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

"All our resources and all our elite troops have been staked on Xuanfu, the northernmost border of the Ming Dynasty."

Zhu Dijun stood in front of the big screen, his eyes filled with a suffocating sense of oppression. He gripped the laser pointer tightly in his hand, as if he wanted to crush it.

"An army marches on its stomach; Zhu Houzhao did a brilliant job. But at this point, only one fatal and unsolvable physical problem remained for this twenty-six-year-old emperor—"

Zhu Dijun turned around and drew a huge cage on the whiteboard in red pen, tightly bound by four high walls.

"How is he supposed to walk out of the Forbidden City, this super prison, alive?!"

Four large, blood-red characters crashed onto the center of the screen.

[Plug in wings! It's difficult! To fly!]

In modern live streaming studios, viewers can feel the terrifying atmosphere, as if they're being pricked by needles, even through the screen.

"Family members, in the twelfth year of Zhengde's reign, the Ming Dynasty's civil officials' surveillance and control over the emperor had become so blatant that there was no need for any concealment!" Zhu Dijun's words came out like a machine gun firing wildly. "In order to personally lead the army to the border and see those 150,000 soldiers, Zhu Houzhao embarked on an extremely tragic and frantic escape, much like a death row inmate trying to break out of prison!"

The timeline was jumping wildly on the screen.

"In the first month of the twelfth year of the Zhengde reign! Zhu Houzhao, taking advantage of the opportunity of offering sacrifices to Heaven and Earth in the southern suburbs, went hunting at Nanhai Lake, attempting to use the opportunity to escape north. And what was the result?"

Zhu Dijun slammed his gavel down.

"Before he even left the capital, the entire court erupted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on! The Grand Secretaries of the Cabinet, the Five Military Commissions, the Censorate, the Court of Judicial Review, the Office of Transmission, plus the Six Supervising Secretaries and the Thirteen Censors! Every civil service department in the Ming Dynasty that could breathe mobilized, jointly submitting a memorial to the throne in defiance of the emperor's will, effectively blocking the emperor's procession halfway through his journey! The first attempt to escape failed!"

"By March! Emperor Wuzong Zhu Houzhao, accompanied by his entourage, suddenly left the Forbidden City through the east gate and did not return overnight, attempting a secret breakout. However, Huang Zhong and others from the Ministry of Personnel, like flies attracted by blood, clung to him, leading a group of censors to block the palace gate and wail in despair. The second escape attempt failed once again!"

"Zhu Houzhao was furious! Even a clay figure has some spirit, let alone an emperor who rode on horseback!"

Zhu Dijun ripped off his tie.

"In April, Zhu Houzhao directly wielded the butcher's knife, dismissing and expelling Jin Gui, the Grand Secretary of the Cabinet and Minister of Revenue who had vehemently opposed his personal campaign, and Peng Ze, the Left Censor-in-Chief of the Censorate who fabricated a great victory! To shut you up!"

"But in the face of the overwhelming numbers of the civil service, killing one or two people is completely useless."

Zhu Dijun's eyes hardened as he continued tapping the screen.

"In May! Zhu Houzhao once again used the pretext of hunting at Nanhaizi to rush all the way to Xishan in Beiping, attempting for the third time to force his way out of Juyongguan! As a result, the traitors in the palace and the secret police once again frantically tipped him off! The civil official group's pursuers were like maggots clinging to a bone, finally intercepting the emperor at the foot of Xishan!"

"July! Since a grand, open attack didn't work, Zhu Houzhao resorted to a clandestine method. He led a small contingent of his loyal followers from the Western Office, sneaking out of the city under the cover of night. This time, he successfully reached the gates of Juyong Pass. However, the gates were tightly shut! His fourth escape attempt ended in failure!"

The entire internet was in an uproar.

"Holy crap!! Is this still the emperor? This looks like a convict under house arrest!"

"There are informants everywhere; even going to the restroom is probably being recorded by someone for the cabinet!"

"The civil service is determined to keep him locked up in the capital and let him die!"

In a parallel timeline of the twelfth year of the Zhengde reign of the Ming Dynasty, in the Forbidden City.

Zhu Houzhao, who had just been brought back, sat on the dragon throne, his eyes bloodshot, panting heavily. The repeated defeats had not extinguished his anger; instead, they had fueled his murderous intent towards the entire court.

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's voice suddenly turned extremely cold, as if it were ghostly energy drifting out from hell.

"Family members, amidst these repeated tugs of war and obstructions, an extremely special joint memorial was submitted to Zhu Houzhao's desk. This memorial mentioned two historical events that would have terrified any Ming Dynasty emperor."

On the whiteboard, the names of two major historical events were written down in bold.

[Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang – The Siege of Baideng!]

[Emperor Yingzong of Ming, Zhu Qizhen – The Tumu Crisis!]

"Among those who spearheaded this memorial was Lu Wan, a key member of the Emperor's faction and former Minister of Personnel! Family members, why did Lu Wan and other officials of the Emperor's faction also submit a memorial to prevent Zhu Houzhao from going to the border?"

Zhu Dijun moved closer to the camera and dissected the problem word by word.

"Because Lu Wan was terrified! As a member of the Emperor's faction, he knew all too well how the border defenses had been infiltrated by the civil officials and smuggling generals. By bringing up the Siege of Baideng and the Tumu Crisis, he was desperately warning Zhu Houzhao—Elder, you absolutely must not go to the front lines! Once you go, in that icy, snowy border region, if those traitorous internal agents were to breach the defenses and cut off your supplies, you would become like Liu Bang besieged at Baideng Mountain, or Zhu Qizhen captured alive at Tumu Fortress! If you die, all of us members of the Emperor's faction will be purged and slaughtered! Don't forget the Liu Liu and Liu Qi incidents!"

"The Imperialists bring up these two incidents out of fear! But!"

Judy slammed her hand on the whiteboard, her eyes bloodshot.

"When that group of civil officials who control the court, following in the footsteps of the imperial faction, also include the words 'Siege of Baideng' and 'Tumu Crisis' in their memorials, that's definitely not some kind of loyal advice!"

"What is this?! This is a blatant death threat!!!"

boom!

It was like a thunderbolt from the heavens striking everyone's head.

"This is the Jiangnan civil official group pointing fingers and shouting at the twenty-six-year-old Ming emperor!"

Zhu Dijun gripped the edge of the table tightly with both hands, and roared out the terrifying subtext hidden beneath the paper by the civil officials.

"They are telling Zhu Houzhao—you dare to leave the Forbidden City! You dare to break free from our control! We absolutely have the ability and the courage to recreate a complete Zhengde version of the Tumu Crisis for you on this Great Wall defense line! We will collude with the Mongols and devour you and your 150,000 border troops in this blizzard, leaving not even bone fragments!"

Fengtian Hall, during the Hongwu reign of the Ming Dynasty.

The Emperor's Sword in Zhu Yuanzhang's hand clattered to the ground. Old Zhu's eyes widened, staring intently at the sky like an enraged lion.

"They dare...how could they dare!"

Zhu Yuanzhang was trembling with rage, his voice cracking. "Using the national shame of Liu Bang of the Han Dynasty to threaten the reigning emperor?! These civil officials are not only heartless, they have no sense of propriety whatsoever! They are a bunch of traitors who are defecating on the neck of imperial power!"

"Did Zhu Houzhao stop under such blatant death threats?"

Zhu Dijun took a deep breath to calm his raging emotions, but the cold smile on his lips grew even more chilling.

"The second day of the eighth month! The Mongol army's invasion of the border is drawing ever closer! Zhu Houzhao has launched his fifth and most absurd breakout attempt. He lies, claiming he's going to the capital's training grounds, but instead strips his attendants of their clothes halfway there, changes into civilian clothes, and attempts to conceal his imperial identity as the emperor as he flees towards Juyong Pass once again!"

"Everyone knows the ending. The civil official Zhang Qin, the imperial censor, had been blocking the city gates for a long time. After discovering the emperor's whereabouts, the officials of the capital rushed over like locusts, forcing Zhu Houzhao to retreat to the capital."

"After five attempts, he was bleeding profusely from head wounds. Zhu Houzhao finally understood one thing—it was absolutely impossible to force his way through this ironclad defense line forged by the civil service group with their power and their willingness to die for their cause."

"He has to outsmart them; he has to use what the civil service values ​​most to make a complete bottom-line exchange!"

The image of Juyongguan on the big screen suddenly disappeared.

Instead, there was a silhouette of a border woman named Ma, who had been the subject of a massive propaganda campaign by the civil service a few months earlier. And on her abdomen, a faint light, symbolizing new life, was flickering.

Zhu Dijun typed on the keyboard, and several bloody internal documents of the imperial clan were displayed on the screen.

"As we mentioned before, the reason why the civil service group was blocking Zhu Houzhao was not only because they feared he would regain military power, but more importantly, because they were trying to force him to abdicate! They were forcing Zhu Houzhao to admit that he was childless and to immediately choose a puppet from the imperial clan to be adopted as the crown prince!"

"After his most desperate fifth attempt to break out failed, Zhu Houzhao presented his conditions to the cabinet. He proposed that the child in Ma's womb, or a child born to Ma in the future, be made crown prince."

Zhu Dijun spread his hands, his face full of mockery:

"The result was, of course, without a doubt! These civil officials had already smeared the Ma family's lineage with rumors, so how could they possibly recognize a child who might have the blood of a border general as Zhu Houzhao's successor? They directly rejected the emperor's proposal in court!"

"Since the princes are not suitable, then let's choose a vassal king."

On the whiteboard, Zhu Dijun wrote a name with utmost solemnity. A name that would one day trigger a tsunami of imperial power in the Ming Dynasty.

[Zhu Houcong, son of the Prince of Xing!]

"The civil service group sifted through the various princes, and finally, their eyes were firmly fixed on the lineage of the Prince of Xing in Anlu, Hubei! That was Zhu Houcong, who was only ten years old at the time, and later became the famous immortal emperor—the Jiajing Emperor!"

"Family members, fate has completed an extremely terrifying closed loop here."

Judy Jun's eyes were incredibly deep.

"Do you all remember when we talked about the Chenghua era, we mentioned who Zhu Jianshen originally wanted to choose as his crown prince? That's right, it was Zhu Houcong's biological father, Zhu Youyuan! If it weren't for the civil officials and eunuchs forcibly pushing Zhu Youcheng, who was hiding in the cold palace, out of the picture, the one who would have inherited the throne would never have been the Hongzhi Emperor!"

"After going around in circles, it seems that the Ming throne, under the control of the civil service, is about to be forcibly returned to the hands of Zhu Youyuan's lineage."

Zhu Dijun's finger suddenly pointed at the whiteboard, the red pen tip almost piercing through the canvas.

"But! Family members, do you really think the civil service is a group of benevolent people who value bloodline succession? What exactly was the bloody price they had to pay for placing the young Zhu Houcong on the list of heir apparent?!"

The background color of the entire live broadcast room was instantly drained of all color at this moment, leaving only a chilling pale white and deathly silence.

A well-worn copy of the "History of Ming Dynasty: Biographies of Princes" slammed onto the center of the screen. The moment in time froze!

"Take a close look at this death record!"

Zhu Dijun's voice was like a midnight death knell, echoing in the ears of every emperor in the myriad realms.

"On the 17th day of the sixth month of the 14th year of the Zhengde reign, Zhu Youyuan, the Prince of Xing, who had just been chosen by the civil official group as a backup son, suddenly died in his fiefdom of Anlu! He was only forty-three years old! In the history books, he was simply written down with three words—'died of illness'!"

"Remember, he died of illness! He died suddenly!"

"What's even more chilling and unsettling is the timeline behind this prince's sudden death!"

Zhu Dijun abruptly overturned the "History of Ming" in front of him, stared at the camera with bloodshot eyes, and roared.

"The time of Prince Xing, Zhu Youyuan's, death was only one year and three months apart from the extremely bizarre drowning incident that occurred on the fifteenth day of the ninth month of the fifteenth year of the Zhengde reign (15th year of the Zhengde reign)!"

boom!

A cold bolt of lightning seemed to strike the top of the head of all the spectators and emperors throughout history.

A tremendous fear gripped everyone's heart in an instant.

"Did you understand? Family members! Did you understand the blood-stained web of yin and yang behind this?!"

Zhu Dijun completely fell into a state of extremely lucid madness.

"In the twelfth year of the Zhengde reign, when Zhu Houzhao and the civil official group held bottom-line negotiations at Juyong Pass and established Zhu Houcong as the backup heir apparent!"

"These beasts who control the Ming Dynasty are already sharpening their knives in secret! They've not only decided to physically eliminate the disobedient Emperor Zhu Houzhao in the future, but they also want to ensure that the young emperor is completely controlled by the civil service after his ascension, and that imperial power will never be interfered with by the princes!"

"They even went so far as to send men to Anlu more than a year in advance to have Zhu Houcong's own father killed!"

The screen was completely engulfed by thick blood.

Judy Jun's voice, cold as a knife, severed the last lingering resonance of the chapter.

"Faced with this shocking, multi-pronged purge network that even preemptively eliminates his 'backup father'."

"What desperate measures did Zhu Houzhao, trapped deep in the capital, use to push open the gates of Juyong Pass for the fifth and final time, amidst the blood-soaked ground?"