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

The scene on the sky suddenly shifted amidst the utter silence.

A Xuande Tongbao coin with a broken edge and covered in verdigris was magnified infinitely and floated in front of everyone's eyes.

"Family members, do you really think Emperor Wuzong's sword only struck the salt certificates of the Ministry of Revenue in Nanjing?"

Zhu Dijun's fingers slammed down on the keyboard.

"Salt certificates were paper money, essentially large-denomination drafts. But in the Ming Dynasty, what truly circulated in the marketplace and was closely related to the lives of ordinary people was copper coins!"

"Whoever controls the power to mint copper coins effectively controls the Ming Dynasty's money-issuing machine!"

On the large screen, a province on the map of the Ming Dynasty suddenly lit up with a dazzling red light.

Jiangxi!

"Today, we must name a political group that was extremely arrogant and powerful in the imperial court during the Song and Ming dynasties—the Jiangxi Gang!"

Zhu Dijun's eyes turned extremely cold.

"Many history students just say that Jiangxi had a flourishing literary tradition, which is why there are so many officials from Jiangxi. That's pure bookish nonsense!"

"In ancient times, training a scholar to go to the capital for the imperial examinations was an incredibly expensive undertaking! Without real money as a foundation, you couldn't even afford a writing brush!"

"The reason why the Jiangxi clique could wield such influence in the imperial court can be summed up in just two words."

"Copper mine!"

Two place names popped up on the screen instantly, bathed in a golden glow.

"Xinzhou Lead Mountain Mine! Raozhou Dexing Xingli Copper Mine!"

"These are two super-large copper mines that are national benchmarks!"

Zhu Dijun grabbed the gavel and slammed it down hard.

boom!

"During the early Ming Dynasty, in the Hongwu and Yongle reigns, both Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di were ruthless. They used extremely iron-fisted official methods to tightly control the copper mines in Jiangxi and absolutely forbade the private minting of coins."

"But when it came to Emperor Renzong of Ming, Zhu Gaochi, things went wrong!"

The Yongle Era of the Ming Dynasty.

Emperor Yongle (Zhu Di), who had been watching the show, suddenly felt a jolt in his eyelids.

He suddenly turned his head and stared intently at the mountain of flesh beside him that was sweating profusely due to its obesity.

Crown Prince Zhu Gaochi was so frightened by his father's murderous gaze that he immediately knelt down, his kneecaps slamming heavily onto the gold bricks.

"Father...Father, I am innocent!"

On the sky, Judy Jun's execution was merciless.

"Emperor Renzong of Ming, Zhu Gaochi, is also known as the famous 'Fat Emperor of Ming'."

"After he ascended the throne, he was completely fooled by the so-called 'Three Yangs Cabinet' of the Ming Dynasty, and acted like a complete idiot!"

"Under the guise of 'allowing the people to rest and recuperate, and allowing wealth to accumulate among the people,' the Three Yangs directly abolished the imperial court's strong oversight of local copper mines!"

"From that time onward, the copper mines in Jiangxi had effectively become semi-independent private property of civil servants!"

Zhu Dijun's voice grew louder and louder.

"They minted and minted coins illegally! The endless supply of copper coins transformed into a terrifying financial force for the Jiangxi clique to form factions and cultivate protégés in the imperial court!"

"Until the fourth year of the Zhengde reign!"

"Sixteen-year-old Emperor Wuzong Zhu Houzhao, just like Emperor Wu of Han in his time, forcibly issued an iron-fisted edict—prohibiting the private minting of copper coins and completely reclaiming control of the copper mines in Jiangxi!"

Across countless worlds and timelines, officials from Jiangxi Province were deathly pale.

The Zhengde reign of the Ming Dynasty.

Inside the Leopard Chamber, Zhu Houzhao looked at the sky, gritted his teeth, and let out a cold laugh.

"I knew it! These old scoundrels are so loud in court, they must be rich!"

Zhu Dijun picked up his water glass, took a sip, and his eyes revealed extreme regret.

"In the fourth year of Zhengde's reign, Emperor Wuzong did indeed temporarily reclaim the rights to salt permits and copper coin minting."

"But the tragedy of history is that, with the mutiny in the fifth year of Zhengde's reign..."

"Liu Jin is dead, Zhang Cai is dead, and all of the military's confidants have been killed."

"The salt permits were returned to the Ministry of Revenue in Nanjing, while the local copper mines remained in the hands of local civil officials."

"Everything has gone back to that vicious cycle of cannibalism!"

The live stream chat was instantly filled with a dense barrage of sighs and profanities.

"Damn! These civil servants are like cockroaches that can't be killed!"

"Emperor Wuzong is having a really tough time; he's single-handedly taking on the entire bureaucratic capitalist system!"

"No wonder the Ming Dynasty ran out of money for wars in its later years; these bloodsuckers drained it dry!"

Zhu Dijun didn't give netizens much time to be frustrated.

The images on the big screen flickered wildly again.

"Family members, although Emperor Wuzong ultimately failed, the things this young emperor did before the Zhengde Rebellion broke out will absolutely make your scalps tingle with ecstasy!"

"As we mentioned earlier, Liu Jin investigated back twenty years and used the rice-penalty system to force officials to hand over some grain to the Northwest Frontier Army."

"But that's far from enough!"

Zhu Dijun pressed his hands on the table, like a starving lone wolf.

"What will the emperor do when he discovers that his officials are stubbornly unwilling to pay taxes and are even secretly inciting local resistance?"

"Don't think that blatant tax resistance is only seen in the famous 'Record of the Five Martyrs' at the end of the Ming Dynasty."

"The rebellion in the southeast triggered by Zhu Qizhen, the war god of the Ming Dynasty, was essentially a form of local resistance to taxes!"

"And the situation faced by Emperor Wuzong (Zhu Houzhao) was exactly the same as that at the end of the Ming Dynasty!"

Zhu Dijun grinned with an extremely violent smile.

"Therefore, Emperor Wuzong made an action that went against the decisions of his ancestors."

"Civil officials aren't paying their dues? Local governments are claiming poverty?"

Four large, blood-red characters crashed onto the center of the screen!

[Go and grab it!]

The emperors of countless worlds and timelines were all stunned by these four words.

The Hongwu reign of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly stood up, his previously hunched back instantly straightening.

"Robbery? The emperor himself, robbing his subjects' money?"

His eyes widened, and then he burst into a fit of maniacal laughter that seemed to lift the roof off.

"Hahaha! Good! Excellent! To deal with these ravenous wolves, you have to be even more like a bandit than them!"

On the sky, an unprecedented drama of the emperor buying up assets at rock-bottom prices officially began.

"In November of the third year of the Zhengde reign, Emperor Wuzong dispatched his trusted eunuchs directly to Guangdong!"

"A search of the Guangdong Provincial Administration's warehouses revealed...good heavens!"

"26 taels of silver! More than 100 taels of gold!"

Zhu Dijun clapped his hands, the sound was incredibly crisp.

Without a word, Emperor Wuzong immediately dispatched a large force to escort all the money to the Imperial Treasury in Beiping!

"Not a single penny was left for Guangdong!"

"You keep complaining about being poor, so where did all this hidden cash come from? It's all dirty money embezzled from ordinary people!"

"By June of the fourth year of the Zhengde reign, the fire had spread to Fujian!"

A top-secret report by Cai Chao, a supervising secretary of the Ministry of War, popped up on the screen.

"Mountains of cash were found piled up in the warehouses of the Fujian Provincial Administration Commission, the Provincial Surveillance Commission, and the Salt Transport Commission!"

Emperor Wuzong issued another edict, ordering that everything be packed up and brought back to the capital!

"He threw 9000 taels of silver at the Ministry of Revenue in the capital to appease a beggar, and then stuffed the remaining millions of taels of silver into his own imperial treasury!"

The barrage of comments in modern live streaming rooms has gone completely crazy.

"Holy crap! Holy crap! Wu Zong's move was too hardcore!"

"Robbery by Imperial Decree! The Emperor Himself Steps In for Zero-Yuan Purchases!"

The Minister of Revenue probably cried when he saw the 9000 taels of silver: "Your Majesty, please give me more!"

"This feels so good! This is how we should deal with these corrupt officials! We should take down all their slush funds!"

The Zhengde reign of the Ming Dynasty.

The provincial governors and salt commissioners of the Jiangnan provinces looked at the sky and felt a sudden dizziness, collapsing to the ground one after another.

The taxes they had painstakingly embezzled over the years were simply emptied out by the emperor?!

Who the hell is the corrupt official here?!

Inside the Leopard Chamber, Zhu Houzhao looked at the comments from netizens from later generations and laughed until tears streamed down his face.

"Daiban, take a look."

He patted Liu Jin on the shoulder with the scabbard of his sword.

"Later generations will say I did the right thing by seizing it. I took back the money that belonged to the Ming Dynasty; this is called returning something to its rightful owner!"

However, on the sky, Judy Jun's face instantly darkened.

"But family, do you really think these civil officials will just obediently let themselves be robbed?"

The screen's color tone instantly turned into a somber, dark gray.

"The time came to the eve of the Zhengde coup."

When Emperor Wuzong sensed something was wrong, he sent people to investigate Guangdong again.

"Something strange has happened."

Zhu Dijun's eyes were as cold and deep as a well.

"The Guangdong Provincial Administration's account books have vanished!"

"Burn it completely clean!"

"What's even worse is that the embezzled money and goods transported to Beijing from Guangdong and Fujian were mixed with a large number of defective products, lead blocks, and junk!"

"Right under the emperor's nose, these people still dared to tamper with and embezzle the stolen funds!"

boom!

Inside the Leopard Chamber during the Zhengde reign of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Houzhao's smile instantly froze on his face.

An uncontrollable, overwhelming killing intent surged forth from the young emperor's body!

"court death……"

He kicked over the bronze charcoal brazier in front of him.

The embers were scattered all over the ground, reflecting red light onto his face, which was contorted with extreme anger.

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's voice also carried an extremely cold killing intent.

Feeling utterly humiliated, Zhu Houzhao was furious!

"In a fit of rage, he followed the trail and plunged the investigation into Wuzhou, Guangxi!"

A very detailed map of the southern military garrisons appeared on the big screen.

The location of Wuzhou was marked with a huge blood-red skull.

"Family members, what kind of place is Wuzhou?"

"That's where the 'Three Towns' of the Ming Dynasty's Guangdong and Guangxi Governor-General's Office, General's Office, and General's Office were located!"

"That's the core power center for all civil and military officials in the south!"

Zhu Dijun slammed his hands on the table and leaned forward.

"Emperor Wuzong's elite cavalry stormed into Wuzhou and kicked open the door to the treasury!"

"Cash in hand: Over 60 taels!"

"This time, Emperor Wuzong didn't go too far. He left 20 taels of silver for the Guangdong and Guangxi military regions to keep them running. The remaining 40 taels were transported back to the capital overnight!"

"But that's not the worst part!"

Zhu Dijun grabbed a list of names for the imperial prison that was so long it made one's scalp crawl, and slammed it hard into the camera lens.

"The money, Emperor Wuzong wants it!"

"Even martial masters must be killed!"

"Involving the deficits in Guangdong and Guangxi—"

"Former Provincial Governor Shen Rui!"

"Former Governor and Censor-in-Chief!"

"And then there's that former Minister of War who was hailed as a saint during the Hongzhi reign and burned the nautical charts for the voyages to the Western Ocean—[Liu Daxia]!"

Zhu Dijun's voice boomed like the Grim Reaper calling his name, echoing throughout the main hall and the live broadcast room.

"From top to bottom, nearly 900 high-ranking civil and military officials were all imprisoned and their ill-gotten gains confiscated by a single imperial edict from Emperor Wuzong!"

"You won't pay? Then you'll pay with the lives of your entire family!"

In this moment, across countless worlds and countless living beings, even their breath ceased.

900 high-ranking officials were imprisoned.

This is no longer anti-corruption; it is a bloody purge aimed at destroying the entire bureaucratic system in southern China!

Zhu Dijun suppressed all his wildness, staring intently at the camera, his eyes revealing an extremely suppressed sorrow and panic.

"Family members."

"They cut off the salt monopoly in Jiangnan, seized the slush funds of Guangdong and Fujian, and now they've put a butcher's knife to the necks of 900 high-ranking officials in the south."

On the screen, the map of the Ming Dynasty, including the Jiangnan region and the southern provinces, began to ooze thick black blood.