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

Two days later, at 8 PM.

The number of viewers in Zhu Dijun's live stream has skyrocketed to an astonishing three million. The screen is filled with a dense barrage of comments, with fans, haters, and a large number of foreign viewers who have bypassed the Great Firewall fiercely arguing in the public chat.

It was exactly 8 p.m.

The countdown on the big screen instantly reached zero. A blindingly white spotlight slammed directly onto the live broadcast booth.

Judy sat on a high stool, twirling a red laser pointer in her hand, her eyes revealing an extremely dangerous mockery.

"Good evening, family. Welcome back to this bloody slaughterhouse of Ming Dynasty power struggles."

He suddenly stood up and flipped the blackboard behind him over. It contained only a portrait of a young man and two extremely glaring timelines.

"In the last episode, we talked about how in March of the sixteenth year of Zhengde's reign, Emperor Wuzong Zhu Houzhao died tragically in the Leopard Chamber. Grand Secretary Yang Tinghe, together with Empress Dowager Zhang, in accordance with the ancestral rule of 'succession by younger brother after the death of the elder brother,' selected the fifteen-year-old Prince Zhu Houcong, who was far away in Anlu, Huguang, and prepared to bring him to the capital to be a puppet."

Zhu Dijun slammed his red pen heavily onto Zhu Houcong's portrait, a chilling smirk creeping across his lips.

"At the time, everyone in the world, including all the unofficial historians and writers of later generations, felt that this fifteen-year-old child was a lucky one who had fallen from the sky. He had picked up the throne of the Ming Dynasty for free."

"But today, I absolutely must expose to you a dark logic that has been completely covered up in the history books of the Ming Dynasty, a logic that even the civil service dares not mention!"

As Zhu Dijun approached the camera, a terrifying glint flashed in his eyes.

"You think these civil officials chose Zhu Houcong because he was legitimate? Because he was obedient? Wrong! Their core reason for choosing Zhu Houcong was only one thing—because before the sixteenth year of Zhengde's reign, Yang Tinghe and his gang had already killed Zhu Houcong's biological father, the Prince Xingxian of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Youyuan, in the fourteenth year of Zhengde's reign! I've already said that before, and I'll say it again here: the death of Prince Xingxian, Zhu Youyuan, was not 'died of illness' as recorded in the historical records, but was 'forced to die of illness'."

The chat in the entire live stream suddenly fell into an eerie silence.

Three seconds later, the screen exploded with a torrent of "Holy crap!" comments.

The Jiajing era of the Ming Dynasty.

Inside the West Garden Abode, Emperor Jiajing, Zhu Houcong, who had been meditating cross-legged, suddenly opened his eyes. He stared intently at the sky above, his hands gripping the edge of the prayer mat tightly, his knuckles turning white.

Even decades later, whenever his father's death is mentioned, the eyes of this Taoist emperor still reveal a tyrannical urge to eat people.

Inside the modern live-streaming studio, Zhu Dijun kicked the chair next to him and roared at the top of his lungs.

"Family members, use your brains! Why did the civil official group go to such lengths to poison Emperor Zhengde and massacre the Leopard Chamber? It was to create a power vacuum in the imperial court, so they could control everything!"

"If a fully grown prince with both biological parents had been chosen to come to the capital back then, wouldn't his father be the retired emperor? If he brought his own royal entourage into the Forbidden City, would Yang Tinghe and his ilk still have any say in anything?!"

A photocopy of a Ming Dynasty imperial family archive was slammed onto a large screen.

"On the 17th day of the sixth month of the 14th year of the Zhengde reign! Zhu Youyuan, the Prince of Xingxian, who was only 44 years old and in the prime of his life, suddenly died in Anlu!"

"Less than two years later, Emperor Wuzong fell into the water and subsequently died in the Leopard Chamber!"

"Do you understand this extremely chilling closed loop?! To ensure that the heir they brought into the capital was an orphan with no backing, no leader, and not even a father, these civil officials had already begun physically silencing the princes before Zhu Houzhao even fell into the water!"

In the Fengtian Hall during the Hongwu reign, Zhu Yuanzhang drew his imperial sword and cleaved off a corner of the imperial desk with a single stroke.

Killing members of the imperial family! These audacious civil officials not only dared to plot against the emperor, but even dared to poison a prince who had been sent to a post outside the capital!

"His biological father has died, and fifteen-year-old Zhu Houcong is observing mourning in Anlu, utterly alone. Yang Tinghe and his gang of old foxes are extremely satisfied with this top-secret resume!"

Zhu Dijun's fingers flew across the whiteboard, drawing a route from Hubei and Hunan all the way to Beijing.

"In late March of the sixteenth year of Zhengde's reign, the imperial delegation set off in a grand procession. Eunuch Gu Dayong, Grand Secretary Liang Chu, and Minister of Rites Mao Cheng, carrying the imperial edict and the golden tally, headed straight for Anlu."

On the second day of the fourth month, fifteen-year-old Zhu Houcong paid farewell to his biological father's grave, bid farewell to his mother Consort Jiang, and officially embarked on his journey north.

Judy Jun let out a chilling laugh.

"On the journey north, Zhu Houcong behaved perfectly. He strictly disciplined his accompanying guards, refused all gold and silver treasures sent by local officials, and kept his food, clothing, and daily necessities extremely simple. He was like a timid white rabbit, completely lulling the entire Ming Dynasty civil official group that came to greet him into a false sense of security!"

"Liang Chu and Mao Cheng even celebrated privately in their memorials, believing they had truly brought back a dutiful son they could manipulate at will!"

Zhu Dijun grabbed the blackboard eraser and ruthlessly erased the latter half of the northward route.

"But on April 22nd!"

A huge red circle was drawn in the center of the whiteboard with a red marker, and next to it were two bloody words: [Liangxiang]!

"The army arrived at Liangxiang Post Station on the outskirts of Beijing! The mask that had been worn for twenty days was torn to shreds by this fifteen-year-old boy in front of the entire court!"

The image on the big screen suddenly switched to an aerial view of Beijing and the Forbidden City during the Ming Dynasty.

What kind of enthronement script did Yang Tinghe prepare for this new emperor?

Zhu Dijun pointed the laser pointer in his hand directly at the east side of the Forbidden City.

"According to the Ministry of Rites' arrangements, Zhu Houcong is absolutely not allowed to enter the city through the main south gate! He must enter the palace through the side gate, the Dong'an Gate! Furthermore, he absolutely cannot go to the Qianqing Palace; he must temporarily reside in the Wenhua Hall!"

"What do these two places represent? Those of you who know a bit about Ming Dynasty history, please type your answers in the comments!"

[Crown Prince's Ceremony!]

[This entire area is the Crown Prince's private passage and territory!]

"Yes! It's the Crown Prince!"

Zhu Dijun slammed his hand on the table, the sound like muffled thunder.

"Yang Tinghe unleashed the civil service group's most prized legal trump card—'Succession of the throne requires an heir'!"

"What does that mean?" Yang Tinghe told Zhu Houcong: "You can become emperor, but you must first be adopted as the son of the deceased Emperor Xiaozong of Ming! Your current identity is the Crown Prince of the Ming Dynasty!"

"You need to stand here as a prince and obediently accept the three urgings from the officials before we, the civil officials, can choose an auspicious day to allow you to ascend the throne and become emperor!"

A phantom image of an old face full of righteousness appeared on the left side of the screen; it was none other than Grand Secretary Yang Tinghe.

"It sounds like just a tedious ceremony, doesn't it?"

An extreme ferocity surged in Judy Jun's eyes.

"But this is a vicious, devastating scheme! If Zhu Houcong enters Dong'an Gate today as the Crown Prince, then legally, he will no longer be the son of his biological father, Zhu Youyuan! He will be nothing more than a clay tablet sculpted by Yang Tinghe for all eternity!"

"The legitimacy of all his power will no longer derive from divine mandate or from his ancestors, but specifically from the 'meritorious service' of Yang Tinghe and his cabinet ministers in enthroning him!"

Zhengde Time and Space

Zhu Houzhao stood in the large tent, listening to the analysis from the sky, a chill running down his spine.

Yang Tinghe's methods were too dirty. He was trying to completely break the emperor's spine on his fifteen-year-old cousin's very first day in the capital, putting this future tiger directly into a dog leash!

"Fifteen years old!"

Zhu Dijun stared intently at the camera.

"A young man who has recently lost his father, with only a few elderly and weak retainers by his side, faces the most powerful civil official group in the Ming Dynasty all alone!"

"If it were any other normal child, faced with such a scene, they would have been terrified and obediently followed the Ministry of Rites' instructions to enter the palace through a side gate. Who would dare to challenge the all-powerful Grand Secretary outside the capital?!"

A brief pause.

Throughout the live stream, and in countless parallel universes, the Ming emperors held their breath, awaiting the storm that would rage in Liangxiang.

Zhu Dijun stepped forward abruptly, gripping the edge of the podium with both hands, and with an extremely arrogant voice like the clash of metal and stone, he uttered that famous saying that shook the entire 276-year history of the Ming Dynasty!

"Right outside Liangxiang Post Station! Right when Minister of Rites Mao Cheng was forcing him to use the Dong'an Gate while holding a script meant for civil officials!"

"Sitting in his carriage, Zhu Houcong didn't even glance at the kneeling court officials. He simply slammed the imperial edict drafted by Yang Tinghe onto the ground!"

Judy roared at the top of her lungs.

"This fifteen-year-old prince, pointing his finger at the entire court of officials, uttered eleven words!"

"The will designates me as the successor to the throne, not as a prince!"

The eleven blood-red ancient characters on the big screen, like ten guillotines, cleaved through all the gloom.

"I'm here to inherit the throne of the Ming Dynasty! I'm not here to be your crown prince! Nor am I here to be someone else's son!"

Zhu Dijun kicked over the trash can and burst into laughter amidst the frenzied background music.

"The moment those eleven words were uttered, the minds of all the civil officials present completely went blank! This is totally unpredictable! What happened to the easy target? How did they suddenly turn into a man-eating demon?!"

"Zhu Houcong issued a direct order—the imperial carriage must stop outside Liangxiang City! Without the full imperial retinue, and without using the main gate, the Ming Gate, I will not enter the city even if it means death!"

"You Yang Tinghe people like to play the silent treatment, don't you? Then let's just wait it out here outside the city walls! Let's see if you old bones give out first, or if I, the new emperor of the Ming Dynasty, will bow down first!"

The Hongwu reign of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang felt his blood run cold. He slammed the Emperor's Sword into the floor tile and let out a wild, unrestrained laugh.

"Good! Good grandson! He has the fighting spirit of the Zhu family—never retreating! This is the kind of son of the Zhu family who deserves to sit on the dragon throne!"

In the sky, Zhu Dijun's speech became faster and faster, pouring down like a storm.

"A stalemate! A deadly stalemate! Zhu Houcong is resting with his eyes closed inside the carriage, while Mao Cheng and Liang Chu are outside, as anxious as ants on a hot pan!"

"In the end, who backed down? The civil officials backed down! Yang Tinghe backed down! Empress Dowager Zhang backed down too!"

Zhu Dijun grabbed a red pen and drew extremely rough horizontal lines on the three characters of "Da Ming Men".

"They dared not really cause a scene, and were forced to revise the rites overnight, and have their ministers submit memorials urging them to ascend the throne."

"At noon on April 22nd! Zhu Houcong received the imperial edict in the suburbs, and then his imperial carriage drove directly into the Forbidden City through the Daming Gate, the main south gate representing the pinnacle of imperial power in the Ming Dynasty!"

"He skipped all the formalities, went directly to pay his respects at Emperor Wuzong's coffin and Empress Dowager Zhang, and then strode into the Fengtian Hall!"

Four large, gleaming golden characters dominated the entire screen: "[First Year of Jiajing]"!

"No one could make him their son. On this very day, fifteen-year-old Zhu Houcong made his debut, single-handedly defeating the Ming Dynasty's cabinet and ascending to the throne!"

The live stream chat was already flooded with hundreds of thousands of comments praising the Taoist priest, but Zhu Dijun's eyes grew even more profound.

"Family members, do you think we've won? This is just the beginning!"

He tapped the keyboard with his backhand.

He ascended the throne on April 22nd and sent people back to Anlu to fetch his mother on April 25th.

Zhu Dijun stood before the newly created map of imperial power, his tone extremely chilling.

"It was April 27th. Only five days after his ascension to the throne!"

"This young emperor, who hadn't even warmed his seat on the dragon throne, dropped another bombshell—he ordered the officials in charge of rites to immediately convene a meeting to discuss the title bestowed upon his biological father, Prince Xingxian!"

"In the long history of the Ming Dynasty, the ultimate showdown—the Great Rites Controversy—that raged for three years, leaving all the civil officials in the land kneeling and wailing outside the Zuoshun Gate, has officially begun!"

Zhu Dijun stared directly at the camera, his lips curling into an intensely cold expression.

"Yang Tinghe held the power of the entire court and the ancestral laws and regulations in his hands. Zhu Houcong, on the other hand, only had his own life in his hands."

"In the next chapter, we'll see how the Jiajing Emperor, in an extremely shameless yet utterly cruel way, stripped those once-arrogant civil officials from Jiangnan of their court robes one by one and beat them to death on the blue bricks of the Forbidden City!"

"Who exactly became the first faceless corpse among Zuo Shun's disciples?"