1, Chenlin Village
The Heaven Dou Empire's administrative system was divided into five levels: province, prefecture, city, town, and village.
Fasinuo Province, Wushan Prefecture, Lin City, Godin Town, Chenlin Village
Wushan Prefecture bordered Fasinuo Prefecture, where Fasinuo City was located, to the north. It was named after the five high mountain branches of the Xieluo Mountains within its borders. The two mountains on the right had abundant water and lush vegetation, with tall forests rising among their slopes. They were called Dalin Mountain and Shaolin Mountain.
Lin City lay not far from the junction of Dalin Mountain and Shaolin Mountain. A small stream wound down each mountain, and the locals simply called them Dalin Stream and Shaolin Stream. The streams later converged where the two mountains met, forming a river called Lin River. Lin City was built beside the river, hence its name.
Godin Town was twenty or thirty li beyond Lin City. It had grown around the families of guards who had gathered there to defend Shaolin Mountain against Soul Beasts and wild beasts. Godin, Godin-this was a small town that had prospered through military preparedness.
Beside the town was a lake several li across, formed where Shaolin Stream flowed through a low-lying area. It was called Shaolin Lake, so the surrounding villages had names that included either "Lin" or "Lake." Chenlin Village was one of them.
Chenlin Village had a long, narrow layout, stretching from southwest to northeast between Shaolin Lake and the foothills at the far edge of Shaolin Mountain. Shaolin Lake lay to the west, across from Godin Town. The Chen clan was the leading family in the village, so it was called Chenlin Village.
Apart from Shaolin Lake to the west, the village was surrounded on every side by small hills about a hundred meters high. In terms of terrain, it was hilly country, enclosing the village. There were only two openings, one to the southeast and one to the north. Stone walls had been built there, each with a large gate serving as an exit. The southeastern gate connected to the main road, while a few li beyond the northern gate was a small grove extending from the outermost branch of Shaolin Mountain.
The village lay in a straight line four hundred li south of Fasinuo Fortress. Here, there were mountains, forests, and a lake; the sunlight was plentiful and the soil fertile. It was also situated in the border region between the Two Great Empires. Following the main road north from the southeast led to Fasinuo City. The villagers lived off the mountains and the lake, and their fields yielded abundant harvests. The economy was quite good, and daily life was peaceful and uneventful.
2, Xieluo Mountains
Western Douluo Continent
The Xieluo Mountains ranked third among the mountain ranges of Douluo Continent, surpassed only by the Hundred Thousand Mountains in the south and the Eastern Great Rift Valley in the east.
The range curved southeast from a coastal area in the upper part of the continent's western region, like a flying dragon stretching across the land. It was majestic and extended for thousands of li. The farther inland it went, the higher its mountains became, so people regarded its inland terminus as the dragon's head and its coastal beginning as the dragon's tail. It was also commonly called the Giant Dragon Mountains.
It faced the Tianyun Mountains, belonging to Spirit Hall and located west of the Star Dou Great Forest, from several hundred li away. It was one of the three natural dividing lines between the northern and southern empires.
Along the Xieluo Mountains, from northwest to southeast, the territories on the Heaven Dou Empire's side were, in order, the Haagen-Dazs Kingdom, Fasinuo Province, and the Balak Kingdom.
There was a large mountain pass in the middle of the range, called Xieluo Pass. It led directly to the Star Luo Empire and was the only major route where the Two Great Empires confronted each other directly, rather than a passage through a buffer zone of subordinate kingdoms. For thousands of years, it had been the site of direct clashes between the two empires' military forces and the most frequent wars, making it a place of vital strategic importance.
Both empires built a defensive fortress beside the passage at the pass. The fortress on the Heaven Dou Empire's side was called Fasinuo Fortress.
A Fasinuo City was built twenty or thirty li behind the fortress. At first, it was used for coordination, logistics, resupply, and housing soldiers' families. Later, because it stood along the route between the Two Great Empires, it flourished through trade and an influx of people. It developed into one of the few major cities in Fasinuo Province. In the empire's early years, it had even served as the provincial capital, showing how important it was.
Only later, once the border had stabilized, was the capital moved to Marineford City, a central city better situated to serve the whole province.
The Xieluo Mountains were not only the western boundary range between the two empires in the north and south of the continent, but also a dividing line between the northern and southern regions' geography, climate, and resources.
In winter, the Xieluo Mountains blocked cold waves from moving south into the southern region; in summer, they blocked moist sea winds from entering the northern region. The area south of the Xieluo Mountains had a subtropical climate and southern natural conditions, while the area to the north had a warm temperate climate and northern natural conditions. Agricultural production also differed significantly on either side of the range.
Different climates, soil, and water led to different customs in social life, such as food, architecture, and transportation. Over time, these differences developed into distinct customs and traditions across society as a whole.
(PS: You can think of it simply as the Qinling Mountains in a broad sense, stretching from Kunlun in the west, through Longnan and Southern Shaanxi, to the Dabie Mountains in Hubei-Henan-Anhui and Zhangbaling near Bengbu in the east.)
The Xieluo Mountains were the continent's third-largest mountain range. They ran east to west for two or three thousand li, and even at their narrowest point from north to south, they were more than three hundred kilometers wide, or over six hundred li.
At their long end, for example, the tail of the range formed a stretch of nearly five hundred kilometers with the Tianyun Mountains opposite it. This was the famous Balak-Southern Corridor Pass, also known as Banan Pass.
The Xieluo Mountains could roughly be divided into western, central, and eastern sections. These three sections formed natural boundaries, dividing the Haagen-Dazs Kingdom, Fasinuo Province, and the Balak Kingdom.