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

"A long-distance detour, isn't that ridiculous enough?"

Inside the live stream room, Zhu Dijun leaned back in his chair, his long, slender fingers tapping on the table. The crisp tapping sound was particularly jarring in the oppressive atmosphere.

"But compared to the generals of Datong in the nine northwestern border regions, the rebels in Sichuan are nothing but weaklings!"

"Family members, these warlords in the Northwest, who command large armies, are the real masters!"

The map on the big screen zoomed in instantly, locking onto Datong, a major military town in northern China.

Red warning signs flashed wildly on the screen.

"The year is now March of the fourth year of the Zhengde reign!"

"The Veritable Records of Emperor Wuzong of Ming records a border incursion in Datong in a very veiled manner. Tatar cavalry stormed into the Datong territory, burning, killing, and looting!"

Zhu Dijun's lips curled into an extremely sarcastic sneer.

"The enemy has already invaded our home. Guess what the local military commander and the civil official governor are doing?"

"They're drinking tea! They're watching a play!"

"They knew the truth but didn't report it, deliberately delaying the process. They watched helplessly as the Tatars looted enough grain and people within Datong territory, then swaggered out of the Great Wall!"

"Until the enemy leaves not even a footprint."

Judy Jun grabbed the gavel and slammed it down!

boom!

"The military officers of Datong Garrison and the civil officials of the governor's office, as if they had planned it in advance, slowly and simultaneously submitted their urgent reports to the capital!"

The content was remarkably consistent: "[We fought desperately, but the enemy's strength was overwhelming, and our casualties were heavy. We implore the court to allocate funds immediately for relief and compensation!]"

The chat in the modern live stream room instantly descended into extreme agitation.

"Holy crap! This is treating the emperor like a fool!"

"They're supporting bandits to maintain their own power! And it's a collaboration between civil and military officials!"

"When the Tartars come to rob, the Ming soldiers are responsible for covering their retreat, collecting the corpses, and incidentally demanding money from the emperor. What an amazing deal!"

The era of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty.

"brute!"

Zhu Yuanzhang kicked over the brazier in front of him, sending glowing embers scattering across the ground. His eyes were bloodshot as he stared intently at the sky, the veins on his neck throbbing.

The Nine Garrisons of the Ming Dynasty were the steel Great Wall that he left for the Zhu family to defend against the Northern Yuan.

Now it has become an ATM for these soldiers and pedants to extort money from the imperial court!

"Biao'er!" Zhu Yuanzhang whirled around, staring intently at Crown Prince Zhu Biao. "You remember this! Those bastards from Datong, find them, kill them all, show no mercy!"

On the sky, Judy Jun's execution continued.

"Faced with such blatant mockery, the sixteen-year-old Emperor Wuzong Zhu Houzhao was furious, but he had not yet lost his mind."

"Upon receiving the report in April, he immediately launched an extremely bloody reshuffle of the top military and political leaders in the Northwest!"

A complex personnel reshuffle chart appeared on the screen.

"Emperor Wuzong directly stripped Yang Yiqing, the commander-in-chief of the three border regions, of his military power and ordered him to cease all work!"

"Immediately afterwards, three staunch Imperial Party confidants were parachuted into the Northwest!"

"Liang Yu, the eunuch of the Imperial Horse Administration, will be sent to Datong as military supervisor! Wen Gui, the Left Vice Minister of War, will be in charge of military affairs in Xuanfu and Datong!"

Zhu Dijun's finger jabbed heavily on the last name.

"Minister of Works and concurrently Left Censor-in-Chief—Talented and Broad-minded!"

"He took over all responsibilities from Yang Yiqing, becoming the overall commander of military affairs in Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, and Yansui!"

"Emperor Wuzong's meaning is very clear: You border generals like to feign compliance while secretly opposing us, don't you? I'm sending the Minister of Works and the Embroidered Uniform Guard to keep an eye on you and fight you!"

"But, family members."

Zhu Dijun's eyes suddenly turned extremely cold, like a bottomless dry well.

"Emperor Wuzong underestimated the determination of these northwestern warlords to protect their food."

"Just a few months after Cai Kuan took office as Minister of Works, a major event that shocked the world occurred."

The large screen instantly turned a blinding white, and a death notice stamped with the official seal of the Ministry of War crashed down.

"December of the fourth year of Zhengde's reign."

Emperor Wuzong originally issued an edict summoning Cai Kuan back to the capital to report on his duties and understand the true situation of the war in the Northwest.

"But what arrived in the capital from Ningxia was a cold, lifeless corpse!"

The Ming Dynasty Records state: "When Cai Kuan was inspecting the defense line, he was ambushed by the Tatars. He took the lead, personally drawing his sword and cutting down several enemy soldiers before unfortunately falling into the ambush and sacrificing his life for his country!"

These words were spoken.

The entire live stream room was deathly silent.

After a while, the screen was completely filled with exclamation marks!

Zhu Dijun raised his head and let out a burst of extremely shrill and violent laughter.

"Hahaha! Family members, listen to this military report!"

"A Minister of Works in charge of engineering construction, and a Left Censor-in-Chief in charge of official discipline. Top-tier civil officials in the Ming Dynasty court!"

"Under the protection of tens of thousands of Ming border troops, they were actually forced to personally take up arms and engage in hand-to-hand combat with Mongol cavalry?!"

Zhu Dijun pressed his hands firmly on the table, his eyes red-rimmed as he approached the camera.

"Do you know what the most outrageous thing is?"

"Those who set off on the inspection with Cai Kuan at that time included the General Commander and Deputy General Commander of Ningxia of the Ming Dynasty!"

"These two heavily armored, highly skilled professional soldiers weren't even scratched. Only that defenseless minister was chopped into mincemeat!"

"This is hardly the kind of battlefield death we're talking about!!"

"This is a perfect replica of the defeat at Yutailing!"

"This is the Northwestern warlords telling Emperor Wuzong: The military power in the Northwest belongs to us! Anyone who dares to seize power, whether an eunuch or a minister, will only face death!"

The era of the Zhengde reign of the Ming Dynasty.

The Leopard Chamber Hall.

Zhu Houzhao slumped onto the dragon throne. He neither became angry nor smashed anything.

He simply stared silently at the battle report of Cai Kuan's death on the sky, his lips bleeding from being bitten by his teeth, the blood dripping down his chin onto his bright yellow dragon robe.

"They're all playing the emperor..."

"The civil officials want my money, the military generals want my life. This entire court is just putting on an act!"

Zhu Houzhao suddenly drew his imperial sword and cleaved the jade table in front of him in two. His bloodshot eyes were completely consumed by endless killing intent.

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's voice was like a death knell, striking the hearts of every Ming Dynasty official.

"Cai Kuan's death completely tore away the last fig leaf of the Ming military."

"It wasn't just the Northwest. Go and look at the southern provinces back then!"

"Shandong, Jiangsu, Shaanxi, Sichuan, and even the Hubei and Hunan regions!"

"Overnight, like mushrooms after rain, countless bandits and rebels sprang up out of nowhere!"

On the map of the Ming Dynasty's territory, the red "rebel" markers were densely packed, spreading wildly like cancer cells.

"They even dared to report that bandits were lurking in Tongzhou, which is near the capital!"

Emperor Wuzong hastily ordered Huang Xi, the military commander of Tongzhou, to lead troops to arrest him. And what was the result?

Zhu Dijun gave a disdainful snort.

"Tens of thousands of Beijing troops conducted a thorough search of Tongzhou for months, but they didn't even catch a single bandit!"

"Throughout the Ming Dynasty, from south to north, from civil officials to military generals."

"The whole world is playing along with this sixteen-year-old emperor, staging an extremely poor 'drama of national subjugation'!"

The viewers in the live stream were completely mesmerized.

"It's suffocating, so suffocating. If I were a Martial Grandmaster, I might have gone mad."

"Not a single official in the entire court is loyal; they are all spokespeople for vested interests."

"In this situation, any other emperor would have already issued an edict of self-reproach and obediently handed over military and financial power, right?"

"right."

Zhu Dijun looked at the comments and nodded in agreement.

"Logically speaking, when faced with such a desperate situation where both civil and military officials are united and the entire nation is defying the imperial decree, even if Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty were to be resurrected, he would choose to temporarily back down and withdraw his fist in order to prepare for future consequences."

The screen's color tone instantly darkened.

Zhu Dijun stood in the darkness, but his eyes shone like two burning flames.

"But don't forget, he is Zhu Houzhao."

"Stubbornly, he continues to increase his bets and go all in."

Faced with pressure from the entire world to abdicate, he made a decision that shocked all historians!

Four extremely domineering, blood-red characters smashed the darkness on the screen!

[Reopened! New! Big!]

"December of the fourth year of Zhengde's reign!"

"Emperor Wuzong Zhu Houzhao not only did not issue an edict of self-reproach, but instead bypassed the cabinet and directly issued an unprecedented final reckoning edict to the entire country!"

Zhu Dijun suddenly waved his hand.

A list of officials, so long it made one's scalp crawl, hung like a white silk ribbon in the center of the sky.

Former Grand Secretary Xie Qian! Former Grand Secretary Liu Jian!

"Former Minister of War Ma Wensheng! Former Minister of Revenue Han Wen!"

"A total of 675 high-ranking officials of the Ming Dynasty!"

"These people include regents appointed during the Hongzhi reign, the ultimate protectors of the Jiangnan gentry, and powerful border nobles who command large armies!"

Zhu Dijun's voice boomed in the hall, making all the civil officials' eardrums ache.

Emperor Wuzong announced in his edict: All 675 people are stripped of their current positions!

"Abolish all honorary titles bestowed by the imperial court!"

"The most amazing one is the last one—"

Zhu Dijun grabbed the teacup on the table and smashed it hard on the ground, shards of porcelain flying everywhere!

"[Send the Imperial Guards to forcibly retrieve all the iron certificates, imperial edicts, and gold and silver items that the late Emperor and I bestowed upon them! Destroy them in public!]"

boom!

The officials of the myriad worlds and timelines fell silent.

crazy.

This young emperor has truly gone mad! Not only did he strip them of their official positions, but he also went so far as to seize and destroy the honors and rewards previously bestowed upon them? This is tantamount to stripping these six hundred-plus people of their dignity, throwing them on the ground, and stomping on them!

The Hongzhi Era of the Ming Dynasty.

When Emperor Xiaozong of Ming, Zhu Youcheng, saw the familiar names on the list, his vision went black, and he collapsed onto his dragon bed.

His prized "Hongzhi Restoration" veteran team was wiped out by his own son, leaving him with no dignity whatsoever!

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's eyes were extremely sharp, penetrating to the very essence of history.

"Family members, why would Wuzong do something that seems extremely morally reprehensible?"

"Because he saw through an extremely disgusting unspoken political rule in the Ming Dynasty court—[posthumous exoneration]!"

"Whether it was Emperor Yingzong of Ming, Zhu Qizhen, or Emperor Xianzong of Ming, Zhu Jianshen, or his father, Zhu Youcheng."

"As soon as the new emperor ascends the throne, the civil service will jump out and demand that the officials who were dismissed in the previous dynasty be exonerated and their reputations restored."

"The Martial Sect is cutting off their last escape route!"

"As long as all the imperial edicts and decrees are destroyed, these people will become utter sinners in the history of the Ming Dynasty! No one will be able to overturn their case under the next emperor!"

Zhu Dijun leaned against the edge of the table, his chest heaving violently.

He looked at the blood-soaked list of officials on the screen, his eyes revealing an extremely complex sense of regret.

"Ruthless. Decisive. And bold."

"But I still maintain that Emperor Wuzong Zhu Houzhao was too young and too impatient."

He believed that with the Embroidered Uniform Guard and the Imperial Depot under his control, he could forcefully suppress this volcano that was about to erupt. He believed that he had the whole situation under control.

The image freezes on a tattered border map of the Ming Dynasty from the fifth year of the Zhengde reign.

Zhu Dijun picked up his water glass, but didn't drink it; instead, he stared coldly at the camera.

"However, when these 675 members of the civil service, representing the most powerful group in the land, were driven to the brink of despair."

"Their fangs in a counterattack are enough to crush the backbone of the Ming Empire."

"Family members, I'm going to rest for ten minutes first."

"Wait for me to come back, because I feel my blood pressure is going to rise and I'm going to lose control of my emotions and start cursing again. Luckily, Emperor Wuzong Zhu Houzhao is one of my ancestors, otherwise I really want to dig out his brain to see if he's been possessed by a Khazar squid. Where did his previous wisdom and prowess go? Is it just a limited-time experience card?"