Late August of the ninth year of Hongzhi (1496), lower reaches of the Heilongjiang, between White Mountain and Black Water.
In late August, White Mountain and Black Water still carried the dampness of the summer flood that had yet to recede. The Heilongjiang ran a muddy yellow, spreading out along the banks and scouring silt into marshes of varying depth. Backwater bends appeared one after another, like edgeless water mirrors, reflecting the deep, shadowed Forest Sea in the distance. Where the great river slowed, dense reeds crowded together into walls; beneath the flattened ridges of grass hid soft mud and driftwood. And where the great river surged, the rushing current battered the rocks; jagged reefs beneath the surface could easily wreck a large ship.
"Splash—splash—"
In the Outer Northeast at summer's end, the great river heaved, the Forest Sea lay in layered ranks, marshes spread everywhere, and insects and flies swarmed in clouds. The moody floodwaters, the difficult footpaths, the ever-changing swamps, the mosquitoes and flies that could be seen everywhere—all of these were this land of White Mountain and Black Water's protective talismans, the "Shaman guardian gods" that kept it from being conquered by outside powers. Even the nomadic iron cavalry of Great Yuan at its peak could not long set foot between White Mountain and Black Water and contend against a natural environment savage to the extreme. By comparison, the loose-rein tribute system established by Great Ming was instead more practical, and exerted a more lasting influence over this endless, deep Forest Sea. Even though, by now, the empire's influence had rapidly declined and withdrawn from the lower reaches of the Heilongjiang beyond the mouth of the Sanjiang. Yet the tremendous benefits brought by tribute trade still drew the distant tribal Black Bears like honey in the woods,