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

On the large screen in the live broadcast room, fragments of the History of Ming turned to ashes and scattered.

Zhu Dijun bent down and solemnly took out an ancient royal archive, sealed with special material and exuding the vicissitudes of time, from the black safe with a combination lock at his feet.

He held the file to his chest and looked directly at the camera.

"Family members, the Qing dynasty's 'History of Ming' dared not write about it, and the civil officials' records were fabricated, but that doesn't mean there's no true record of this battle! What I'm holding here is an extremely confidential internal archive from the Ming dynasty's Imperial Clan Court—the 'Imperial Jade Register'!"

The three large characters were written heavily on the whiteboard.

"The Battle of Yingzhou was not a farce caused by the emperor's carefree trip to the border!"

Zhu Dijun slammed his hand on the table.

"Besides investigating the traitors and figuring out the enemy's true strength at the front lines, Zhu Houzhao had another ultimate political objective in waging this war, one that was enough to overturn the existing power structure of the Ming Dynasty!"

Zhu Dijun's eyes were like burning flames.

"He wants to restore the imperial glory of the Ming Dynasty under Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang and Emperor Chengzu Zhu Di! He wants to use the heads of these 50,000 Mongol troops to launch the first great attempt since the Tumu Crisis to completely shatter the civil official group's stripping of military power and forcibly reverse the abnormal situation of 'emphasizing civil officials over military officials'!"

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

Zhu Yuanzhang, who had been gripping the Emperor's Sword tightly, suddenly loosened his grip. His eyes were slightly red, and he threw his head back and laughed loudly.

"Excellent! Excellent! To restore the glory of the empire!" Zhu Yuanzhang pointed to the sky, his voice trembling slightly with excitement.

"Biao'er! Look at this young man! This is the true blood of the Zhu family! Civil officials seizing power? Then let's use swords and the blood of the enemy to wrest back the military power of our Great Ming!"

The Yongle reign.

Zhu Di jumped down from the dragon throne and paced excitedly back and forth in front of the imperial steps.

"Just like me! So much like me! What are civil officials anyway! As long as I have the sword in my hand, as long as I can beat the foreign tribes to their knees and beg for mercy, then the emperor calls the shots in this Ming Dynasty!"

On the celestial screen, Zhu Dijun put down the "Imperial Jade Disc of the Ming Dynasty" and tapped out an extremely special timeline.

[September 19th, the twelfth year of Zhengde's reign]!

"Only eleven days remained before the Mongols broke through the pass in early October. Zhu Houzhao arrived at Yanghe, which is today's Yanggao County, Shanxi Province, at the border front."

Zhu Dijun picked up a red pen and drew a huge exclamation mark on the whiteboard.

"On this very day, in order to completely break free from the legal restrictions imposed on the 'Emperor of the Ming Dynasty' by the civil official group within the Forbidden City regarding military power, Zhu Houzhao pulled off an unprecedented and astonishing feat!"

A line of text, shimmering with gold yet brimming with endless mockery, crashed onto the public screen.

"Emperor Wuzong Zhu Houzhao issued an imperial edict on the spot in the Yanghe camp, directly bestowing upon himself an official title! He also gave himself a completely new pseudonym—[Zhu Shou]!"

Zhu Dijun pressed his hands firmly against the table and read out the arrogant title that resounded throughout the military history of the Ming Dynasty, word by word.

"Governor-General! Mighty General! Commander-in-Chief!"

The live stream chat exploded instantly.

"The emperor appoints himself a general? Demoted to a lower rank and forced into a lower position?!"

"What an incredible move! What kind of boss offers themselves a job as a wage earner?"

"This emperor was driven to the point where he no longer wanted to be emperor because of the pressure from his civil officials!"

"It's not that I don't want to do it! It's that I have to do it under a different identity!" Zhu Dijun interrupted the joking comments in the live chat with a stern voice. "Family members! As long as he is still the 'Emperor,' he must go through the cabinet, the Five Military Commissions, and the Ministry of War to mobilize troops! Those civil officials and traitors can cut off his supplies and military orders at any time!"

"but!"

Judy Jun slammed the gavel down.

"If his name were 'General Zhu Shou, the Mighty Warrior'! If he were a Ming Dynasty general wielding an imperial sword, he could bypass the cabinet and directly command the 150,000 troops on the border! Anyone who dared to disobey would be executed without prior notification!"

This is the ultimate micro-management of imperial power, the ultimate open strategy of using magic to defeat magic.

[The first day of the tenth month of the twelfth year of Zhengde's reign]!

The blood-red numbers representing the outbreak of war covered the entire large screen.

"Dayan Khan, the young prince who unified Mongolia and became the powerful ruler of the steppes, led 50,000 elite cavalry south as planned, thanks to precise intelligence from a Ming Dynasty mole!"

On the large screen of the military sand table, a massive black torrent instantly broke through the border defenses.

"The consequences of intelligence leaks are extremely deadly." Judy Jun's laser pointer drew a desolate island on the map.

"Wang Xun, the General Commander of Datong under the Ming Dynasty, led his vanguard troops and, just as they reached the vicinity of Xiunu Village, they ran headlong into Dayan Khan's main force of 50,000 men!"

On the screen, the red dot representing Wang Xun's troops was instantly enveloped by the overwhelming black waves.

"This is an absolute dead end! The Mongols have not only surrounded Wang Xun, but Dayan Khan has also dispatched two elite cavalry units that have precisely intercepted the Ming army's reinforcements from the left and right flanks!"

Zhu Dijun's voice was extremely urgent, like the beating of war drums.

"Under the combined onslaught of an internal traitor and overwhelming military force, General Wang Xun of Datong had no chance of escape! From the first to the third day of the tenth lunar month, blood flowed like a river outside Xiu Nu Village. The Ming army fought to the death, but the encirclement grew tighter and tighter. Everyone thought that this Ming army was doomed, and the Ming Dynasty's defenses would be torn apart once again, just like before!"

The timeline is scrolling wildly.

[The 21st day of the tenth month of the twelfth year of Zhengde's reign]!

"After more than twenty days of tactical maneuvering, breakouts, and counter-encirclement, the crucial moment for the decisive battle has arrived—October 21st!"

The entire screen suddenly went dark.

A dense, white fog effect erupted from the bottom of the screen, instantly filling the entire live stream room. Accompanied by the howling of a biting wind, visibility on the battlefield plummeted to freezing.

"On this morning, outside the city of Yingzhou in Datong, a thick fog shrouded the area. Dayan Khan sat on his warhorse, preparing to launch the final all-out attack and completely annihilate the Ming vanguard, which had been exhausted."

Thick fog rolled across the screen, and Mongol cavalrymen could be vaguely seen drawing their sabers.

"but."

Zhu Dijun's voice suddenly lowered, revealing an extreme excitement that sent chills down one's spine.

"Dayan Khan did not live to hear the cries of despair from the defeated Ming army. As the thick fog that shrouded the Yingzhou Plain was gradually dispersed by the fierce winds from beyond the Great Wall, and as the blinding morning light once again illuminated this land stained with blood."

Swish-!

The thick fog on the screen was instantly torn apart by a golden light!

"Dayan Khan and the Mongol princes behind him nearly popped their eyes out of their sockets!"

Zhu Dijun ripped off his tie and roared at the camera.

"To their astonishment, a vast troop of heavily armored cavalry, resembling an impregnable steel wall, had appeared out of nowhere in the center of the Ming army's dire straits!"

"Surrounded by the Imperial Guards in their flying fish robes and embroidered spring knives, a colossal battle flag, fluttering wildly in the winds of the frontier, suddenly rose between heaven and earth!"

Five large characters, as if cast in blood, crashed heavily into the pupils of all viewers as the camera zoomed in!

【The Mighty General】!

Beneath the great banner, a young man clad in resplendent golden armor and wielding the Emperor's sword sat atop a tall horse. Around him, the Emperor's dragon banner, representing the supreme imperial power of the Ming Dynasty, danced wildly in the wind like a raging sea of ​​fire!

Emperor Wuzong of Ming, Zhu Houzhao, finally revealed his fangs—enough to make the whole world tremble—at the very center of this battle for the fate of the nation!

"It was the emperor of the Ming Dynasty! That spineless emperor who should have been trapped and died in the Forbidden City!"

Zhu Dijun perfectly simulated the perspective of the Mongols at that time.

The Weiyang Palace of the Han Dynasty.

Emperor Wu of Han, Liu Che, suddenly stood up, grabbed a wine pot from his desk, and smashed it to the ground.

"Excellent! A lone force lures the enemy in, the dragon banner brings the rear guard! This fog has cleared well! We must show these barbarians what kind of emperor the Ming Dynasty truly is!"

On the sky, Judy Jun's cold laughter sent chills down everyone's spine.

"Seeing Zhu Houzhao in his golden helmet and armor, seeing the dragon banner of the Ming Dynasty, my family, do you think Dayan Khan is afraid? No!"

"Dayan Khan was absolutely ecstatic! He was overjoyed! His mind instantly flashed back to the Tumu Crisis of decades ago, a conflict that shocked the world. Even the Ming Dynasty's war god Zhu Qizhen was captured alive by the Oirats, and now this callow, immature emperor, who had just run away from the palace to play house, had actually delivered himself to their doorstep!"

On the big screen, Dayan Khan's action of drawing his saber was slowed down.

"All troops, launch a full-scale assault! Capture the Ming Emperor alive! And achieve another great victory at Tumu Fortress!"

Zhu Dijun shouted at the top of his lungs, vividly recounting Dayan Khan's arrogance at that time.

The black Mongol cavalry, like a flood bursting its banks, rushed madly toward Zhu Houzhao's dragon banner with an almost manic greed.

"However, Dayan Khan miscalculated one thing. Zhu Houzhao was not that armchair strategist who only knew how to talk the talk. And these border soldiers who were enduring hardship on the front lines of Datong were not the old, weak, and disabled soldiers at Tumu Fortress who had been cut off from their supplies and were disoriented!"

Zhu Dijun slammed his fist on the whiteboard.

"When the Ming Dynasty's military flag was raised, when 150,000 border soldiers witnessed their Ming Emperor, the most honored man in the world, sitting on horseback at the forefront, clad in armor, facing the foreign invaders' swords alongside them!"

"The blood of the Ming Dynasty's border troops instantly boiled!"

"It's been decades!"

Zhu Dijun's eyes were red.

"After the Tumu Crisis, the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty were trampled underfoot and treated like dogs by civil officials for decades! Now, their emperor has returned! The legendary Yongle Emperor, who led the border army on five expeditions to the northern deserts and sealed the wolf's lair, is now being vividly recreated in this mighty general named Zhu Shou!"

On the large screen, the Ming army formation erupted in a deafening roar.

"No retreat! No fear! Every Ming soldier's eyes were bloodshot, gripping their spears and sabers tightly. They were determined to perform a monumental feat before the Emperor, one that would secure titles and privileges for their wives and children, and revitalize the very spirit of the warriors!"

"Let's start the war!"

Two words, like a thunderclap from the heavens!

"Dayan Khan thought he was going to face the Ming cavalry charging with their bare hands. But he never dreamed that, facing the Mongols' frenzied charge, Zhu Houzhao, the Ming dynasty's most knowledgeable military strategist and a 'pay-to-win' player, would immediately deliver a complete and utterly devastating blow!"

The background sound effects in the live stream instantly transformed into an extremely sharp, piercing sound, like the howl of a demon!

"Fighting with sabers? That's what barbarians do! Zhu Houzhao directly pulled out the ultimate weapon of the Ming Dynasty's military industry at the time! Later generations revered it as the Ming Dynasty's version of a military drone, a weapon of mass destruction—the [Giant Kite]!"

Zhu Dijun typed on the keyboard, and a line of text lit up at the top of the screen.

"That is, the one everyone knows as—[Divine Fire Flying Crow]!"

Inside the modern live-streaming studio, viewers across the internet held their breath.

"What does this thing actually look like? How terrifying is its power?"

Zhu Dijun directly opened the two large AI model software programs on the desktop.

"To give everyone a direct feel for the high quality of the Ming Dynasty's military industry, we'll now use two top-tier AIs, [Doubao] and [Qianwen], to input detailed data about the Divine Fire Flying Crow from the *Wubei Zhi* (Treatise on Military Preparedness) and conduct a live simulation for everyone!"

On the big screen, the interfaces of [Doubao] and [Qianwen] started running wildly, with code data pouring out like a waterfall.

A few seconds later, the progress bar was full.

Two extremely horrifying AI-generated animations, exuding a strong steampunk and Ming Dynasty style, instantly dominated the entire screen!

Huge, raven-shaped flying machines, made of bamboo strips and filled with high-explosive gunpowder and countless poisoned arrows, were fixed to launch pads. Four enormous launch rockets at the base were spewing out blinding blue flames.

"The moment Dayan Khan's cavalry charged into firing range."

Zhu Dijun stared intently at the lit fuse on the screen.

"A rain of blood, a mixture of explosions and poisoned arrows, fell from the sky outside Yingzhou City!"