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

Inside the live stream, millions of viewers, upon hearing the phrase "the law does not punish the masses," instantly thought of a recently popular historical drama, and the chat immediately began to flood with comments.

["Holy crap! Isn't that the Wei family's bodyguard from the hit TV series 'The Peaceful Years'? The Ming Dynasty version of bodyguards has returned?"]

"Arrogant soldiers and fierce generals kill officials and rob money, and the court even gives them bonuses afterward! Who could resist rebelling against this?"

"What kind of hellish script did Jiajing get? Starting at age fifteen, civil officials staged a coup, miners revolted, and the border troops mutinied!"

Judy Jun looked at the four words "underworld script" scrolling on the screen and let out an extremely mocking sneer.

"A script from the underworld? You have absolutely no idea what happened to the fifteen-year-old Jiajing Emperor!"

He slammed his hand on the whiteboard, erasing the Ganzhou Mutiny he had just written.

"Family members, the Wangtang Uprising and the Ganzhou Datong Mutiny I just mentioned can at most be considered man-made disasters. Don't you all think that since the civil official group is stirring up trouble behind the scenes, Heaven should at least show some mercy to this newly enthroned young emperor?"

A cruel, bloodthirsty glint flashed in Judy Jun's eyes.

"Naive! Utterly wrong!"

He grabbed a red marker and frantically drew five shocking characters in the center of the whiteboard: "[Severe Drought in Five Provinces]!"

"In the first year of the Jiajing reign, while the Great Rites Controversy was raging in the imperial court and civil officials were lining up outside the Zuoshun Gate to perform a melodramatic scene, an extremely rare and severe drought struck five major grain-producing provinces of the Ming Empire: the southern capital region, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Huguang, and Sichuan!"

"The fields yielded nothing! People are selling their children!"

Zhu Dijun's pen moved across the map like a venomous snake.

"Not only that! In addition to the severe drought in these five provinces, bandits are rampant in Shaanxi, Shandong is being plundered by Wang Tang and his gang of mining thieves, and a large-scale famine has broken out in Liaodong! Half of the Ming Dynasty is reaching out to the capital for money and grain!"

"What should the imperial court do? It can only issue an edict to exempt the disaster-stricken areas from taxes and grain, and instruct local officials to implement famine relief measures."

Zhu Dijun pressed his hands firmly on the table, his gaze like a sharp dagger piercing the camera.

"But disaster relief requires money! When Jiajing opened the Ministry of Revenue's account books, he found that the national treasury was empty! Why was there no money? This brings us to another incurable disease of the Ming Dynasty."

The large screen went dark instantly, and then a shocking map showing the proportion of farmland encroachment during the Ming Dynasty popped up.

Four large, black and red characters were displayed on the public screen: 【Land Mergers and Acquisitions】!

"Starting from the Zhengde era, the imperial family, eunuchs, and those founding nobles frantically annexed land! During the reign of Emperor Zhengde of the Ming Dynasty, the number of these 'imperial estates' skyrocketed from a mere five during the Hongzhi era to more than thirty! The area nearly tripled!"

"By the early years of the Jiajing reign, the total area of ​​estates controlled by the imperial family and their relatives had exceeded two hundred thousand hectares!"

"What does 200,000 hectares mean? It means that almost not an inch of land around Shuntian Prefecture belongs to the common people! It's all the private property of these high-ranking officials and nobles!"

The Hongwu reign of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang's forehead veins bulged as he listened. He had enfeoffed members of the imperial clan and established military garrisons to ensure the eternal stability of the Ming Dynasty. Now, hearing that 200,000 hectares of land had been annexed and that ordinary people were being driven to ruin, he smashed the teacup on his desk to pieces in a fit of rage.

"They've eaten us clean! These beasts want to chew up the very foundation of our Great Ming Dynasty, skin and flesh!"

In the sky, Zhu Dijun's revelations continue, each one sharp and incisive.

"How did those eunuchs and powerful figures in charge of the estate operate? They came up with an extremely shameless term: 'offering tribute'!"

"What does that mean? It means using violence or cutting off water to force landed farmers to starve, forcing them to nominally 'donate' their land to the powerful and wealthy, turning them from landlords into tenant farmers or serfs under the powerful and wealthy!"

"The powerful and wealthy don't pay taxes! And the common people have nowhere to pay their taxes! How can the Ming Dynasty's state apparatus function? This is a dead end!"

Judy took two steps back and stared coldly at the whiteboard.

"Internally, there was the Great Rites Controversy forcing the emperor to abdicate; externally, there were military uprisings and rebellions. Heaven above was not sending rain, and below, the powerful and wealthy had annexed all the land. There was no money, no food, no soldiers, and no power."

"If this were Emperor Daizong Zhu Qiyu of the Ming Dynasty, who was put on the throne because of the Oirat students, or Emperor Renzong Zhu Gaochi, who was a kind-hearted man, this would be different."

Two portraits flashed across the big screen, and Zhu Dijun looked at them with disdain.

"Faced with this situation, Zhu Qiyu and Zhu Gaochi would probably have been so terrified that they would have knelt before Yang Tinghe and surrendered to become puppets! They wouldn't have dared to utter a single word, and could only let the civil official group press them down on the dragon throne like clay statues!"

Emperor Zhu Qiyu of the Ming Dynasty, looking at the sky in the Jingtai era, felt his hands and feet grow cold. He felt that Zhu Dijun was right; if he were in the Jiajing era, he would have been skinned alive by those ruthless civil officials who devoured people without spitting out the bones.

During the Yongle reign, when Zhu Gaochi was still the crown prince, he was so angry that he trembled when he heard the descendants of the third prince making such a joke about him. However, he had to admit that he really couldn't do what Zhu Houcong did when faced with such a hellish start.

"But that was Emperor Jiajing! The most ruthless cultivator of immortality in the Ming Dynasty!"

Zhu Dijun suddenly kicked the chair away, letting out a deafening roar.

"At fifteen, Zhu Houcong, in this hellish start, directly wielded his scalpel—a weapon that kills without drawing blood!"

The name of a crucial civil official appeared on the screen—[Xia Yan]!

"It was in the winter of the first year of the Jiajing reign that the emperor directly promoted and adopted the suggestion of Xia Yan, who was then a censor!"

"What kind of person is Xia Yan? He's stubborn, has a terrible temper, and is ruthless when he criticizes others! Jiajing loves this sword! He immediately ordered Xia Yan to lead a team straight to the eight prefectures of Shuntian to conduct an on-site investigation!"

Zhu Dijun grabbed the gavel and slammed it down heavily.

boom.

"Xia Yan, wielding the emperor's imperial sword, directly submitted a memorial brimming with murderous intent—'The emperor considers the whole world his home and should not compete with the people for profit! Establishing imperial estates is illegitimate and lacks legitimacy!'"

"Family members! Did you understand how vicious this combo was?!"

A terrifying glint flashed in Zhu Dijun's eyes.

"Jiajing, seizing the opportunity, immediately agreed! He ordered the complete abolition of the name 'Imperial Estate,' replacing them all with 'Official Land'!"

"This tactic is called 'cutting off the tail to survive,' but it's also called 'using someone else's knife to kill someone!'"

Zhu Dijun's fingers tapped frantically on the whiteboard.

"Whose estates are these? Most of them belong to the eunuchs, former nobles, and even the Zhang Empress Dowager's family who were left over from the Zhengde era! Jiajing himself has just ascended the throne and hasn't even had time to acquire any property yet, so why would he care about such things!"

"He simply used the noble cause of 'not competing with the people for profit' to cut off the economic lifeline of these Zhengde loyalists! He stripped the eunuchs of their power to manage the estates and put it under the Ministry of Revenue! From then on, the people only needed to pay 'grain silver' to the state for farming, and they would no longer be exploited by those powerful and wealthy people!"

"And the methods are extremely cruel; there will be no compromise!"

A list of land relinquished properties, covered in red clay stamps, crashed onto the screen.

"Xia Yan's forceful investigation has confirmed that a large amount of land was illegally seized during the Zhengde era through 'contributions'! What will Jiajing's verdict be? Return it all!"

"In the eight prefectures of Shuntian alone, a staggering 20,229 hectares of land seized from the people were immediately returned to them!"

"Twenty thousand hectares of land! It was forcibly taken from the mouths of those dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts, and barons, and then given back to the peasants at the bottom of society!"

The Xuande reign of the Ming Dynasty.

Emperor Xuanzong of Ming, Zhu Zhanji, leaned back on the dragon throne and felt a chill run down his spine.

He prided himself on being a master of imperial tactics, but when he looked at Zhu Houcong, a teenager among his descendants, he realized what true ruthlessness was.

By using the righteous cause to cut off the Empress Dowager's and powerful officials' financial resources, he simultaneously won over the hearts of the common people and the civil officials of the Ministry of Revenue. He killed three birds with one stone, without leaving a trace.

Zhu Zhanji took a deep breath.

The chat room was completely buzzing with excitement.

"The Taoist priest is amazing! His political skills are incredible; who would believe he's only fifteen?!"

"Sacrificing Zhengde's old clique to gain fame and prestige for himself—that's ruthless!"

"While being pressured to abdicate during the Great Rites Controversy, they still managed to find time to raid the homes of powerful figures. This multi-pronged operation is truly remarkable!"

Zhu Dijun sneered as he picked up his water glass and took a sip to moisten his throat.

"Although we must admit that by the late Jiajing period, with his obsession with cultivating immortality and Yan Song's monopolization of power, land annexation had resurfaced."

"But this in no way diminishes the significance of this incredible comeback in the first year of the Jiajing reign in the history of the Ming Dynasty!"

He slammed the water glass down.

"From the severe drought in five provinces and the uprising of bandits, to the mutiny in Ganzhou and the coup by civil officials, and then to the conquest of the nobles and the usurpation of power by the empress dowager."

"Jiajing sat on this perilous dragon throne and, in just one year, smashed out a core fortress of imperial power within this impenetrable ironclad formation."