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

Inside the live stream, the storm brought by Wang Yangming's name was still raging wildly in the barrage of comments.

Zhu Dijun suddenly pressed the pause button.

He picked up his teacup, blew away the floating leaves on the water, and his tone became extremely calm.

"Alright, family."

"We'll leave aside for now what shady things Wang Yangming did later. When the time comes, I'll present the evidence one by one."

"Now, let's return to the perspective of Emperor Wuzong, Zhu Houzhao."

The timeline on the big screen was reset to August of the third year of the Zhengde reign.

"As we mentioned earlier, after the failed coup attempt, the sixteen-year-old Zhu Houzhao became completely corrupted and began a frenzied reorganization of power."

Zhu Dijun's slender fingers tapped on the keyboard.

Appointment letters belonging to the power center of the Ming Dynasty appeared on the screen like snowflakes.

"Wang Yue is dead, and Gu Dayong has taken over the Eastern Depot."

"Liu Jin became the Grand Eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial, and was simultaneously ordered to establish the Ming Dynasty's ultimate secret service agency—the Inner Bureau!"

"As for the cabinet in the outer court, apart from that 'old mudfish' Li Dongyang who stayed behind."

"The six ministers have all been completely replaced!"

Zhu Dijun slammed his hand on the table, his eyes sharp.

"At this moment, Emperor Wuzong finally shattered all the shackles on his hands and feet. The imperial power of the Ming Dynasty reached its brief but extremely brilliant peak in his sixteenth year!"

"It was at this moment that Zhu Houzhao revealed his true strategic intentions."

"He's not some absurd emperor who only knows how to have fun!"

Two large, burning characters popped up on the screen: 【Reform】!

"Under Zhu Houzhao's absolute authorization, Liu Jin became the scalpel that cleaved open the corrupt body of the Ming Dynasty. Bearing eternal infamy, he began a brutal reform that touched the very core of the civil service!"

The era of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang sat up straight, his eyes fixed intently on the sky.

He most enjoys seeing his principled descendants take action against those corrupt officials.

"Well done! That's the kind of person our Zhu family is made of! Tell me quickly, how does this little eunuch serve the Emperor?"

On the sky, Zhu Dijun tossed out an extremely detailed copy of a memorial.

"Family members, these reform contents cannot be found in most of the so-called official histories of the Ming Dynasty today! Those history books that even dogs wouldn't believe only write how much gold and silver Liu Jin embezzled."

"But today, I'm determined to bring this erased history back to the surface!"

"The First Cut: A Thorough Investigation of the Nation's Finances and Grain Supply!"

"Liu Jin ordered a recalculation of the Ever-Normal Granaries and Imperial Granaries in all prefectures and counties! Anyone who dared to falsify accounts would be arrested directly by the Eastern Depot and the Inner Depot, and the money to cover the deficits had to come from the private assets of the local officials' families!"

"The second move: recovering the deficits of the border towns!"

"Uncover all the shady accounts of those generals and military officials in the nine key border towns who embezzled military supplies! Anyone who embezzled money to buy warhorses will be executed in the autumn, according to the laws of the Ming Dynasty!"

"The third measure: Establish an official performance evaluation system to punish corruption!"

"Don't think that only Zhang Juzheng knew about performance evaluation systems. Liu Jin had already started implementing them during the Zhengde reign! Officials who didn't meet the performance targets, regardless of their background, were all fired!"

All the emperors throughout history, across countless worlds, gasped in horror upon hearing of these three strikes.

ruthless.

It's too cruel.

This is like putting a knife directly to the necks of the entire Jiangnan gentry and the warlords of the nine border regions!

The era of the Zhengde reign of the Ming Dynasty.

Fifteen-year-old Zhu Houzhao felt his blood boil. He turned to look at Liu Jin, who was kneeling beside him, trembling.

"Good! Good! Liu Jin, I didn't misjudge you. With these three strikes, my Ming Dynasty will be saved!"

Liu Jin kowtowed repeatedly, but his smile was more like a forced cry.

He knew that if he slashed with those three blows, all the scholars in the world would be able to tear him apart alive.

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's cold laughter broke the brief moment of excitement.

"Family members, reform requires bloodshed."

"You've taken a bite out of the pie of these vested interests. Do you think they'll obediently give back the money they've already taken?"

"Absolutely impossible!"

Zhu Dijun's eyes darkened.

"The familiar operation is back again."

"Whenever the imperial power wants to audit local finances and collect all the wealth of the empire for the national treasury, a so-called 'peasant uprising' will inevitably break out in the provinces!"

On the screen, countless red dots representing war suddenly lit up on the map of the Ming Dynasty, covering the north and south.

"What Liu Liu and Liu Qi uprising? What place is rife with bandits?"

"Behind all this, it's all the local tyrants and the civil service group secretly stirring things up! They deliberately instigated a peasant uprising, arming the tax-resisting rebels to attack the imperial army!"

"Their sole purpose was to put pressure on Emperor Wuzong in the capital. To tell the emperor that if he continued his investigation, the empire would rebel!"

In the modern live broadcast room, viewers were horrified.

"Holy crap! This tactic is so familiar! Isn't this the precursor to the Donglin Party's tax resistance in the late Ming Dynasty?"

["Civil official: Your Majesty, if you dare to investigate the accounts, we dare to incite the people to revolt!"]

"How much trouble did Liu Jin take for Zhu Houzhao?!"

Zhu Dijun picked up his water glass, but instead of drinking it, he slammed it heavily onto the table.

boom!

"However, merely instigating a popular uprising is not enough to bring down Emperor Wuzong, who holds considerable military power."

"The time has come to the fifth year of the Zhengde reign."

The color tone on the screen instantly turned into an extremely oppressive blood red.

Zhu Dijun leaned forward, his face filling the entire screen, his eyes revealing an extreme sorrow and anger at witnessing a historical tragedy.

"This is how the official history records this year."

"[In August of the fifth year of the Zhengde reign, Emperor Wuzong suddenly realized his mistake, verified Liu Jin's crime of treason, and had him executed by slow slicing. The eunuch faction was destroyed, and the upright officials throughout the land rejoiced.]"

Zhu Dijun suddenly waved his hand, shattering the line of text on the screen.

"That's utter bullshit!"

His voice boomed like thunder, echoing throughout the main hall and the live broadcast room.

"A sudden realization? Killing one's own sharpest blade?"

"Are all the upright officials in the country celebrating?"

"Family members, do you really think this Emperor Wu, who dared to overturn the cabinet at the age of sixteen, would be so foolish as to play some self-destructive trick?!"

The entire room fell silent.

Everyone held their breath, staring intently at the modern storyteller whose eyes had turned red.

"This is not an awakening!"

Zhu Dijun gritted his teeth and spoke slowly and deliberately.

"This was a long-planned, extremely brutal—bloody mutiny!"

The era of the Zhengde reign of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Houzhao suddenly stood up from his chair, his pupils contracting sharply.

mutiny?!

On the sky, a long list of the dead poured down like a death warrant.

"At the same time!"

"The general personally appointed by Emperor Wuzong to command the Shenji Battalion and the Three Great Battalions in the capital—has been killed!"

"The Imperial Censor-in-Chief of the Embroidered Uniform Guard—imprisoned and executed!"

"Grand Secretary Jiao Fang, who supported reforms in the cabinet, has been ordered to retire!"

"Zhang Cai, the Minister of Personnel who implemented the new policies—was tortured to death in prison!"

Zhu Dijun's voice grew increasingly mournful, as if it could drip blood.

"Liu Jin, one of the Eight Tigers, was subjected to a total of 3,357 cuts!"

"Is this just killing a eunuch?!"

"This is outrageous! They've slaughtered the entire trusted group and reformist core that Emperor Wuzong (Zhu Houzhao) had painstakingly cultivated for five years!"

boom!

The era of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang felt a sudden darkness before his eyes and staggered back two steps, only to be firmly supported by Crown Prince Zhu Biao.

"A mutiny...a mutiny in the capital?"

Zhu Yuanzhang's lips were trembling.

He knew all too well what this meant. With the emperor stripped of his military power and his henchmen removed, he would be nothing more than a fish on a chopping block!

On the sky, Zhu Dijun pulled up another portrait.

That was a very familiar historical event.

"Family members, does this scene look familiar?"

"This is a perfect replica of the infamous 'Cao Qin Rebellion' during the reign of Emperor Yingzong of Ming!"

"The civil service group has allied with the generals who have been turned against the government, and with those vested interests who are unwilling to hand over the ill-gotten gains."

"In the autumn of the fifth year of the Zhengde reign, they launched an armed coup!"

In the scene, the gates of the Forbidden City are heavily guarded by soldiers.

A large number of soldiers in armor stormed into the Six Ministries and dragged the reformist officials in red robes into the imperial prison.

Screams and the sound of sharp blades cutting through flesh intertwined to form a lament for the decline of the Ming Dynasty's imperial power.

"The knife is already at Zhu Houzhao's neck."

Zhu Dijun looked at the camera, his eyes filled with sorrow.

"If he hadn't issued an edict to execute Liu Jin by slow slicing, if he hadn't stood by and watched Zhang Cai and the others being killed."

"The next second, those bloodthirsty civil officials and traitorous generals will, just like they strangled Emperor Jianwen back then, cause this Ming emperor to 'die suddenly from illness' right here in the Forbidden City!"

The era of the Zhengde reign of the Ming Dynasty.

Clang.

The Emperor's Sword in Zhu Houzhao's hand fell limply onto the gold bricks.

The fifteen-year-old emperor looked at his future self on the sky, sitting alone on the dragon throne in the Qianqing Palace, surrounded by heavy guards.

An extreme chill penetrated to his very bones.

He lost.

The defeat was due to failing to eliminate the threat at its root, and due to excessive trust in the enemy's border general who held military power.

"So, family members."

Zhu Dijun suppressed all his wildness, and his tone became extremely heavy.

"Don't applaud Liu Jin's death in history and novels. Even though he was a eunuch, he knew that reform would lead to his demise and eternal infamy, but he still did it. Why? Besides for Zhu Houzhao, it was also for his own sake, after being persecuted in his youth."

"Family members, in ancient times, the importance of continuing the family line was much greater than it is in modern times. If there were no other choice, no one would want to become a eunuch who would cut off their lineage. The only information we can find about Liu Jin is that he was from Xingping, Shaanxi. However, some people completely ignore the natural disasters that occurred in Shaanxi from the late Chenghua period to the Hongzhi period. During the Hongzhi period (1488-1505), Shaanxi was mainly plagued by droughts, earthquakes, landslides, torrential rains and floods, and windstorms. Like Wei Zhongxian later, Liu Jin came from a poor background and knew what the most ordinary people wanted and what his master, Zhu Houzhao, wanted. He went there despite the certain death."

"Don't be foolish enough to laugh at why Emperor Wuzong killed Liu Jin or abolished those new policies. It was at this point in time, the fifth year of Zhengde's reign."

"This once spirited young emperor, because of that little bit of leniency he showed when he spared Li Dongyang and those civil officials in the first year of Zhengde's reign..."

"They paid a bloody and devastating price, even jeopardizing the Ming Dynasty's revival!"

The screen in the live stream gradually dimmed.

In the end, only a lonely figure remained, standing on the walls of the Forbidden City, looking at the blood of his confidants scattered on the ground, and letting out a long, desperate howl.

At this moment, the comments section completely stopped.