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

"We've just outlined a general framework; now, let's delve deep into the horrifying, shady secrets hidden within this bill!"

Zhu Dijun slammed his gavel down.

A pie chart showing the distribution of power among Ming Dynasty officials was displayed directly on the large screen.

"Before uncovering this mess, family members, we must first understand the fundamental structure of the Ming Dynasty's officialdom in the fourteenth year of the Zhengde reign!"

Zhu Dijun grabbed a laser pointer, and the red light quickly drew circles on the pie chart.

According to historical records, in the fourteenth year of the Zhengde reign (1515), the Ming Dynasty had approximately 120,000 officially registered officials. Of these, over 20,000 were civil officials and nearly 100,000 were military officials. Friends, what does 20,000+ civil officials mean?

The large screen suddenly switched to a series of aerial shots of the mansions of powerful families in Jiangnan.

"The civil officials of the Ming Dynasty were never isolated figures! Behind each of them stood a deeply entrenched and incredibly wealthy local family! They were all representatives of the Jiangnan gentry!"

Zhu Dijun pressed his hands firmly on the table, his eyes as cold as ice.

"Think about it, what if that real account book, which involved four-fifths of the officials in the court, had fallen into Zhu Houzhao's hands intact?"

[At this point, I hope readers will remember our domain name 12199.99]

"Add to that the bloody coup of 1536, the court officials' coup of 1537, and all the deadly feuds of the past!"

Four blood-red characters were slammed onto the public screen: 【Ran! Home! Exterminate! Clan!】

"Let's settle all old and new scores! Once Zhu Houzhao gets his hands on the account books, he'll lead over 100,000 elite border troops south. All the civil officials and aristocratic families connected to Prince Ning's smuggling network will face only one fate—imprisonment, skinning, and physical extermination! The Jiangnan landlord class of the Ming Dynasty will undergo a complete reshuffling, both physically and financially!"

However, this account book, which could have saved the fate of the Ming Dynasty, encountered Wang Yangming.

Zhu Dijun sneered and suddenly enlarged a photocopy of an ancient book in the center of the screen.

"Come, let's use original Ming Dynasty documents to see what infamous deeds this grandmaster of Neo-Confucianism committed that will be remembered for eternity!"

He picked up a marker and heavily underlined several lines.

"This is the original text! [After the government troops recaptured Nanchang, they obtained the Prince of Ning's account books, which recorded tens of thousands of daily interactions and dealings, with no fewer than a thousand]!"

"Did you see that clearly? These corrupt officials, spouting platitudes about benevolence and morality, how much bribe money did they take from Prince Ning? Some embezzled tens of thousands of taels of silver, while others embezzled over a thousand taels! In the Ming Dynasty at that time, this was an absolute crime punishable by death by a thousand cuts!"

Zhu Dijun pointed out another record.

"At that time, there was an advisor named Ji Shibin who suspected that Prince Ning was giving too much money to these civil officials. How did Prince Ning, Zhu Chenhao, respond to him with a smile?"

Judy Jun adopted an extremely arrogant and mocking tone.

"This is the storehouse I've entrusted to!"

"Did you understand? Prince Ning didn't give this money away at all! This is Prince Ning's private treasury, stored in the homes of these corrupt officials! Prince Ning has long held the reins of power over all the civil officials in Jiangnan! This is the Ming Dynasty version of 'Records of Officials'!"

The screen suddenly went dark, leaving only a raging fire!

"But what did our great sage Wang do after seeing this 'Records of the Conduct of Officials'?"

Judy Jun's voice was ripped apart by extreme anger.

The original text states: "[Wang Shouren implicated many people with his meager records, and Wang ordered them to be burned. Only one or two percent of the records survived!]"

"Set it on fire! Burn it all!"

Zhu Dijun suddenly kicked the live broadcast table.

"To protect his cronies from the corrupt Prince Ning, and to save the lives of the civil service, Wang Shouren directly ordered the burning of this incriminating evidence—enough to wipe out all the corrupt officials in the Ming Dynasty! Only one or two percent remained!"

"These were the bargaining chips in his later shady deal with Zhang Yong! The remaining one or two percent were all unlucky souls they chose to take the fall!"

Zhu Dijun, enraged, laughed, the sound echoing throughout the hall. "Public-spirited loyalty to the country? The world belongs to all? What a ridiculous joke! This saint, enshrined in temples by later generations, is this what public-spirited loyalty to the country is all about!"

The fourteenth year of the Zhengde reign of the Ming Dynasty, and the fifth year of the Jiajing reign.

In two parallel universes, a bizarre scene is unfolding in a Jiangnan gathering and a corner of the imperial court.

Those officials and disciples from Jiangnan who had originally gathered around Wang Shouren, the Right Vice Censor-in-Chief, or who were fanatically following Wang Yangming, the Earl of Xinjian, turned deathly pale upon hearing Tianmu's utterly humiliating rant, and began to retreat in perfect unison.

Not only did they retreat, but their faces also revealed extremely obvious contempt and disgust.

Wang Yangming carried the fuse that could ignite the extermination of nine generations of his family.

Why? Because the fig leaf has been torn to shreds!

Now that Tianmu has exposed this matter, it proves that Wang Yangming once held the lives and fortunes of all of them in his hands. Even more damning is that now all the scholars and the emperor know that Wang Yangming, in order to protect the gentry of Jiangnan, went so far as to make a shady deal with the eunuch Zhang Yong and burn the account books!

If the Jiajing (Zhengde) Emperor were to investigate and settle scores with them, anyone who dared to stand with Wang Yangming would be confirming that they were also on that smuggling list!

These scholar-officials, who usually spout platitudes about benevolence and morality, are quicker than anyone else to cut ties.

Wang Shouren sat in his armchair, staring intently at his former colleagues and disciples who were avoiding him as if he were a plague carrier. The veins on the back of his hand, which held the teacup, bulged, and his back was soaked with cold sweat.

His usually calm and collected heart completely broke down at this moment!

Absurd! Utterly absurd!

If he hadn't set that fire in Nanchang, these hypocrites, full of wicked intentions, would have been beheaded by Emperor Wuzong long ago! Now, he risked his entire family's lives to save them, and now that the crisis is over, he's discarding them after using them? Have they lost even the most basic conscience?!

Inside the modern live-streaming studio, Zhu Dijun completely ignored the dogfighting among these feudal bureaucrats.

"From this fire, we can definitively define the nature of Wang Shouren's suppression of the rebellion!"

Zhu Dijun's eyes were bloodshot as he pointed to the three characters "Wang Yangming" on the whiteboard.

"His rush to quell the rebellion wasn't out of any concern for the country or a sense of responsibility for the world! He was simply there to buy time, seize the account books, and silence witnesses!"

"If he truly possessed the magnanimity of a saint, this irrefutable evidence recording tens of thousands, even thousands, of taels of embezzled funds should have been presented directly to the emperor! But he didn't! As a meritorious official who made the greatest contribution to suppressing the rebellion, he not only failed to abide by the national laws but also led the way in violating discipline and the law, protecting corrupt officials! This is the fundamental reason why, throughout Emperor Wuzong's reign, Zhu Houzhao refused to grant him a title! Although the emperor didn't receive the account book, he wasn't blind!"

Countless comments scrolled wildly across the screen. Netizens' worldviews were completely shattered.

"But family, if things only end here, it only proves that Wang Yangming was a hypocrite. It's not enough to call it the ultimate double agent in the Ming Dynasty court."

Zhu Dijun's voice suddenly turned icy. He took out several files on the troop deployment of the royal family that had been shown earlier from the drawer and slammed them on the table.

"Let's all recall! In these past few years, how did Zhu Houzhao deal with Prince Ning's increasingly arrogant and domineering expansion of the army and overstepping of authority?"

Zhu Dijun's eyes became extremely deep and terrifying. "Not only did Zhu Houzhao not issue an edict to reduce the power of the princes, but he also repeatedly withstood enormous pressure from the civil official group, increasing the guards for the Prince of Ning, bestowing upon him the flying fish robe, and even tacitly approving his recruitment of soldiers!"

"Why would an emperor who is extremely sensitive to military power, and who even the Empress Dowager has to be wary of, be so indulgent towards an ambitious vassal king?!"

The hearts of all the emperors in the myriad worlds and timelines paused for a moment.

Emperor Wu of Han, Liu Che, suddenly opened his eyes wide and clenched his fists tightly.

There's only one answer!

Zhu Dijun raised his voice and let out a furious roar that shook everyone's soul.

"Prince Ning, Zhu Chenhao! From beginning to end, he was Emperor Wuzong Zhu Houzhao's personal pawn in Jiangnan, used to stir up trouble! Prince Ning is the emperor's man!"

boom!

It was like tens of thousands of tons of TNT detonating in everyone's minds!

An earth-shattering reversal!

Zhu Dijun frantically typed the logic chain on the whiteboard, speaking at breakneck speed.

"Their plan was absolutely insane! Zhu Houzhao allowed Prince Ning to bribe officials, build a smuggling network, and drag all the civil officials in Jiangnan into it! All of this was for the purpose of waiting for this 'Records of Officials' to grow to its fullest extent!"

"According to the script, Prince Ning will eventually launch a feigned rebellion similar to that of Prince Anhua back then. Then, Zhu Houzhao, as the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, will lead an unstoppable 150,000 border troops south to quell the rebellion openly and legitimately!"

"The two will put on a spectacular charade! Zhu Houzhao will then naturally take over the complete account book containing all the evidence of the crimes committed by the Jiangnan civil official group! Subsequently, the emperor can use the military might of suppressing the rebellion to follow the clues and carry out a thorough and decisive purge of the civil official group that controls the court!"

"When high-ranking officials fall, Zhengde reaps the rewards! Reclaim military power and rebuild the Ming Dynasty!"

Judy Jun pressed his hand on the table, panting heavily, the madness in his eyes gradually turning into an extremely suppressed despair.

"Family members, history has once again reached an extremely terrifying and remarkably similar crossroads at this moment."

The image on the big screen suddenly split in two.

To the left is Tumu Fortress, blanketed in snow. To the right is Nanchang Prefecture, shrouded in mist.

"This is an extreme tactic that uses the emperor's personal expedition as a pretext, but in reality, it's an opportunity to reshuffle the court and military power. It's a gamble where they risk their lives to make a one-for-one exchange with the civil service."

Judy Jun's voice was like a midnight death knell, echoing in the boundless abyss.

"Isn't it exactly the same as the Tumu Crisis of Emperor Yingzong of Ming, Zhu Qizhen?!"

"The same emperor who rose from humble beginnings, the same imperial power driven to the brink, the same desperate gamble! And the same chilling internal counterattack!"

The large screen suddenly plunged into complete darkness.

Only Judy Jun's extremely cold voice drifted slowly in the darkness.

"This elaborate scheme in the fourteenth year of the Zhengde reign was reduced to ashes by Wang Yangming."

"Moreover, Wang Yangming also played a dishonorable role here. He was the one who instigated Prince Ning to rebel. You read that right. This great master of the School of Mind instigated Prince Ning to rebel ahead of schedule, and did not follow his agreement with Zhu Houzhao."