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

Inside the live stream, the oppressive atmosphere was like a sponge soaked in water.

"Family members, let's continue with the story of the Liu Liu and Liu Qi uprising."

Zhu Dijun stood before the large screen, his eyes sharp as knives, his tone brimming with barely suppressed rage. "I know how cruel this is to Emperor Wuzong Zhu Houzhao, and to those members of the imperial faction who fought tooth and nail to implement the new policies. But the truth must never be covered up! I cannot allow those who truly died for the country and its people to be branded as traitors and forever infamous, while those who profit from human suffering gain fame and infamy in history books!"

He pounded on the keyboard, and the words "Peasant Uprising" appeared on the whiteboard, which he then marked with a huge red cross.

"First, let's completely overturn the historical records' characterization of these two! The instigators of the uprising, Liu Liu and Liu Qi, were not honest peasants at all! Their true identities were two horse handlers from Bazhou, Hebei!"

The records of horse herders from the History of Ming Dynasty popped up on the big screen.

"What are horse households? In the Ming Dynasty, these were special households that raised horses for the government and paid for their horses. These people had horses and knives, and they dealt with all sorts of monsters and scoundrels year-round. They were pure local bullies and criminal gangs!"

"On the 22nd day of the tenth month of the fifth year of the Zhengde reign, these two men led several dozen cavalrymen in an uprising in Bazhou. They then stormed the Ansu County prison and rescued their accomplice, Qi Yanming. Within ten days, they had gathered several thousand followers!"

Zhu Dijun gave a cold laugh and tugged at the corner of his mouth:

"A few dozen horses, and within days an army of several thousand men was assembled, with weapons, provisions, and armor all in place. Folks, is this what you call being forced into rebellion? This is blatant premeditated investment!"

The live stream chat exploded with comments.

"What comes next is even more outrageous!"

Zhu Dijun slammed his gavel down.

boom!

"Looking at peasant uprisings throughout Chinese history, from Chen Sheng and Wu Guang's cry of 'Are kings and nobles born with special privileges?' to Li Zicheng's call to 'Welcome the King of Chuang and we'll not have to pay taxes,' what were the core demands of the common people when they rebelled? To overthrow the local tyrants! To distribute the land! To seize the grain!"

On the big screen, Liu Liu and Liu Qi's marching route map reappeared.

"But what about these two great military geniuses of the Ming Dynasty? They neither attacked the local tyrants nor redistributed land, and they didn't even touch the mansions of those extremely wealthy gentry and local bullies in Jiangnan!"

Judy Jun's laser pointer was firmly planted on the markings of several states and counties, his voice sharp and stern.

"Their targets were extremely clear, almost like they were precision-guided, specifically targeting local county governments and government offices! And the type of officials they killed the most and the ones they targeted most accurately were the registrars who were in charge of local finances, household registrations, and land records!"

Four large characters slammed onto the center of the screen!

[Human! Form! Fire! Dragon!]

Throughout countless worlds and dynasties, the emperors who saw these four words felt a chill run from the soles of their feet straight to the top of their heads!

The era of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang abruptly stood up from his dragon throne, kicking over the imperial desk in front of him, his eyes almost bulging out of their sockets: "Fire dragon burning the granary... These corrupt officials usually set fire to granaries to cover up their embezzlement! Now that Zhu Houzhao is surveying the land, they actually hired displaced people to rebel and burn the local government's archives and account books?!"

In the live broadcast room, Zhu Dijun had already presented irrefutable evidence.

"Everyone, take a closer look and see what these so-called peasant armies are really up to! Let's look at the black and white words in historical records such as the 'Veritable Records of Emperor Wuzong of Ming,' 'Records of the Ministers of the Ming Dynasty,' 'Ming Wenhai,' and 'Comprehensive Mirror of the Ming Dynasty'!"

The screen was covered with bloody photocopies of battle reports.

"In the first month of the seventh year of the Zhengde reign (1511), Li Quan, the registrar of Dacheng County, was killed, and all the local government's archives were burned!"

"In March of the seventh year of the Zhengde reign, Jin Sheng and Qiu Shen, the registrars of Suining County, were killed, and all the county's registers of money, grain, and households were destroyed; not a single piece of paper was left behind!"

"In May of the seventh year of the Zhengde reign (1511), Wang Xuzong, the registrar of Luoshan County in Henan Province, was killed! Sun Xi, the magistrate of Fufeng County in Shaanxi Province, was also killed!"

"In places like Liangshan in Shandong, wherever Liu Liu and Liu Qi passed through, low-ranking officials like the registrar were targeted and killed, and none of their files survived!"

Zhu Dijun placed his hands on the table, stared directly at the camera, his eyes filled with extreme mockery and contempt.

"Family members, have you ever seen such a targeted peasant uprising?! Is this a rebellion? This is clearly a local corrupt group hiring gangsters to carry out a complete physical destruction of all the original account books since Zhu Houzhao implemented the land survey policy!"

"With the account books burned and the registrar dead, there's no way to verify the facts. The Ming court can no longer find out how many hidden plots of land there are, or how much tax has been evaded through smuggling in Jiangnan!"

October of the fifth year of the Zhengde reign of the Ming Dynasty, at the Leopard Chamber.

Zhu Houzhao slumped onto the cold floor tiles, his fists pounding the ground so hard that his joints shattered and blood gushed out.

"Traitors and rebels...they're all traitors and rebels!"

He laughed wildly, tears streaming down his face. The deficits he had painstakingly investigated and the land he had measured, all turned to ashes in the mouths of these "fire dragons" hired by the civil officials and local tyrants.

"If you think burning files is shameless enough, then you've underestimated the bottom line of this civil service group."

On the sky, Zhu Dijun picked up his water glass, took a sip, and coldly slammed the glass onto the table.

"Besides burning the files, these people also pulled off a political assassination that shocked the government and the public!"

The screen background instantly switched to the vast expanse of the Yangtze River.

"Besides the registrar, in the first month of the seventh year of Zhengde's reign, Emperor Wuzong Zhu Houzhao, who had been sidelined, made a desperate act of resistance. He bypassed the cabinet and directly dispatched Ma Bingran, the governor of Ningxia and vice censor-in-chief, to Nanjing to investigate the city's money and grain reserves."

"Ma Bingran received the imperial edict and set off from Ningxia, traversing mountains and rivers along the way. In May, he arrived in Hubei, preparing to take a boat from Xiakou, Hubei, across the Yangtze River to Nanjing."

Zhu Dijun drew a red line on the map, which ended abruptly at Xiakou, Hubei.

"According to the custom of the Ming Dynasty officialdom, when an imperial envoy passes through a region, the local officials must come to greet him. When Ma Bingran's ship arrived at Xiakou, the local officials boarded the ship without any problems."

"but!"

A blood-dripping, dagger-like phantom suddenly pierced through the official ship on the screen!

"On this very official ship, laden with imperial envoys from the Ming Dynasty, the 'local officials' who came to greet him, after boarding and confirming Ma Bingran's identity, immediately drew their swords and hacked the Vice Censor-in-Chief, who was on his way to Nanjing to investigate accounts, to death on the spot! Then, like throwing away trash, they tossed the body into the rolling Yangtze River!"

The Weiyang Palace of the Han Dynasty.

Emperor Wu of Han, Liu Che, dropped his wine cup on the ground with a "clatter," spilling wine all over the floor.

"Kill the imperial envoy?"

Liu Che stared at the sky as if he were a fool.

"And in broad daylight, right in front of his entourage, he killed the imperial envoy?!"

Emperors throughout history were completely dumbfounded. This wasn't just a coup; it was tantamount to drowning imperial power in a latrine! The Ming Dynasty's civil service was truly arrogant to the extreme!

"When someone dies, there has to be some explanation, right?" Judy Chu spread her hands in front of the camera, her smile chilling.

"How did local officials write their reports to the imperial court?"

"They claimed that the people who boarded the ship and killed people were the rebels Liu Liu and Liu Qi who had fled to this area! The local government had no idea about it, and the imperial envoy had unfortunately encountered the rebels and died in the line of duty!"

"This is the Ming Dynasty version of the assassination of Ma Ying-jeou!"

The barrage of comments across the internet completely stopped scrolling at this moment; everyone was so shocked by this blatant shamelessness that they were speechless.

After a brief silence, Judy Jun grabbed the gavel and slammed it down, his roar echoing in the live stream.

"Family members! Any normal person with a intact brainstem can see that this fold is complete utter nonsense!"

He wrote three large question marks heavily on the whiteboard.

"First! As the governor and vice censor-in-chief, Ma Bingran's exact itinerary is a top secret of the court! Even the Minister of War might not be able to pinpoint exactly when he will arrive at Xiakou Ferry! How could a group of wandering peasant rebels know the imperial envoy's flight schedule so precisely?!"

"Second! Is Ma Bingran blind?! Are all his guards and attendants idiots?! The peasant army disguised themselves as local officials to welcome the imperial envoy. The local government's seal, the bright red official robes, the orderly procession, even that official tone—could the rebels have faked it so perfectly?! Even the imperial envoy didn't notice the slightest flaw and let them board his flagship directly?!"

Zhu Dijun moved closer to the camera, pointing at the local government's memorial on the screen, a terrifying ferocity emanating from his eyes.

"This isn't some rebel disguised as an official! This is clearly a local official who put on rebel clothes and went to personally skin the imperial envoy who came to investigate their background!"

The Great Tang Taiji Hall.

Li Shimin was so angry that he kicked over the screen in front of him:

"Heinous! A local official murdered a high-ranking central government official! Are all the local government offices in this Ming Dynasty dens of thieves?!"

The Three Kingdoms period, Xuchang.

Cao Cao gripped his throbbing forehead tightly: "Killing someone is not enough; you must also destroy their spirit. Not only did you kill the imperial envoy, but you also tried to shift the blame onto the rebels. The scheming of these civil officials in the later Ming Dynasty is a hundred times more vicious than mine."

"If the above logical reasoning isn't enough to crush these bureaucrats..."

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's slender fingers frantically tapped on the keyboard, bringing up the last top-secret historical document.

"Let's take a look at what Liu Liu and Liu Qi, who were being blamed, were actually doing back then!"

A precise geographic coordinate system was projected onto the large screen.

"According to historical records, Liu Liu did indeed die from an arrow wound in the Huguang region in the seventh year of the Zhengde reign. However, the specific location of his death was Tuanfeng Town in Huangzhou, Huguang!"

The laser pointer drew a distance between Xiakou and Tuanfeng Town in Huangzhou, Hubei Province.

"Liu Liu didn't even get close to Xiakou before he was beaten to death in Tuanfeng Town! These local officials are so perfunctory in their fabrication of evidence to cover up their crime of killing the imperial envoy! They're certain that the cabinet ministers in the imperial court will never investigate the cause of death of an imperial envoy who is a member of the imperial faction!"

"With Ma Bingran dead, the investigation into Nanjing's finances and grain reserves could no longer proceed. The sword hanging over the necks of the Jiangnan gentry was finally removed!"

Zhu Dijun put away the laser pointer, crossed his arms in front of his chest, and his whole figure looked somewhat hunched and tired under the light.

"Using others to do the dirty work, destroying the evidence, and reversing cause and effect. This is the whole truth about the magnificent peasant uprising during the Zhengde period of the Ming Dynasty, which has been covered up by official history."

The light on the screen gradually dimmed.

"The entire northern part of the Ming Dynasty was utterly devastated in this three-year-long 'suppression of the rebellion.' The people suffered immensely, and nine out of ten houses were empty. Meanwhile, the money and grain from the south steadily fell into the pockets of the civil service and the shadow government."

"Imperial power was locked within the Forbidden City, and officials who supported the emperor were slaughtered by local forces. This was a completely hopeless situation, utterly doomed."