In southeastern You Province, where the bays curved and the currents swirled, ports and fishing villages of every size dotted the coast. Warm currents from the deep southern sea met cold currents from the shallow northern sea, bringing rich natural resources and nurturing vast numbers of fish, shrimp, crabs, and shellfish.
This was where the people of the Central Plains had taken their first step into the Northeast of the Nine Provinces.
Before the Sky Hero Dynasty was founded, a kingdom called Yan had stood here. It was also known as the Ancient Yan Kingdom. In later generations, more than one power in this region took the name Yan, leaving histories filled with Former Yans and Later Yans.
Since this was the site of the Ancient Yan Kingdom, the nearby range was naturally called Yan Mountain. Its terrain was steep, and the surrounding population was large enough to make it an ideal place for Greenwood heroes to claim a mountain as their kingdom and do business without putting up any capital.
But although Yan Mountain was a blessed place for the Greenwood, it lay too close to densely settled lands, with plenty of towns and cities nearby. Its Greenwood folk therefore tended to mind their methods. Most took money without taking lives. Some even flew the Greenwood banner while doing business as smugglers, making it hard to say whether they belonged to the White Path or the underworld.
There were, of course, exceptions.
With Yan Mountain, where the Ancient Yan Kingdom had stood, at its heart, the long mountain range stretched west and north for nearly three thousand li. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Mountain Strongholds were scattered through it. Most lived by farming and hunting and were not especially large. But several had grown so big that farming, hunting, and