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

"Family members, we just exposed the civil service group's coup tactics, now let's talk about the most crucial weakness." Zhu Dijun stood in front of the big screen, his laser pointer pressing hard on the words "military power," so hard it almost shattered the screen.

"Why are the civil service and the corrupt officials of the Five Military Commissions so sensitive about the emperor touching military power? Their reaction is so extreme that they'd even cut off the emperor's hand if he were to collude with foreign enemies?"

Judy Jun sneered and spread his hands: "Because these people all deserve to have their entire families executed!"

Three words were written heavily on the whiteboard: "Employing without working," "Border smuggling," and "Reselling military garrisons."

"What state have the military garrisons been in across the Ming Dynasty? Military households have become the private serfs of generals and civil officials! The Five Military Commissions are using falsified troop rosters to demand grain and pay from the national treasury every year. Border generals and local officials are colluding to smuggle salt, iron, and even firearms from the Ming Dynasty to the Mongols in a continuous stream!"

"If Zhu Houzhao were to personally take control of the army and send people to the border to investigate the accounts, those involved would undoubtedly face the horrific crime of having their entire family executed and being subjected to slow slicing!"

A blood-dripping guillotine phantom crashed onto the center of the screen.

"In order to save their lives and their fortunes, in June of the ninth year of the Zhengde reign, the civil official group and the Five Military Commissions made a complete showdown! They directly colluded with Dayan Khan of the Mongol Tatar tribe, also known as the Mongol Little Prince in the History of Ming, and staged a heinous act on the northern defense line—inviting wolves into the house!"

On the large screen, the map of the nine border regions in the north of the Ming Dynasty was instantly engulfed by a crimson flame.

The timeline flashed wildly, and battle reports rained down on viewers across the internet like snowflakes!

"In June! Forty thousand Tatar cavalry, as if they were in an empty field, crossed the Great Wall defenses and launched a frenzied attack on Xuanfu!"

"In July! Sixty thousand Mongol cavalry marched straight towards Datong! The defending troops were pinned to the ground and slaughtered!"

"August! The Tatars have established camps stretching for dozens of miles, their advance pointing directly at Baiyangkou!"

"By September! The Mongol army was unstoppable, launching a direct attack on Ningwu Pass!"

Zhu Dijun slammed his hands on the table, a terrifying murderous intent flashing in his eyes, and roared, "In just four months! The Ming Dynasty's northern defense line is in dire straits! Although Zhu Houzhao has been desperately sending reinforcements to Xuanfu and Datong, it's all in vain! Because all the Ming army's troop deployments, supplies, and marching routes have long been sold off to Dayan Khan by these traitors!"

The myriad realms and timelines were deathly silent.

The Hongwu reign of the Ming Dynasty.

The Emperor's sword clattered to the ground in Zhu Yuanzhang's hand. His eyes were bloodshot, and he gripped the armrests of the dragon throne tightly, his fingernails twisted and bleeding. "Traitors... these bastards actually dared to let foreign enemies enter the pass and slaughter the people of our Great Ming!"

"You think this is the bottom line? No! What's even more disgusting is yet to come!" Zhu Dijun furiously pounded on the keyboard, projecting an ugly image onto the public screen. Next to it were four large characters—[Military General Li Huai]!

According to the "Veritable Records of Emperor Wuzong of Ming," during the Yutailing Mutiny at the beginning of Emperor Wuzong's reign, a Ming military officer named Li Huai led his men to defect to the Mongol Tatars! He even abandoned his ancestral surname and gave himself an extremely despicable alias—"Monkey Li"!

"How far has this Monkey Li climbed in Dayan Khan's ranks?" Zhu Dijun gave an utterly absurd sneer. "He was appointed Pingzhang Zhengshi by Dayan Khan! In the Mongol bureaucratic system, this is equivalent to the Grand Secretary or Prime Minister of the Ming Dynasty! He's practically second only to the emperor, and even the tribal chiefs on the grasslands have to obey his orders!"

The Weiyang Palace of the Han Dynasty.

Emperor Wu of Han, Liu Che, abruptly stood up, kicking over the wine cup in front of him, his eyes flashing with murderous intent. "Zhongxing Yue! This is the Ming Dynasty version of Zhongxing Yue!"

Emperor Wu of Han (Liu Che) was all too aware of the destructive power of such traitors. Back then, the eunuch Zhongxing Yue, who defected to the Xiongnu, taught the Xiongnu how to deal with the Han cavalry and how to destroy the Han army's logistics, causing immense losses to the Han Dynasty!

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's voice was like a heavy hammer, each word cutting to the bone.

"That's right! The disastrous defeat at the Xuanda defense line, and the repeated precise ambushes of the Ming army, were all the work of this Monkey Li! He's too familiar with the Ming army's tactics and weaknesses, and with the constant stream of intelligence from the civil officials in the capital, the Ming army at the foot of the Great Wall was practically a one-way transparent sitting duck!"

"But that's not the most surreal part." Zhu Dijun's lips curled into a wild, chilling smile. "This Monkey Li defected to the enemy and became a traitor. Guess how the Ming Dynasty's Ministry of War and the commanders of the border towns reported this to the court?"

On the screen, a memorial with a red-inked reply appeared prominently.

"They conspired to conceal the truth about Li Huai's defection! They reported to the court: 'Commander Li Huai bravely resisted the Tartars, fought valiantly for his country, and died a heroic death!'"

Viewers across the internet stared wide-eyed, their heads buzzing.

"What's even more ridiculous is that the Ming Dynasty not only gave this traitorous martyr the treatment he deserved, but his own son, Li Yong, also directly inherited the position of Deputy Commander of the Datong Garrison based on his father's 'death in battle'!"

"The father is out there serving as the Mongol prime minister, killing Ming soldiers, while the son is inside the Great Wall serving as a Ming commander, receiving a salary from the imperial court! A loving father and a filial son! He's profiting from both sides! The Ming Ministry of War and the border generals have managed to turn a traitor into a martyr's family!"

During the Chongzhen era of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Youjian, standing at the foot of Coal Hill, looked at the sky and began to tremble violently. Suddenly, he let out a heart-wrenching, maniacal laugh.

"Conceal the truth...to protect the family..." Zhu Youjian coughed up blood while laughing, tears streaming down his face. "Such a familiar tactic! What a loyal and capable general!"

How could he not be familiar with it?

During the Battle of Songjin, Hong Chengchou's entire army was wiped out. The civil officials in the Ministry of War told him with certainty that Commander-in-Chief Hong died on the battlefield, preferring death to surrender! Zhu Youjian was so moved that he wept bitterly, personally set up an altar to pay tribute, and bestowed generous rewards and protection upon Hong Chengchou's family in his hometown in Fujian.

And what happened?! Hong Chengchou had already shaved his head and was serving as Huang Taiji's lackey in Liaodong, directing the Buryat wild boars to fight back against the Ming Dynasty! Meanwhile, the Donglin Party members in the court, in order to protect their interests in Jiangnan and their connections in Fujian, fabricated a story about a "real and fake Huang Taiji" to deceive the emperor!

"A bunch of deceitful and heartless beasts!" Zhu Youjian roared.

In the modern live streaming room, the barrage of comments has long since turned into a sea of ​​anger.

"I'm going to explode! The son of a traitor is a general in the Ming Dynasty? What's the point of fighting this war?!"

"The civil service group truly has no concept of the nation; they only care about class interests!"

"The case is solved! The mole is in the Ministry of War! How are we supposed to fight this? Are we going to fight him head-on?!"

"Many people might ask that."

Judy slammed her hand on the whiteboard, interrupting the jubilant chatter.

"Since the Mongols were able to invade, why did they need to cooperate with the civilian government? Why didn't they just rob them directly?"

"Family members, this involves an extremely disastrous national policy of the Ming Dynasty—the [Kingdom Trade]!"

A price list for official trade during the Ming Dynasty popped up on the large screen.

"In the official trade system of the Ming Dynasty, the quantities and prices of goods set for the nomadic tribes were extremely strict! These high-ranking officials in the Ministry of Revenue created an unfair contract—when the Mongols came to buy iron pots, tea, and cloth from the Ming Dynasty, the prices were outrageously high! But when the Mongols sold warhorses, cattle, and sheep to the Ming Dynasty, the prices were driven down to less than cabbage!"

"The Mongolians are dissatisfied, but they have no choice but to buy! Without an iron pot to cook meat and tea to cut through the grease, they simply cannot survive on the grasslands!"

Zhu Dijun suddenly slashed his finger.

"Official channels are blocked, so smuggling is the only way to survive! And those who control the smuggling routes along the border and hold large quantities of contraband are none other than the Ming Dynasty civil officials and border generals! For Dayan Khan, protecting this smuggling lifeline is more important than fighting the Ming army to the death!"

"The chains of self-interest completely bound the Ming Dynasty's civil officials and the Mongol Tatars together!"

Zhu Dijun's voice suddenly turned cold, like a biting wind.

"Under the combined attack of internal traitors and external enemies, the border storm of the ninth year of Zhengde's reign turned into a one-sided massacre."

"The Ministry of War and Zhang Yong, along with their cronies of eunuchs planted within the army, have pulled off an extremely vicious 'legal killing' scheme! They don't even need to lift a finger; they can simply use the military law of the Ming Dynasty to relocate all the imperial faction generals that Zhu Houzhao sent to the Xuanda front to the most dangerous and isolated dead zones!"

"Not fighting? That's disobeying military orders, punishable by death! Fighting? The enemy is the main Mongol force, with complete intelligence. Our supplies are cut off, and reinforcements won't arrive; we're doomed!"

On the screen, the names of young military generals who had once been highly regarded by Zhu Houzhao were marked with a blood-red cross.

"They either died on the battlefield or were framed and transferred away. The members of Zhu Houzhao's imperial faction, whom he had painstakingly placed in the northwestern border army, were completely purged by the civil service in this round of political infighting, with none escaping unscathed!"

"Emperor Wuzong (Zhu Houzhao) suffered a crushing defeat!"

In the ninth year of the Zhengde reign of the Ming Dynasty, at the Leopard Chamber.

Zhu Houzhao smashed the bronze mirror in front of him with a punch, and blood dripped from between his fingers onto the ground.

He lost. He lost to those hypocritical beasts who took the salaries of the Ming Dynasty but used the lives of Ming soldiers to smuggle silver.

"Is this a dead end?"

Judy Jun asked coldly from the sky, then slammed the gavel down. Bang!

"No!"

Zhu Dijun ripped off his tie, his eyes flashing with a wild and fervent light.

"Family members! Even if Zhu Houzhao is foolish, after being tricked so many times, he's finally seen through it all! The Ministry of War is rotten, the Five Military Commissions are rotten, and the entire regular military command system of the Ming Dynasty is a complete sieve!"

"Since these traitors are using the rules of the system to kill my people."

"Then I'll just flip the table and smash all your rules to pieces!"

The timeline on the big screen suddenly jumped to "November of the ninth year of Zhengde"!

The phantom of a magnificent architectural complex rising from the ground crashed heavily onto the West Garden of the Ming Dynasty's Forbidden City!

"In November of the ninth year of the Zhengde reign! Emperor Wuzong Zhu Houzhao bypassed the Grand Secretariat, the Ministry of War, and the Five Military Commissions! He directly and forcibly established a brand-new supreme military command organization in the Western Garden of the Imperial Palace, completely independent of the Ming Dynasty's civil service system!"

Five large, blood-red characters, exuding an overwhelming aura that seemed to tear everything apart, suddenly filled the entire screen!

[East! West! Two! Government! Halls!]

Judy Jun's roar echoed throughout countless worlds and timelines.

"Not under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of War! Not under the command of the Military Governor's Office! In this organization, Zhu Houzhao is the sole supreme commander! During wartime, this organization can bypass all court procedures, forcibly command the main force of the Beijing Garrison, and even directly mobilize the field armies of all the border towns of the Ming Dynasty across regions!"

"Didn't the civil service like to poison procedures? Zhu Houzhao simply set fire to them, burning all your procedures to ashes!"

The screen went completely black.

A deafening neighing of warhorses faintly echoed from the depths of darkness.

"The knife has been sharpened, and the mechanism has been set up. Now, the young emperor, who has been suppressed for nine years, is finally going to step out of the Forbidden City, go to the border, and fight a battle against fate that belongs to him."