need to create a mysterious project proposal and get the finance department to approve the money!"

"Using metaphysics like feng shui to deal with civil officials who spout ancestral teachings—Emperor Wuzong's move was incredibly skillful!"

"slip?"

Zhu Dijun shook his head.

"Family members, you underestimate Liu Jian and his gang of old foxes who have been in the court for decades."

"When Liu Jian, the Grand Secretary at the time, received the memorial, he immediately saw through Zhu Houzhao's trick."

"He absolutely refuses!"

"Liu Jian immediately instructed Tao Xie and others, officials of the Ministry of Works, to submit a memorial to Zhu Houzhao in a swift counterattack."

On the big screen, Tao Xie's original memorial to the throne was translated into easy-to-understand vernacular Chinese and displayed before everyone's eyes.

Tao Xie's memorial, translated bluntly, means: "Zhu Houzhao, you little rascal, don't try that with us!"

"This stable has been standing in the northwest corner for over a hundred years!"

"There were no problems during the reign of Emperor Taizong, and there were no problems during the reign of Emperor Hongzhi."

"Why is the feng shui bad now that you've just ascended the throne and we've criticized you?"

"Do you think everyone in the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Works is brain-dead?!"