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

Inside the live broadcast room, Zhu Dijun pushed aside the Ming Dynasty history materials that were trembling with anger in front of him. He turned around, picked up the blackboard eraser, and wiped away all the dense battle simulation diagrams that had been drawn on the whiteboard.

The pungent smell of markers filled the air. Zhu Dijun grabbed a black pen and wrote five nouns heavily on the large whiteboard:

[Civil Official Group], [Yang Yiqing], [Zhu Houzhao], [Little Prince of Mongolia], [Ming Dynasty Border Towns]

After finishing writing, he switched to a glaring red pen and used a rough red line to connect the civil official group, Yang Yiqing, the Ming Dynasty border towns, and the Mongol prince, leaving Zhu Houzhao isolated on the other side!

"Family members, do you know?"

Zhu Dijun threw down his pen, braced his hands on the table, and the mockery in his eyes pierced the screen as if it were a tangible weapon. "Regarding the Battle of Yingzhou, there are actually two completely different versions in the authentic historical archives of the Ming Dynasty!"

"One is the version that everyone knows, which was frantically altered and deleted by later scholars and ultimately tarnished for more than 600 years. That is, the absurd version with 16 dead and injured."

Judy slammed the gavel down and roared:

"And the other one, which most people have never even heard of, has been completely buried under the dust of history—the [civilian version of the great victory]!"

The entire online audience was stunned.

"Why don't later generations know this version?" Zhu Dijun sneered repeatedly, his voice like a knife scraping against everyone's eardrums.

"Because in the eyes of later generations, the so-called civil official version of the great victory is actually the best evidence of these corrupt officials colluding with the Tatars!"

A line of blood-red subtitles crashed onto the center of the screen.

"This absurd so-called great victory was only touted by the civil service group between the eleventh and twelfth years of the Zhengde reign. After the Jiajing Emperor ascended the throne, these people themselves felt guilty, and no one dared to mention this trick in writing again; it could only rot in the archives!"

In the modern live streaming room, after a brief silence, the barrage of comments poured out like a flood bursting its banks!

"Holy crap!! The civil officials created a great victory themselves?! What the hell is this?!"

"A great victory in warp space, huh? Searching for enemies in the void, all those battle reports are fabricated?!"

"These beasts not only betrayed their country and nation for their own selfish gain, but they even dared to fabricate a great victory to deceive the people of the Ming Dynasty at that time and future generations! They are unworthy of being called human beings!"

"Where's the grave? I'm going to buy a shovel right now and dig up the graves of these charlatans!"

The myriad worlds and timelines, the Great Qin Dynasty's Xianyang Palace.

Qin Shi Huang, Ying Zheng, sat upright on the pitch-black dragon throne, exuding a terrifying, abyss-like killing intent. The air inside the hall was so cold it was almost freezing.

Since Shang Yang's reforms, the Qin Dynasty implemented an extremely harsh military meritocracy system. To gain promotion and rank, one had to pay with the heads of enemies! For those who fabricated military achievements or exaggerated the number of enemy kills, Qin law always had only one consequence—extreme execution, along with the punishment of three generations of their family!

Ying Zheng could never have imagined that a thousand years later in the Ming Dynasty, that group of civil officials who spouted benevolence and morality would not only fabricate military achievements, but would even dare to fabricate a great victory in a war that determined the fate of the nation!

He turned his head sharply, his tiger-like eyes fixed on Chunyu Yue, a Confucian scholar in the ranks of civil officials below.

"My dear Minister Chun."

Ying Zheng's voice was flat, yet it exuded a chilling savagery.

"I never imagined that you Confucian descendants would dare to fabricate even a great victory. But thinking about it, it makes sense. These people are willing to sell out the country's territory and even massacre border soldiers for the sake of power. Fabricating a great victory doesn't seem like anything new to them."

Chunyu Yue's legs went weak.

With a thud, he knelt on the cold flagstones, his whole body trembling violently, unable to utter a single word. In his heart, he cursed the Confucian scholars of later generations for betraying and killing their elder, calling them beasts, a bunch of beasts!

Ying Zheng drew his sword, its blade pointing directly at the heavens outside the palace, and roared in fury:

"But I'll make this clear today! As long as I live, Qin will live! So-called Confucianism will not be able to rule the court of Qin! Even if my son Fusu is brainwashed by your rhetoric, I will definitely abolish it! I will never allow this insane cancer to harm the Qin dynasty!"

The Weiyang Palace of the Han Dynasty.

Emperor Wu of Han, Liu Che, stared wide-eyed, his grip on the golden wine vessel deforming from his hand.

"A civil service version of a great victory?"

Liu Che gritted his teeth, his eyes filled with shock and rage.

"While our soldiers are fighting tooth and nail against the foreign invaders in the freezing cold, these Confucian scholars, armed only with pens, are hiding in the capital, managing to pull off a great victory with just their words and pens?!"

Liu Che suddenly stood up and stared intently at Dong Zhongshu below.

"Minister Dong! What do you think of the methods used by your descendants in this matter?!"

Dong Zhongshu's face turned deathly pale, and large beads of sweat rolled down his forehead. How could he answer? How dare he answer?! Who could have imagined that a thousand years later, Confucian scholars would have become so depraved and lawless, betraying their country and their compatriots, treating matters of national importance as a script for their power struggles!

As Liu Che looked at the sky, the profound saying that Zhu Dijun had said before suddenly resonated in his mind.

Battle reports can be forged, but battle lines absolutely cannot!

Liu Che sneered repeatedly.

"What a brilliant feat of forging battle reports! The military strength of the Ming Dynasty has been completely destroyed by these shameless scoundrels!"

In the live broadcast room, Zhu Dijun picked up a water glass to moisten his throat, his eyes becoming increasingly sharp.

"Family members, before we uncover what this so-called 'Great Victory of the Civil Officials' really is, we must first understand the extreme situation in the Ming Dynasty court at that time."

Zhu Dijun tapped the three characters "Yang Yiqing" on the whiteboard with his fingers.

"In the eleventh year of the Zhengde reign, the northern defense line of the Ming Dynasty was completely rotten. Border generals engaged in smuggling and trafficking colluded directly with the Mongol Tatars, and together they killed the trusted military general sent out by Emperor Wuzong Zhu Houzhao for inspection outside the Great Wall! Meanwhile, within the capital, the civil official group pressed on relentlessly, demanding that Zhu Houzhao immediately select a member of the imperial family as the crown prince!"

"A pincer attack from both inside and outside, a two-pronged approach! And the key link connecting all these crises to the border generals and the capital's cabinet is none other than Yang Yiqing, the former Commander-in-Chief of the Three Border Regions and the current Minister of Personnel!"

Zhu Dijun's finger suddenly swiped across another blank space on the whiteboard and typed a name with a black border—[Li Dongyang].

"But in July of the eleventh year of Zhengde's reign, a major event occurred that completely altered the balance of power in the court. Li Dongyang, a veteran official who had served four emperors and served as the Grand Secretary, passed away from illness."

An aged portrait of Li Dongyang appeared on the big screen.

"Family members, don't forget that Li Dongyang was one of the key participants in the bloody coup of August 11th, the fifth year of the Zhengde reign. Zhu Houzhao had an extremely heated and unpleasant argument with this old man because of this incident. But putting that aside, compared to those ruthless beasts like Yang Yiqing in the court, Li Dongyang can be considered one of the very few civil officials after Jiao Fang who could still maintain a bottom line and engage in political communication with the emperor."

"After Li Dongyang's death, Zhu Houzhao, mindful of their past relationship, still treated him with great respect. Not only was he posthumously granted the title of Grand Tutor, but he was also bestowed with the highest honor that civil officials dreamed of—the posthumous title of 'Wenzheng'!"

Zhu Dijun abruptly changed the subject, his tone becoming extremely cold:

"The semblance of dignity has been exhausted, but the last buffer zone between imperial power and the civil service has also been completely severed!"

"In the eleventh year of the Zhengde reign, the civil official group had already revealed their true colors to Zhu Houzhao over issues such as succession, control of the border troops, and the beloved concubine, Lady Ma! Without Li Dongyang mediating, everyone should stop pretending and just draw their swords!"

The timeline jumped dramatically on the screen!

"In the very month that Li Dongyang breathed his last! Zhu Houzhao's first target was Yang Yiqing, the mastermind behind the chaos in the capital! New and old grudges, all settled!"

Zhu Dijun slammed his gavel down.

"Zhu Houzhao's counterattack was simple and brutal. He didn't use eunuchs or the Imperial Guards at all. Instead, he directly found a low-level student from a martial arts academy in the capital, a nobody named Zhu Dazhou!"

A shocking phantom of an impeachment memorial crashed onto the center of the screen with the force of thunder!

"This martial arts student, who doesn't even have a rank, bypassed all procedures and presented a thick, detailed, and outrageously incriminating document to impeach Yang Yiqing, the Minister of Personnel!"

"The charges listed above are incisive and irrefutable, completely tearing this powerful figure who once wielded immense influence in the government and the public utterly torn apart!"

Zhu Dijun slammed his hands on the table and sneered, "Where would a poor student get such confidential incriminating material? This is obviously Thor's hammer, personally handed to him by Zhu Houzhao after he had the Embroidered Uniform Guard verify it! This old Deng has too much influence in the border army and the civil service. If the emperor doesn't take him down, the emperor himself will die!"

In the eleventh year of the Zhengde reign of the Ming Dynasty, in the capital city.

Yang Yiqing, who had just been forced to hand over his official seal and take off his scarlet minister's robes, stood in the courtyard of his own mansion, looking at the sky with a face ashen.

He lost, defeated by a young emperor's unconventional and ruthless tactics. But there was no regret in his eyes, only extreme malice. He knew that with his departure, a huge gaping hole would be torn in the civil service's defenses in the capital.

"What a brilliant move, Your Majesty."

Yang Yiqing muttered to himself, a sinister smile twisting his lips.

"But since this old minister is leaving, he must leave His Majesty with something to remember him by. The brothers in Xuanda will not stand by and watch this old minister suffer humiliation in vain."

Above the sky, Zhu Dijun's voice was like a biting cold wind from beyond the Great Wall, carrying a suffocating stench of blood.

"With the evidence irrefutable, Yang Yiqing had no face to remain in court and could only resign in disgrace. But, my family, this powerful figure's departure meant that the facade of pretense between the civil service and Zhu Houzhao had been completely torn away!"

The large screen went completely black.

Immediately afterwards, a chilling neighing of warhorses and the thunderous roar of collapsing city walls exploded in everyone's ears! A map of the nine border regions of the Ming Dynasty, stained red with blood, suddenly filled the entire screen!

"Political struggles are never like dinner parties. No sooner had Yang Yiqing been ousted than the furious retaliation from the civil service and border generals crashed down on the Great Wall defenses of the Ming Dynasty!"

Five scarlet numbers are jumping wildly on the map!

"Please remember this date—August of the eleventh year of the Zhengde reign!"

Zhu Dijun's roar ripped through the live stream: "Dayan Khan, that Mongol prince, after receiving accurate intelligence and signals of cooperation from a Ming Dynasty traitor, personally led an army of 60,000 to brazenly invade the border!"

The battle damage reports, like death knells, rained down on viewers across the internet.

"This time, there was no probing, no back-and-forth. Xuanfu, Longqing, Huailai, and other places are all under attack! The border fortresses built by the Ming army, with the cooperation of inside agents, were destroyed in an instant, as if they were made of paper!"

"Three hundred and eighty-one Ming soldiers died on the spot! More than three thousand seven hundred unarmed civilians on the border were slaughtered by the Mongol cavalry! More than twenty-three thousand head of the Ming's cattle, sheep, horses and livestock were looted or destroyed!"

Zhu Dijun ripped off his tie and pointed to the city in the center of the map, the city that represented the heart of the Ming Dynasty:

"The Mongol army's advance was unstoppable, directly threatening the gates of the capital. The entire city was plunged into immense panic, and the emperor decreed that martial law be imposed at all nine gates!"

Across countless worlds and timelines, everyone was overwhelmed by the bloody battle report.

The lives of more than 3,700 people and the destruction of 20 fortresses were all for revenge against the emperor for removing a cabinet minister!

"This is the insane tactic of the civil service, willing to drag thousands of innocent civilians down with them in their quest for power!"

An extreme murderous intent flashed in Zhu Dijun's eyes.

The raging fire on the screen gradually turned into a deathly white silence.

"But even in this desperate situation, with corpses strewn everywhere, the border in ruins, and the defenses on the verge of collapse."

Judy Jun's voice was extremely low.

"Just a few months after this tragedy, these heartless Ming Dynasty officials miraculously announced to the world that they had achieved a great victory in the north that would shake the world to the core!"

In the darkness, Judy Jun's cold laughter sent chills down one's spine.

"What underhanded methods did they use to fabricate a great victory for civil officials that deceived the world for several years on this land they betrayed?"