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

On the screen in the live stream, a yellowed engineering form slowly unfolded.

Zhu Dijun types on the keyboard.

"Family members, I have a project schedule from the second year of the Zhengde reign of Emperor Wuzong of Ming Dynasty. You may take a look."

"Let's see just how much of a minefield is hidden behind this so-called 'eighteen taels'!"

A striking title lit up on the screen: "[Table of Imperial and National Projects in Beiping in the Second Year of Zhengde (1507)]".

"In the second year of Zhengde's reign, the construction projects in the capital of the Ming Dynasty were concentrated in three major areas: the Forbidden City, the Xiyuan Nanhaizi Garden, and the Imperial City."

"These projects were all led by the royal family and jointly executed by the Ministry of Works and the Directorate of Palace Attendants."

"And Yan Jie is one of the core contractors in charge of these projects!"

Zhu Dijun pointed to the first item.

"The first key royal project: the new Leopard House!"

"The location is inside the Xihua Gate of the Imperial City. Construction began in August of the second year of the Zhengde reign."

"Its scale was enormous, with over two hundred rooms, including sleeping quarters, official residences, training grounds, and even secret chambers!"

"How much was invested in this project back then? Approximately forty to sixty thousand taels of silver! And that was just the initial startup capital; the total cost reached over two hundred and forty thousand taels!"

The emperors of countless worlds and timelines held their breath.

The initial amount was between 40,000 and 60,000 taels.

This was an astronomical figure at the time.

But that's not the most expensive part.

Zhu Dijun sneered and slid to the second item.

"Nanhai Zi, also known as the renovation and lighting project of Nanyuan."

"The repairs lasted from the first month of the second year of Zhengde's reign until the eighth month."

"They repaired the palaces, bridges, and pavilions, and also created an extremely luxurious large-scale Lantern Festival display."

"This project cost a total of over two hundred thousand taels of silver!"

"This was the largest single project expenditure that year!"

The third item follows immediately.

"Routine palace maintenance in the Forbidden City, including repairing leaks and reinforcing walls in places like the Hall of Supreme Harmony and the Palace of Heavenly Purity."

"The cost is approximately 30,000 to 50,000 taels."

On the screen, three numbers were highlighted in red and enlarged.

"In other words, the cost of these three major imperial projects alone in the second year of the Zhengde reign was between 270,000 and 310,000 taels of silver!"

Inside the modern live streaming room, the barrage of comments scrolled wildly.

"Holy crap! They spent 300,000 taels a year on house repairs?"

"Didn't they say the national treasury only had one million taels of silver? This means nearly a third of it has been taken away?"

"Royal projects are truly money-shredding machines!"

On the sky, Zhu Dijun shook his finger.

"This money didn't all come from the national treasury."

"In order to raise this huge sum of money, in June of the second year of Zhengde, the imperial court ordered the suspension of the construction of the Great Wall and border forts in areas such as Juyongguan north of Beiping."

"They painstakingly pieced together funds from various sources, and once enough was collected, it was transferred back to the capital to cover the deficits in royal projects and the maintenance of water conservancy and canal transport!"

Zhu Dijun placed his hands on the table, his eyes piercing the camera like knives.

"Now, let's turn our attention back to the contractor named Yan Jie."

"A contractor capable of undertaking national-level mega-projects awarded by the Ministry of Works and the Imperial Household Department, involving hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, and even misappropriating border military funds!"

"When the project becomes unfinished and there is a huge financial deficit."

"The Ministry of Justice went to confiscate his property, and he actually came back to tell the Emperor that he only owed 'eighteen taels'?"

The entire live stream room fell into dead silence.

Everyone was stunned by this utterly absurd contrast.

A project costing 310,000 taels!

An eighteen taels debt!

"Family members, do you still believe the ridiculous records in the 'Veritable Records of Emperor Wuzong of Ming'?"

Zhu Dijun spoke slowly and deliberately, his voice echoing throughout the hall.

"Eighteen taels?"

"Eighteen thousand taels is more like it!"

The era of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang stared at the project schedule displayed on the sky, his teeth grinding together.

He overturned the brazier in front of him, scattering embers all over the ground.

"This is outrageous! These beasts have defied Heaven!"

"The 180,000 taels of silver passed through the Ministry of Works and ultimately rotted in the hands of the contractors."

"The Ministry of Justice actually dared to write 'eighteen taels' in the account book!"

"They're literally stomping on the brains of everyone in the world!"

Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes were bloodshot as he pointed at the civil and military officials kneeling in a row below.

"This is the kind of mess you officials, who only know the classics, have made!"

With a stroke of the pen, 180,000 taels of embezzled funds were reduced to a mere 18 taels.

"Where did the rest of the money go?"

"It all went into your private residences! It all became your farmland and estates!"

"Let me tell you, if I were in power, not only would I have torn that contractor Yan Jie to pieces, but I would have to have all the officials in the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Works skinned alive and their entire families executed!"

Yongle Time and Space.

Zhu Di sat on the dragon throne, his anger turning into a laugh.

He laughed so loudly that tears streamed down his face.

"Excellent tactic! Truly excellent tactic!"

"No wonder the civil officials of later generations cursed Zhu Houzhao, their descendant, every day as a licentious and tyrannical ruler."

"So that's where the problem lies!"

"My grandson Zhu Houzhao, in a fit of rage over the shocking corruption of 180,000 taels of silver, crossed provincial borders to arrest officials from the Ministry of Justice and put a hundred-pound shackle on the contractor."

"In the end, you civil officials who compile history books simply wrote a single stroke of your pen."

"Just change the 180,000 taels to 18 taels!"

Zhu Di kicked over the dragon table.

"In this way, in later historical records, Emperor Wuzong became a madman who used torture and tormented his court officials for a mere eighteen taels of silver!"

"And these traitors who embezzled 180,000 taels of silver are instead portrayed as upright and loyal officials persecuted by the tyrant!"

"Turning black into white, calling a deer a horse!"

"The pen of a civil official is ten thousand times more poisonous than the sword of a Tartar!"

The viewers in the live stream also completely understood the logic behind it.

The barrage of comments erupted like a volcano.

"Holy crap! This is fucking insane!"

"This is true psychological warfare! Not only did they take your money, but they also portrayed you as a petty and tyrannical ruler!"

["No wonder Brother Jun said earlier not to trust the Ming History compiled by the Qing Dynasty, and even more so, not to trust the Veritable Records written by civil officials themselves. There's just too much exaggeration in that!"]

"Eighteen taels? That's equivalent to 2 to 3 RMB now. I could spend more than that on pork at the market in a year!"

The era of the Zhengde reign of the Ming Dynasty.

Inside the Leopard House.

Fifteen-year-old Zhu Houzhao stared intently at the sky.

His body was trembling violently.

It wasn't fear, but extreme anger and disgust.

He knew that civil officials were shameless, but he never imagined that they could be so shameless as to be worse than animals.

"turn out to be……"

"In their history books, I'm portrayed as a fool who went mad over eighteen taels of silver?"

Zhu Houzhao looked up at the carvings on the roof.

He suddenly drew his Emperor's Sword and cleaved a deep gash in the wooden pillar beside him.

"Liu Jin!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Is this project under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Works and your Imperial Household Department?"

Zhu Houzhao's eyes were so cold that they lacked any human emotion.

"Investigate! Investigate thoroughly!"

"Who approved Yan Jie's project? Who allocated the funds? Who inspected and accepted it?"

"From the Cabinet to the Ministry of Works, from the Ministry of Justice to your Directorate of Palace Attendants!"

"Any hand that has touched this money, cut it off!"

Zhu Houzhao gritted his teeth, squeezing out the words through his clenched teeth.

"Eighteen taels, right?"

"Today I'll show them just how many people I'm willing to kill for these 'eighteen taels'!"

On the screen above, Zhu Dijun looked at the frantically scrolling barrage of comments with an extremely solemn expression.

"Family members, there are no further records regarding Yan Jie's case at this point."

"The record of this event in the Veritable Records of Emperor Wuzong of Ming ends abruptly."

Why?

"Because we can't write any more!"

"If we continue writing, half the officials in the Ming Dynasty court will be implicated, and their fig leaf will be completely exposed!"

Zhu Dijun picked up a red pen and drew a huge X on the number "18" on the screen.

"This case was completely erased by the civil service group behind it!"

"They used such despicable methods to turn this earth-shattering case, which could have involved 180,000 taels of silver, into a political joke made by Emperor Wuzong."

"They successfully labeled Emperor Wuzong as 'absurd' in later historical records."

"And those 180,000 taels of silver simply vanished into the dust of history."

The myriad worlds and timelines were plunged into a suffocating sense of oppression.

This repression stems from an extreme fear of the civil service group controlling the right to write history.

You are an emperor, you hold great power, and you have the power of life and death.

But after you die, whether you are a wise ruler or a tyrant is entirely up to those civil officials who wield pens.

They don't even need to make up too many lies.

Simply changing "owes 180,000 taels" to "owes 18 taels" will ensure you are remembered with infamy for eternity.

The Great Song Dynasty.

Emperor Shenzong of Song, Zhao Xu, looked at the sky, his face pale.

He recalled the Wang Anshi Reforms that he had implemented.

In the writings of these civil officials, would they also smear themselves and Wang Anshi as villains who brought disaster to the country and its people?

The Great Han Dynasty.

Emperor Wu of Han, Liu Che, clenched his fist.

For the first time, he felt a strong urge to kill those historians who were responsible for recording the emperor's daily life.

"The pen is in their hands, the knife is in mine."

"If they dare to write a single careless word, I will slaughter every single person in the land who wields a pen!"

Above the sky, Judy clapped her hands loudly.

The crisp sound broke the oppressive atmosphere.

"However, family members."

"Our Zhu Houzhao, the number one shrewd businessman of the Ming Dynasty, is not the kind of person to suffer in silence!"

"He was not defeated by the underhanded tactics of these civil officials."

"On the contrary, they were thoroughly enraged, unleashing the most ferocious and comprehensive counterattack in the history of the Ming Dynasty!"