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

The eerie sound effects of flowing water in the live stream slowly faded away. The darkness on the big screen was torn apart by a blinding white light.

Zhu Dijun strode back to the live broadcast table, his eyes filled with undisguised mockery and coldness.

"Family members, before uncovering the specific details of the ultimate showdown at Qingjiangpu, we must first focus our attention on Emperor Wuzong Zhu Houzhao's 'Southern Tour' itself!"

Zhu Dijun picked up the laser pointer and drew a huge red circle on the screen.

"Let's continue with Emperor Wuzong's southern tour to Jiangnan. In the 'History of Ming' compiled by the Qing Dynasty, and within the centuries-old narrative of the Jiangnan literati, how was Zhu Houzhao's southern tour characterized?"

Lines of ancient Chinese text, dripping with ink, appeared as blurry images on the screen.

"Abuse of imperial power! Political corruption! Waste of public resources and manpower! Harm to the local area!"

Zhu Dijun opened his mouth and read out the words one by one with extreme irony.

"In most Ming Dynasty histories or unofficial historical records, Zhu Houzhao is firmly nailed to the pillar of shame, portrayed as a typical example of a debauched, tyrannical, and willful ruler! These writers say that the Southern Tour was the most absurd event in Zhu Houzhao's life, severely depleting the country's strength and exacerbating the ruling crisis in the mid-Ming Dynasty!"

Zhu Dijun couldn't help but let out an extremely piercing laugh, the sound of which caused the microphone to emit a sharp echo.

"What an absurdity! What a waste of manpower and resources!"

He slammed his hand on the keyboard. The large screen suddenly split in two, with a portrait of Zhu Houzhao on the left and two portraits of Qing Dynasty emperors with slicked-back hair and arrogant expressions on the right.

"Here, we must make an extremely hardcore comparison! Let's look at the two 'Emperors of All Time' of the Qing Dynasty—the Buryat wild boar Pikangmazi and the Qianlong Emperor!"

Zhu Dijun pointed to the two portraits on the right, his eyes filled with hostility.

"How do so-called history books, in this age of information overload, evaluate these two 'wild boar skin' emperors' southern tours?"

Two glittering words of praise appeared.

"Kang Xizhi: Six pragmatic southern tours! Controlled spending, prioritizing governance, and showing compassion for the people!"

"Qianlong Emperor: Six grand tours! Although they cost a fortune, they showcased the power of the Celestial Empire. While they had the drawback of extravagance, the merits outweighed the flaws!"

"Pah!"

Zhu Dijun spat directly onto the ground.

"Flaws don't outweigh merits? Governing the country is the priority? That's utterly insulting the intelligence of everyone in the world!"

"Come on! Let's ignore the reviews and look at the raw, unvarnished data! Let's see what true double standards are!"

A huge red and black contrasting table, with an extremely strong visual impact, crashed into the center of the entire public screen.

"Open your eyes and look carefully!" Judy Jun's finger slammed heavily on the first row of the form.

"Number of Southern Tours and Duration!"

"Zhu Houzhao: In his entire life, he only did this once! He only went to Jiangnan because of the Prince of Ning's rebellion!"

"Kang Mazi: Six times! He stayed in Jiangnan for over five hundred days!"

"Qian Xiaosi: Six times too! He's been traveling and sightseeing for over six hundred days!"

"Second line! Spending money and provisions!"

Zhu Houzhao: The History of Ming Dynasty doesn't provide specific statistics, only four words: "extremely disruptive to the people!"

"Kang Mazi: Approximately twelve million taels of silver!"

"Qian Xiaosi: A minimum of twenty million taels of silver, with no upper limit!"

"Third line! Cost characteristics and evaluation!"

"When Zhu Houzhao made his southern tour, the civil officials wrote that he had temporarily plundered the land, imposed heavy taxes and levies, and forced the people to their deaths."

"Kangxi's southern tour has been whitewashed in history books as being 'frugal,' 'mainly government-run,' and even claiming that he didn't take a single needle or thread from the people!"

"The Qianlong Emperor's southern tour was portrayed as extravagant, but the money came from the national treasury and salt merchants, and had nothing to do with the common people!"

Inside the modern live stream room, the comments section began to scroll wildly.

"Holy crap? Kangxi and Qianlong made twelve trips to the south, spending over 30 million taels of silver, and they call that a grand tour of the prosperous era? Zhu Houzhao went once, and they couldn't even keep track of how much he spent, and they call that a waste of money and a serious disturbance to the people?!"

"That's hilarious! They don't use the people's money? Isn't the salt merchants' money the blood and sweat they've squeezed from the people?"

"The civil service is so good at making black seem white!"

As he watched the comments section, Zhu Dijun slammed his hands on the table, his eyes turning completely bloodshot.

"Family members, do you think this is all? These are just matters of money. What I'm about to tell you is the hellish tapestry painted with the lives of hundreds of thousands, even millions of Han Chinese people behind this so-called Kangxi and Qianlong Emperor's Southern Tours!"

"Here I want to ask those malicious individuals who spew filth and accuse Zhu Houzhao of being an incompetent and foolish ruler! Even if Zhu Houzhao wasn't a good emperor in the traditional sense, but rather a soft-hearted superior and an incompetent husband and father who couldn't protect his wife and children, no matter how outrageous his actions, the entire city didn't starve to death during his southern tour in the Zhengde era of the Ming Dynasty!"

A yellowed local gazetteer from the Qing Dynasty has been enlarged to an extreme size, obscuring Emperor Kangxi's portrait.

"Let's examine what was actually happening beneath the surface of the Qing Dynasty's golden age during the southern tour of Kangxi, who was hailed as the 'Greatest Emperor of All Time'!"

Zhu Dijun's voice was like a cold wind from the underworld.

"In the 42nd year of the Kangxi Emperor's reign, 1703 AD, from the 16th day of the first month to the 15th day of the third month, Kangxi embarked on his fourth pragmatic southern tour! He passed through Tai'an, Yanzhou, and Yizhou in Shandong, where he was greeted and seen off by officials along the way, amidst the deafening sounds of gongs and drums!"

"But in the same year! The same Shandong province he had just passed through!"

Judy Jun roared at the top of her lungs.

That same winter, a severe famine struck Shandong! History books coldly record four words: "[People! Cannibalism!]"

"By the following spring, the forty-third year of the Kangxi Emperor's reign, famine had completely spread throughout the province! In more than ten counties and prefectures, including Tai'an, Feicheng, Dongping, and Jiaozhou, the tragedy of cannibalism was rampant! To survive, people even resorted to exchanging their own children to eat!"

Zhu Dijun grabbed the gavel from the podium and slammed it down on the table.

"Bang!"

"Kangxi was enjoying music and flowers in Jiangnan, while the common people in Shandong were tearing each other apart! Why didn't those Jiangnan literati write about these disasters in their odes to his southern tour?! And those Qing Dynasty historians who praised his compassion for the people, didn't mention a single word about these bloody records of cannibalism?!"

The air in the entire live stream seemed to be sucked out instantly. Countless netizens felt a suffocating sense of terror even through their screens.

But Zhu Dijun didn't stop; he pointed to the portrait of Emperor Qianlong.

"And look at this even more awesome 'Perfect Old Man'! The Fourth Prince of the Qianlong Emperor!"

Another copy of the "Draft History of the Qing Dynasty: Records of Disasters and Anomalies," stained with blood, was displayed on the screen.

"The fiftieth year of the Qianlong Emperor's reign, from 1785 to 1786 AD!"

"What's the background? Emperor Qianlong has just returned to Beijing after his sixth southern tour! He just squandered all the money of the salt merchants in Jiangnan and just displayed the grandeur of a prosperous era to the whole world!"

"And the result?! Shandong was hit by a massive drought and locust plague!"

Zhu Dijun moved closer to the camera, his eyes twitching with extreme anger.

"The official history, the Draft History of the Qing Dynasty, clearly records that in Shouguang, Changle, Anqiu, and Zhucheng, fathers and sons ate each other! By the spring of 1786, the entire province was engaged in cannibalism!"

A line of glaring red text flashed wildly on the screen, like the sinister laugh of a demon from hell.

"Family members! Please read these words carefully! [The roads are littered with starving corpses that have been eaten; human flesh is worth less than dog meat!]!"

"The dead were being cut up and eaten by the living! In the market back then, human flesh was cheaper than dog meat!"

"This is the so-called 'grand southern tour' you're praising! This is the emperor you've been holding in your hands for all time!"

Judy kicked over the chair next to her and roared hysterically.

"Why did all those authentic historical materials, written with unwavering integrity and stained with blood, disappear from the pens of those civil officials and scholars? Why, in the hundreds of years of historical transmission, is there only praise and glorification for these two traitors?!"

Myriad Realms and Spacetime

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

When Zhu Yuanzhang heard the words "human flesh is cheaper than dog meat," his eyes bulged out instantly. This founding emperor, who came from humble beginnings and had personally experienced the great famine at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, trembled violently.

"Beasts...a bunch of beasts!"

Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly drew his Emperor's Sword and slashed it at the dragon pillar, sparks flying everywhere.

"They seized our Ming Dynasty's land just so that Han Chinese people's flesh could be sold for less than dog meat?! Are all those civil officials in Jiangnan dead?! Are they all blind?!"

The era of the Zhengde reign of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Houzhao, who was leading his troops south, sat in his imperial carriage, his hands tightly covering his face, and he let out a low growl like a trapped beast.

He went south to confiscate the homes of those smuggling officials, hoping to fill the Ming Dynasty's treasury to deal with border troubles! Yet, in the writings of civil officials, he was portrayed as a tyrannical and incompetent ruler who wasted resources and burdened the people. Meanwhile, the Manchu barbarians who later forced their people to eat each other were depicted as a wise and benevolent ruler.

In the Ming Dynasty, countless people working in the fields stopped what they were doing upon hearing the sound from the sky.

Their eyes no longer held awe for officials, but rather a deep-seated disgust.

It turns out that these high and mighty men are actually this kind of people at heart.

Inside the modern live-streaming studio, Zhu Dijun was panting heavily, his eyes filled with extreme mockery and disdain.

Why did all these Ming Dynasty civil officials become mute when they arrived in the Qing Dynasty?

"Isn't it all because the Manchus' swords were truly held to the necks of Qing Dynasty officials? Isn't it all because of that bloody massacre where 'keep your head or keep your hair,' or 'keep your hair or keep your head,' that was it?!"

"But Zhu Houzhao did not! None of the emperors of the Ming Dynasty treated these civil officials like wild boar skin, wantonly killing and castrating them as if they were slaves, even less than dogs!"

"Faced with the tolerance and rule of their own emperor, they retaliated fiercely, distorting the truth and frequently denouncing the incompetent ruler, forcing him to abdicate, and going on strike! Faced with the slaughter and rule of foreign barbarians, they were subservient, their knees rooted to the spot, frantically praising and glorifying the emperor, turning black into white, and unable to distinguish right from wrong!"

Zhu Dijun pointed at the camera with both fingers, as if he were pointing at the very backbone of the Jiangnan gentry and cursing them.

"This group of people, this group of scholars who have dominated the discourse in China for hundreds of years! They are not social consciences at all! They truly deserve to be called the most loyal cynics of the Qing Dynasty! They are an outright group of refined scoundrels, heartless and treacherous scoundrels who act like dogs and pigs!"

The chat room exploded with comments at that moment.

The audience's anger has reached an unbearable peak. The double standards and utter shamelessness of the civil service have exposed the true face hidden behind their facade of benevolence and morality.

Seeing the overwhelming barrage of angry curses on the public screen, Zhu Dijun took a deep breath, instantly suppressing his previous violent emotions, and his aura became extremely cold and profound.

"So, family members."

The image on the big screen suddenly changed.

There were no more portraits of the Manchu emperors, nor any trace of the devastation of famine. Only a vast expanse of fog-shrouded river remained.

It was autumn of the fifteenth year of the Zhengde reign, and the river at Qingjiangpu was as black as ink, exuding a chilling aura that seemed to devour people without spitting out their bones.

"After we fully saw through the double standards and shamelessness of this group of Jiangnan civil officials, and their ability to take any extreme actions to protect their smuggling profits."

Zhu Dijun's voice was extremely low, like a death knell ringing in one's ear at midnight.

"Let's turn our attention back to the Ming Dynasty. Let's turn our attention back to this imperial ship that has just finished a nominal 'suppression of the rebellion,' is full of Zhu Houzhao's anger and resentment, and is preparing to return to the capital."

"On a foggy morning in the fifteenth year of Zhengde's reign, the river was calm and still."

The dark river water on the screen was reflected in Zhu Dijun's eyes.

"That day, what tried to overthrow the emperor who was attempting to reclaim the Ming Dynasty's imperial power wasn't some fish that accidentally leaped out of the water. It was a group of water ghosts that had been lurking at the bottom of the river, biting sharp knives!"

"But here comes the most terrifying question."

Zhu Dijun stared intently at the camera.

"Prince Ning has been arrested, and Wang Yangming has received his title. The smuggling ledgers in Jiangnan have been reduced to ashes. These civil officials have clearly won."

"Who exactly are these water ghosts lurking at the bottom of the river, so determined to kill Zhu Houzhao?!"