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

Inside the live stream room.

Zhu Dijun did not write anything on the whiteboard.

He bent down and solemnly took out a yellowed and tattered ancient thread-bound book from the black safe with a combination lock at his feet.

The camera's focus instantly locked onto the book cover, which was covered in the marks of time.

"Family members, take a look at this tattered book."

Zhu Dijun gently stroked the pages of the book, his eyes revealing a complex mix of awe and anger.

"This book is called 'Records of the Ministers of the Qing Dynasty'."

"Who is the author? He is an official from the Zhengde period of the Ming Dynasty who personally experienced that era and was well-versed in the inner workings of officialdom!"

Zhu Dijun raised his head and looked directly at the camera.

"In an era when even punctuation was monopolized by the civil service, and a single miswritten word could lead to the execution of one's entire family, writing a private history was like risking the lives of nine generations of one's relatives!"

"But this unyielding predecessor still wrote down the truth, stroke by stroke, in his dark and gloomy study!"

"It is also thanks to the fact that this book has been miraculously preserved to this day, avoiding the extremely heinous nationwide destruction and alteration of books after the Manchus entered the pass."

Zhu Dijun's lips curled into a mocking sneer.

"Everyone is probably wondering, who exactly is this author?"

"I won't say a word. I won't utter a single syllable!"

He slammed the ancient book onto the table with a loud thud.

"Everyone has witnessed how terrible the online environment is right now. Those mites have completely gone mad!"

"Many bloggers and scholars who promote authentic Ming Dynasty history and Hanfu (traditional Han clothing) have had their accounts banned across the internet, and some have even encountered inexplicable 'accidents' in real life!"

Two flames of karmic fire ignited in Zhu Dijun's eyes.

"The bloodline of our ancestors has been passed down to us with great difficulty. Out of protection, I will absolutely not reveal any information about this ancestor's family descendants. I just want you to see the contents!"

On the large screen, a page of the ancient book was magnified in high definition.

Zhu Dijun picked up a red laser pointer and circled several lines of extremely glaring traditional Chinese characters.

"Family members, open your eyes wide and look carefully!"

"[The treacherous officials He Jin, Zhou Ang, Ding Guang, and others, along with other officials, coerced Prince Anhua, Zhifan, of the imperial clan, into launching a rebellion...]"

This short sentence was like a powerful nuclear bomb, detonating in countless worlds and timelines!

This book was first published on 2009.com, providing you with a reading experience free of errors and disordered chapters.

"Did you understand?!"

Zhu Dijun's voice echoed in the hall.

"The Ming Shilu says that the Prince of Anhua had been plotting for a long time and colluded with military generals to rebel."

"And this privately compiled history, written by someone who experienced it firsthand, clearly states in black and white—it was [coercion]!"

"That foolish Prince Zhu Zhifan, who only knows how to drink and enjoy himself all day long, is not the mastermind at all. He was just a puppet on a string, forced to be roasted over a fire by those border generals! He was pushed out as a scapegoat to take the fall!"

The era of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang stared intently at the two words "coercion" displayed on the sky.

The founding emperor's eyes instantly turned cold and sharp.

"Military officers are using the imperial family as a shield... These soldiers have become so audacious that they dare to use the Zhu family's bloodline as a shield!"

Zhu Biao felt a chill run down his spine. He knew all too well what his father's expression meant.

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's deductions continued.

"He Jin, Zhou Ang, and several other local commanders, with only a handful of troops under their command, can't even leave Ningxia City. Why would they engage in such a suicidal endeavor?"

"Now that we have this clue, let's combine all the major events of the fourth year of Zhengde's reign to conduct a final, reverse-engineering simulation!"

Zhu Dijun frantically typed on the keyboard.

The timeline on the big screen instantly rewound to the fourth year of the Zhengde reign.

A densely packed map of personnel appointments in Ningxia has been laid out!

"In the fourth year of the Zhengde reign, Emperor Wuzong sent people to the northwest to thoroughly investigate the true number of troops and their accounts. Chen Xiong, the Earl of Pingjiang, and Zhu Hui, the Duke of Baoguo, were investigated and punished."

"Subsequently, Cai Kuan, the Minister of Works who was in charge of supervising the Northwest, died mysteriously in battle in Ningxia."

"Logically speaking, shouldn't the emperor have backed down when faced with such a formidable opponent who dared to assassinate the imperial envoy?"

Zhu Dijun gave a cold laugh.

"But who is Zhu Houzhao? This stubborn mule not only didn't back down, but instead went all in!"

On the screen, four extremely important names, like four sharp knives, were plunged into the map of Ningxia Town!

"October of the fourth year of Zhengde!"

"Emperor Wuzong ordered that Jiang Han, the deputy commander-in-chief of Liangzhou, be promoted to commander-in-chief of Ningxia on the spot! He forcibly took over military power in Ningxia!"

"December!"

Emperor Wuzong appointed An Weixue, the Right Vice Censor-in-Chief of the Censorate, as the Governor of Ningxia!

"Meanwhile, Zhou Dong, the Vice Minister of the Court of Judicial Review, led a team to Ningxia to conduct a comprehensive investigation of military farmland settlements!"

"Plus, there's the garrison eunuch Li Zeng and the junior supervisor of firearms Deng Guang, who were already stationed in Ningxia!"

Zhu Dijun slammed his gavel down.

boom!

"Civil officials! Military officers! Eunuchs! Law enforcement!"

"Emperor Wuzong Zhu Houzhao sent all four of his most trusted troops into Ningxia City!"

"Ningxia, this small city on the northwestern frontier of the Ming Dynasty, became the epicenter of the political storm in the entire Ming Empire at the end of the fourth year of the Zhengde reign!"

Viewers in modern live-streaming rooms are getting goosebumps.

"Holy crap! This lineup is incredible! It's like having the top officials from the Central Inspection Team, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Central Military Commission, and the public security, procuratorate, and judicial organs all parachuted in!"

"Emperor Wuzong is determined to turn Ningxia upside down!"

"This sense of oppression... no wonder He Jin's gang is desperate and resorting to such tactics. Anyone would go crazy in this situation!"

The fifth year of the Zhengde reign of the Ming Dynasty.

The inner city of the Imperial City of Beiping.

Zhu Houzhao stood on the city wall, leaning on his broken sword. The rebels' arrows whizzed past his ears, but he seemed not to hear them.

He stared blankly at the sky.

I see……

The people I sent were too numerous and too ruthless. They cornered these local bullies until they couldn't even catch their breath.

Therefore, on the fifth day of the fourth month, He Jin and others suddenly launched an attack and slaughtered Jiang Han, Li Zeng and others at the banquet!

"But, family members."

Zhu Dijun's voice suddenly turned low.

"Have you ever considered whether a mere town like Ningxia is worth such a huge investment from the Martial Sect?"

"Let's take a look at what price Wu Zong paid to break through Ningxia."

A long list of dismissals popped up on the screen.

"Yang Yiqing, the Trilateral Commander-in-Chief!"

"Former Ministers of Revenue Han Wen and Qin Hong!"

"Former Ministers of War Ma Wensheng and Liu Daxia!"

"Most of the top officials in the Ming Dynasty court were purged because of the mess in the Northwest military affairs!"

Zhu Dijun stared intently at the camera, his eyes filled with horror.

"Ningxia during Emperor Wuzong's reign was a political black hole capable of swallowing everything! Anyone who touched it died!"

"So here's the question."

He placed his hands on the table, leaning forward like a beast about to pounce on its prey.

"What earth-shattering interests are hidden in Ningxia that would make these civil and military officials go so far as to kill the imperial envoy and even coerce the imperial family into rebellion, all to cover this up?!"

The entire room fell silent.

Everyone held their breath, waiting for the final answer.

"Is he receiving a salary without working?"

"Did officers forcibly seize military farmland?"

"Is it embezzlement of public funds allocated by the imperial court?"

Zhu Dijun asked three questions in a row, and then gave a negative answer himself.

"No!"

"For the warlords of the nine border regions during the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty, this was nothing but a drop in the ocean! Just pocket money to feed beggars!"

"The real power that made them incredibly wealthy, even capable of bribing half the court in the capital..."

On the whiteboard, Zhu Dijun wrote four chilling characters heavily with a red marker!

Smuggling! Aiding the enemy!

Boom!

The Yongle Era of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Di suddenly stood up from the dragon throne, his pupils contracting sharply as he stared intently at those four characters.

Aiding the enemy?!

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's voice carried a chilling dread, as if witnessing the darkest depths of history.

"Family members, Ningxia is far from the capital and the emperor, but it's very close to the Mongolian defense line!"

"In this place, salt and tea smuggling is something that small merchants and vendors do."

"The truly lucrative business, monopolized by the Ming Dynasty's border warlords and boasting profits hundreds or even thousands of times greater, was the large-scale sale of strategic materials to the Mongol cavalry beyond the Great Wall!"

On the screen, a blood-stained smuggling list crashed down.

"The finest armor of the Ming Dynasty!"

"Standard weapons manufactured by the Ministry of Works of the Ming Dynasty!"

"High-grade medicinal herbs that can save lives!"

"Even the grain that the people of the Ming Dynasty worked so hard to grow!"

Zhu Dijun roared angrily.

"The more strategically important a material is, the more strictly it is prohibited by the imperial court; the more it is targeted for smuggling!"

"They forged the steel of the Ming Dynasty into weapons and sold them to the Tatars."

"Then the Tatars, armed with these weapons, marched south to raid the borders when the autumn horses were fat and strong, and beheaded the people of the Ming Dynasty!"

"Finally, these border generals would carry the heads of civilians to the emperor to report their achievements and demand military pay!"

Zhu Dijun grabbed the water glass and smashed it on the ground, sending shards of glass flying everywhere!

"Two ways to cook a fish! Enjoy it from both ends!"

"The flesh and blood of the Ming Dynasty were sold off to the nomadic tribes of the grasslands by these beasts as a business!"

Across countless worlds and timelines, hundreds of millions of people listened with eyes wide with rage.

The Hongwu reign of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang was so angry that he trembled all over and suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood.

"Kill...kill them all!"

This founding emperor, who had fought his way out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of ​​blood, was now like an enraged lion.

"Issue the imperial decree! Send the Embroidered Uniform Guard to the nine border regions! Anyone who dares to sell even an inch of iron beyond the Great Wall shall be skinned alive and their entire family executed!!!"

On the sky, Judy Jun leaned back in his chair, letting out an extremely mocking sneer.

"Family members, Ningxia Town during the Zhengde era reminds me of a modern TV series."

"That place is practically a Ming Dynasty version of Shantou!"

"It's even a million times more terrifying than Shantou! Not only is the water so deep that people can drown, but everyone from top to bottom, from local generals to the ministers of the six ministries in the capital, is involved in this chain of interests and sharing the profits!"

"An Weixue and Zhou Dong went to check the fields, and Li Zeng went to check the accounts."

"The arrival of the Martial Sect isn't just taking away their cake and eating it too. It's uprooting their cash cow completely!"

Zhu Dijun's eyes darkened, and his voice was chillingly cold.

"Since the Emperor doesn't want us to live."

"Then let's blast the sky apart!"

The screen went dark instantly.

Only a single, solitary subtitle appeared in the darkness, accompanied by Judy Jun's somber words.

"The Ningxia rebellion in April was just a desperate attempt by a local smuggling gang to silence witnesses."

"The top bigwigs in Beijing remotely directed the operation, while He Jin, Zhou Ang, Ding Guangbei, and others were ordered to destroy evidence in Ningxia and ignite the war."