The National Humiliation of the Jiajing Reign!

"Family members, hold on tight! Don't drink water, what's about to happen will choke you!"

The red light in the studio receded like a tide, replaced by an oppressive, earthy gray-brown. Zhu Dijun stood in the center of the holographic projection, his feet resting on the map of the Ming Dynasty in the 29th year of the Jiajing reign. At this moment, the northern border of this map was being frantically devoured by a black shadow as dark as ink.

"The 29th year of the Jiajing reign! In the 276-year lifespan of the Ming Dynasty, this was the most damn humiliating year for imperial power and the most damn desperate year for the common people since the Tumu Crisis!" Zhu Dijun suddenly swung his arm, a laser pointer drawing a gruesome line of blood. "We gave it a name: the 'Gengxu Incident'! Sounds like an ordinary historical term? No, this was the ultimate catastrophe for the Ming Dynasty's northern defense system, a national humiliation where the entire empire was stripped naked and slapped in the face by foreign invaders!"

He grabbed the blackboard eraser and slammed a name down on the whiteboard—[Zhang Da].

"June! While the people in the capital were still vying for favor with the Emperor between Yan Song and Xu Jie, Altan Khan's cavalry had already flooded into Datong like a torrent!" Zhu Dijun's voice was chillingly cold. "Zhang Da, the General of Datong, and Lin Chun, the Deputy General, these two veteran generals who held the most formidable northern gateway of the Ming Dynasty, led Datong's elite troops out of the city to meet the enemy. And the result?"

On the big screen, countless arrows rained down like a storm.

"The elite troops of Datong are all wiped out! Zhang Da and Lin Chun fought valiantly to the death! This isn't just the loss of two generals; this is the last shield of the Ming Dynasty in the north, crushed by Anda Khan!" Zhu Dijun zoomed in on the camera, his eyes like knives. "The shield is broken, so what is the Jizhou garrison doing? Let's look at some chilling data!"

A breathtaking audit list popped up on the holographic screen.

"In the 29th year of the Jiajing reign, over 370 beacon towers and watchtowers along the Jizhou border collapsed! Over 600 beacon fire devices rotted away! The garrison was short-handed by a staggering 70%!" Zhu Dijun let out an utterly absurd laugh. "This is the defense system those civil officials talk about all the time! This isn't border defense; it's a green channel opened for the Tartars! You can't even find a single intact brick. How can you possibly stop Altan Khan's 100,000 iron cavalry?!"

In a parallel Hongwu era of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang, who had been staring intently at the sky, heard the words "70% of the garrison is missing" and the imperial desk in his hands finally gave way, cracking in two with a "crack" under his palm.

"Seventy percent...seventy percent of the troop quota was embezzled?"

Zhu Yuanzhang's face turned from red to ashen, a deathly pale hue born of extreme rage.

"Back then, to guard against the remnants of the Yuan dynasty, I erected watchtowers every mile, and each watchtower was equipped with signal arrows. By the time of Jiajing, they've all become overgrown weeds and desolate mounds! Those civil officials in charge of the Ministry of War deserve to die! They all deserve to die!"

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's scalpel plunged deeper once more.

"On August 14th! Altan Khan, with tens of thousands of cavalry, executed a brilliant feint! He first feinted at Gubeikou to draw away the main force of the Ming army, but his real killing move was hidden in Huangyugou near Miyun!"

Zhu Dijun's finger flew across the map.

"The old, weak, and disabled soldiers temporarily conscripted by the Ming army, upon seeing the banners covering the mountains, immediately went into chaos! Anda's main force practically won without bloodshed, kicking open the back gate of the capital!"

"From August 15th to 20th, this was a nightmare for the people of the capital!"

Zhu Dijun's voice suddenly became hoarse and low, and the entire studio screen turned into a sea of ​​fire.

"They broke through Miyun, Huairou, Shunyi, and Tongzhou in quick succession! One hundred thousand iron cavalrymen rampaged through the outskirts of the Ming capital like mad dogs. Standing on the city walls of Deshengmen and Andingmen, one could even clearly see the dust kicked up by the Mongol horses' hooves! They were only a few miles away from the capital's walls!"

"What was our capital city of the Ming Dynasty doing at this time?"

Zhu Dijun grabbed a worn-out iron helmet and casually threw it on the ground, making a crisp clanging sound.

"The so-called Beijing garrison has over 100,000 men on the roster, but in reality, only 40,000 to 50,000 are fit to fight, and they're all old, weak, sick, or disabled! The weapons in the armory have long been rusted to pieces. When soldiers go to collect their weapons, the eunuchs in the armory demand bribes first! Don't pay? They'll give you a rotten wooden stick that'll crumble at the slightest touch to fight hand-to-hand with a Mongol scimitar!"

The chat room exploded with comments at that moment.

"Is this the peaceful and prosperous era that Jiajing Emperor cultivated through immortality? Even the gun barrels at his doorstep are broken?!"

"The scene of the eunuchs soliciting bribes is absolutely brilliant! With a formidable enemy at hand, they're still eyeing those few loose taels of silver!"

"Let alone the Jiajing Emperor, I feel suffocated just looking at him. This is a classic example of systemic paralysis following a fiscal collapse!"

"At this time, the only hope lies with the loyalist armies in various regions."

Zhu Dijun sneered and pulled up a name on the big screen—[Qiu Luan].

"General Qiu Luan of Datong arrived first with 20,000 cavalry. Logically, this should have been a lifeline, right? But what did Qiu Luan do? He led his troops, following Anda Khan at a distance that wasn't too close, while Anda Khan went to raid the eastern village, he squatted in the western village watching the show! He called it 'following without attacking,' but in reality, he was terrified to the core, fearing that Anda Khan would turn around and charge, swallowing up his 20,000 men!"

Judy Jun suddenly stood up and roared:

"This kind of commander was actually appointed as the Grand General Who Pacifies the Barbarians during the Jiajing reign! Is there any hope left for the Ming Dynasty?!"

A parallel Yongle era in the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Di stared at the timid and hesitant army of loyalists on the horizon, his beard trembling with rage. He recalled his five northern expeditions, each time chasing the Tatars across the mountains and plains, each time daring to engage in decisive battles deep in the desert.

"The Grand General Who Pacifies the Barbarians?"

Zhu Di's voice was filled with an unprecedented sorrow.

"Does this coward even deserve such a title? If such a general were to lead the troops, how could my Ming soldiers ever face our ancestors!"

On the sky, Zhu Dijun's perspective shifted to the decision-making circle of the highest power in the capital city.

"Fire is raging outside the city, and chaos reigns inside! Emperor Jiajing, terrified, is unable to eat or sleep in the Western Garden and asks Grand Secretary Yan Song for advice. Guess what earth-shattering strategy this powerful 'Prime Minister Yan' offered?"

Zhu Dijun wrote four large characters on the whiteboard: "Strengthen the defenses and do not fight."

Yan Song calmly told Jiajing, "Your Majesty, Anda's group is just here to steal our food; they're predatory bandits. Once they've stolen enough and are full, they'll leave naturally. As long as we guard the city gates and don't care about the lives of the people outside, it won't be considered a defeat!" He also specifically warned his generals: "Anyone who dares to go into battle without authorization will be guilty of a serious crime if they lose, and there will be no reward even if they win!"

Zhu Dijun kicked the podium, his eyes wide open.

"Family members! This was the logic back then! Allowing Altan Khan to set fires and loot in the outskirts of the capital for three days and three nights, leaving hundreds of thousands of innocent people displaced and dead, was considered 'prudent and cautious' by the Ming high command!"

The studio screen then transitioned into an extremely humiliating silence.

"Anda Khan had his fill of looting and playing, and before leaving, he wanted to leave a souvenir for Jiajing. He released a captured eunuch and sent back a message: 'Give me money, do business with me, and I'll leave.'"

Zhu Dijun spread his hands, a sorrowful smile on his face.

"The once mighty Ming Dynasty, which drove the Mongol Yuan back to the northern deserts and whose Yongle reign shook the world, bowed its proud head on August 20th of the 29th year of Jiajing's reign. Xu Jie stepped forward and advocated 'withdrawing troops first and then negotiating peace.' Jiajing compromised and agreed to Altan Khan's demands."

"On August 25th, Altan Khan, laden with treasure and tens of thousands of Ming slaves, swaggered out of Baiyang Pass. On August 28th, the last cavalry unit retreated beyond the Great Wall."

"Martial law has been lifted in the capital. But the backbone of the Ming Dynasty has been shattered."

Zhu Dijun pulled over a chair, sat down heavily, and sank into the shadows.

"Is this what you call a victory? No, this is the most humiliating treaty surrendered to the Ming Dynasty. Although Jiajing survived by hiding in the Western Garden, he finally realized that all the elixirs he concocted could not bring peace to the border. He had to change; otherwise, the next time Anda Khan might just storm into the Imperial Ancestral Temple and burn the memorial tablets!"

The images on the large screen switched rapidly, transforming into a busy construction plan and powerful personnel documents.

"From the winter of the 29th year of the Jiajing reign to the 30th year, the Ming Dynasty ushered in a forced, self-rescue-style reform!"

Judy Jun frantically circled on the whiteboard:

"First, reorganize the Beijing Garrison! Abolish the rotten Twelve Regiments and re-establish the Five Armies, Three Thousand Battalions, and Divine Machine Battalion, all under the unified command of the Rong government! Regardless of their fighting capabilities, first, fill in the required ranks!"

"Secondly, establish a Governor-General of Jizhou and Liaodong! The north can no longer afford to fight independently; there must be one person to coordinate the defense of the three towns of Jizhou, Baoding, and Liaodong! This is an attempt to connect the nine border regions into a single line!"

"Third, establish an 'autumn defense' system! Every autumn, when the horses are fat and the Tartars are about to invade, recruit 30,000 soldiers from Shandong, Shanxi, and Henan, and gather them in the capital to serve as short-term laborers after the autumn harvest!"

Finally, Judy Jun's laser pointer froze on the shadowy image of a gray city wall.

"The most ironic thing is that in order to prevent the city from being besieged again, Jiajing ordered the construction of the outer city of the capital to begin! Since the people could not protect it, and since the city wall could not stop it, then the wall was made thicker and wider! Until it was built into the '凸'-shaped outline of the capital city that we see today."

The live stream chat started scrolling again.

"It's never too late to mend the fence after the sheep are lost. But what about the hundreds of thousands of people who died?"

"Jiajing's greatest achievement in his life was actually being forced to build an outer city wall. That's so ridiculous."

"Brother Jun, this farce is over. Is the struggle between Yan Song and Xu Jie about to reach its climax?"

Zhu Dijun stared coldly at the screen and casually turned off the background music.

"Family members, reforms have been implemented, but in a country where the finances are rotten to the core, even the most magnificent defense projects are nothing more than new money-making schemes for those civil officials. The new recruits in the Beijing garrison are still starving, and the bricks and tiles in the outer city are still mixed with sand."

He leaned forward slightly, his tone carrying a chilling premonition.

"Although Altan Khan in the north has left, Wang Zhi in the southeast has taken advantage of the perfect opportunity of the capital being besieged and the court having no time to look south, to complete his final transformation from a 'smuggler' to a 'sea emperor.' The southern half of the Ming Empire is about to be plunged into a decade of mountains of corpses and seas of blood."

Zhu Dijun stretched out a finger and pressed it firmly against the camera.

"Amidst this chaos, a madman who had been suppressed by history for half his life, a middle-aged man who was considered to be only good at theoretical discussions and even a bit mentally unstable, quietly stepped onto the deck of a southbound ship with his 'Iron-Blooded Theory of Investigation', which even people at the time could not understand."

"Family members, have you heard of that name? The man later known as the 'Number One Butcher of the Anti-Japanese Pirates' is coming."

The studio feed was abruptly cut off, leaving only a chilling echo reverberating in the air.