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

The atmosphere in the live stream room was instantly electric.

As the officials of the myriad worlds looked at Tao Xie's barbed memorial on the sky, many secretly wiped away sweat.

They dared to point their fingers at the emperor and accuse him of fabricating lies.

The civil officials of the Ming Dynasty were indeed incredibly audacious.

Zhu Dijun pointed at the screen.

"After Tao Xie submitted his memorial, the cabinet immediately and legitimately rejected Emperor Wuzong's request for funding."

"Not even a tael of silver!"

Emperor Wuzong was furious when he received the cabinet's rejection.

"The fifteen-year-old emperor was utterly enraged."

On the screen, the tense confrontation inside the Qianqing Palace was recreated.

Zhu Houzhao slammed his fist on the table.

"I am the emperor!"

"You officials are making excuses to build a stable for livestock inside the palace."

"You won't even do any work within the royal family, what use are you to me!"

"Zhu Houzhao refused to back down and forcefully issued an imperial edict, bypassing the cabinet, ordering the Ministry of Works to begin construction immediately!"

Neither side would give an inch.

On one side is the new emperor, who possesses a righteous cause and urgently needs to break the deadlock.

On one side was the deeply entrenched civil service group that controlled the nation's finances and resources.

This is no longer a question of whether or not to repair the stables; it's a battle to protect imperial power, a struggle over who will yield to whom.

The Yongle Era of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Di stared at the sky with great interest.

"That kid's got guts."

"But having the guts alone is useless. These civil officials hold the reins of all affairs of the empire, and they have a hundred ways to prevent the emperor's decrees from leaving the Forbidden City."

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

"The Emperor and the Cabinet are at a complete stalemate."

"But the Ministry of Works is caught in the middle, which is the most difficult situation."

"Go for it. If you offend the Grand Secretary, you won't be able to survive in the political arena in the future."

"If we refuse, we'll be charged with disobeying orders, and we might lose our heads."

A mocking smile appeared on Zhu Dijun's lips.

"At this point, it was time for the masters of Tai Chi and pushing hands in the Ming Dynasty's officialdom to take the stage."

On the screen appeared an elderly official, dressed in a bright red robe, with white hair and beard.

"The Minister of Works at the time, Zeng Jian, personally took charge."

"He neither directly defied the imperial decree nor chose to confront the emperor head-on."

"He submitted an extremely smooth and shameless memorial."

Zhu Dijun, mimicking the tone of an ancient minister, slowly and deliberately read out Zeng Jian's core argument.

Minister Zeng said: "Your Majesty, it's not that I'm unwilling to make the repairs."

"But this stable was built by the Imperial Astronomical Bureau, who personally selected the auspicious location and drew up the plans!"

"The fact that the feng shui is now problematic indicates that the Imperial Astronomical Bureau failed in its duties back then, and that there were major technical errors on their part."

"This matter has nothing to do with our Ministry of Works."

"According to the laws of the Ming Dynasty, whoever causes the trouble is responsible for cleaning up their mess. This task should be entirely handled by the Imperial Observatory!"

This statement was made.

In the imperial courts of various parallel universes, a series of suppressed coughs suddenly rang out.

The Western Han Dynasty, Emperor Gaozu's Timeline

Liu Bang spat out a mouthful of wine.

"Brilliant!"

"This old man has truly mastered the art of shifting blame."

"A single, casual remark wipes away an enormous responsibility."

The viewers in the modern live stream couldn't stop laughing.

[Hahaha! Ministry of Works: I can't take the blame for this, send it to a brother department!]

[“Imperial Observatory: Listen to me, thank you. Because of you, the four seasons are warm.”]

"Bureaucratic practices are deadly; the art of passing the buck has been passed down through the ages!"

Zhu Dijun suppressed a laugh.

"Family members, do you think this is the end of it?"

"What's most amazing is that the Imperial Observatory didn't dare to utter a single word in this confrontation."

Why?

"Because the Imperial Observatory was a truly incorruptible government agency!"

"They had no money, and their power was far weaker than that of the Ministry of Works, one of the Six Ministries."

"If the Imperial Observatory had been wealthy and powerful, its head official would definitely have gone to the Ministry of Works and cursed Zeng Jian to his face!"

"You old fool, it's clearly your Ministry of Works' bricklaying skills that are faulty. What does it have to do with my Imperial Observatory's stargazing and feng shui?"

"But reality is cruel."

"The Imperial Observatory couldn't afford to offend the Ministry of Works, much less the Cabinet, so they had no choice but to swallow this bitter pill."

Zhu Dijun's tone gradually calmed down, revealing a hint of helplessness.

"Zeng Jian's perfect Tai Chi push hand directly stalled the project due to disputes over funding and construction units."

"The Imperial Observatory has no money for repairs, and the Ministry of Works refuses to do anything about it."

"Faced with this extremely shameless Machiavellianism in officialdom, Wu Zong, who had no way to break the deadlock, could only be forced to stop the first Leopard Chamber reconstruction plan."

The image on the screen freezes.

The image of Zhu Houzhao at the age of fifteen, standing alone in the cold wind, gazing at the dilapidated horse farm in the northwest corner, is frozen in time.

Lonely, and unwilling to accept it.

There were far fewer comments in the live stream chat.

Many viewers felt inexplicably depressed.

Even emperors had to endure so much humiliation when building houses; this history is so unpleasant to read.

Zhu Dijun stared directly into the camera, his eyes brighter than ever before.

He placed his hands on the table, his voice striking everyone's eardrums like a heavy hammer.

"Family members!"

"Speaking of which, I must remind everyone of something."

"Don't be fooled by the Qing Dynasty's revisions to the History of the Ming Dynasty!"

"Don't be fooled by those fabricated historical dramas!"

He stretched out his finger and tapped hard on the screen showing Zhu Houzhao's back.

"Zhu Houzhao came to power, from ascending the throne in the eighteenth year of the Hongzhi reign to the present day in March of the first year of the Zhengde reign."

"At the tender age of fifteen, without military or financial power, and with his harem thoroughly infiltrated, he..."

"Facing Liu Jian and his group of powerful veteran officials who had served three dynasties."

"Facing an entire monolithic civil service group."

"He managed to stir up the situation like this, and he's managed to outmaneuver them and remain undefeated!"

"That's an incredibly impressive skill!"

Zhu Dijun's voice grew louder and louder.

"Reality is not fiction!"

"Reality is not like those auto-play games you play that use cheat codes!"

"There are no shortcut keys to wipe out an entire family with a click of the mouse, nor are there 100,000 assassins who can spring into existence at a single command!"

"Real political maneuvering is a quagmire filled with shirking responsibility, wrangling, compromise, and probing!"

"We need to analyze this history calmly and rationally, and take our time to see how it unfolds."

The background music on the screen was changed to an extremely grand and powerful symphony.

Zhu Dijun stood at attention, his gaze piercing through time and space.

"Just like the instructor once said."

"There are no straight roads in the world; be prepared to take a winding path, and don't be greedy for cheap gains."

In short, the future is bright, but the road ahead is winding!

This profound and powerful quote from a great man is like a lightning bolt that pierces the night sky of history, illuminating all of time and space.

The era of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang silently repeated these two sentences.

He rose from a cowherd and a beggar, struggling and risking his life to finally sit on the dragon throne.

No one understands better than him what it means for "the road to success to be winding".

"Good boy."

Looking at Zhu Houzhao on the sky, Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes no longer held rage, but instead showed extreme approval.

"With such resilient descendants in our Great Ming Dynasty, how can we worry about these corrupt officials not being cleansed!"

The era of Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Youjian knelt on the muddy ground of Coal Hill, covered his face with his hands, and wailed loudly.

He finally understood where he went wrong.

He coveted the empty title of "the hearts of the people throughout the country" promised by the civil officials, and he wanted to take the easiest "straight road".

As a result, he personally pushed the Ming Dynasty into the abyss.

He doesn't even have the patience and composure of a fifteen-year-old.

On the celestial canopy, Judy Jun's declaration resounded throughout the universe.

"Stopping the reconstruction plan does not mean that the Martial Sect has admitted defeat!"

"The real storm has only just begun!"