In the mid-Tang era, the empire was like a dying lamp trembling in the wind, its final flame about to be snuffed out.
The vast dominion that once stood above all nations now lay in ruins.
Chang'an—the city of emperors—was desolate and hollow.
The shattered palace walls stood rigid in the cold wind; moss grew between shattered tiles, red paint peeled from pillars, and the stone steps lay bare and icy.
Wind swept across the plains of Guanzhong, carrying dust and ash, wailing like the lament of centuries.
Bronze bells upon the ramparts clanged in the wind, tolling like the funeral knell of the Tang dynasty.
To the north of the Yellow River, smoke of war never lifted.
Even the river towns of Jiangnan had been crushed beneath iron hooves; on the shattered waters drifted charred hulls and scattered bones.
The dream of prosperity, once filled with song and dance, was now washed in blood.
Since the An Lushan Rebellion, the land had never known peace.
Warlords ruled like wolves, each commanding private armies, feigning loyalty to the throne while ravaging the realm.
Their banners bore the words "Suppress Rebels," yet they were the ones plundering towns and burning villages.
Villages emptied; children starved in the cold night, their faint cries swallowed by darkness.
At court, the emperor and his ministers drowned in indulgence.
Civil officials battled for power; generals sought only profit.
Every patch of land was contested by greedy hands,
and their eyes, long blind to the suffering of the common folk, fixed only upon that blood-stained crown.
By the dynasty's end, madness engulfed the world.
Huang Chao raised his banners, leading a hundred thousand men through the heartland.
When his forces reached the gates of Chang'an, the last dignity of the Tang empire turned to ashes.
Emperor Xizong fled in panic; palace maids sobbed; officials scattered.
Huang Chao ascended the imperial throne, eyes burning with ambition, believing that a crown made a sage.
But the chaos of the world is not calmed by one man's blade nor one man's coronation.
Where his armies passed, blood flowed like rivers; in the flames, the people turned to dust.
In the span of fifty-three years, eight clans produced thirteen emperors; five dynasties rose and fell.
Regimes changed like tides—yet peace never came.
Blood and fire forged a land that became the tomb of countless hopes.
Night winds swept the battlefields of the north; the moon shone like cold iron.
Fallen banners, broken drums, shattered spearheads—everything lay in silent death.
Black crows circled above corpses, pecking out the eyes of the fallen.
Blood mixed with mud, filling the trenches with the stench of rust.
Such was the night of the Five Dynasties.
"Troubled times create heroes," people said.
But the so-called heroes of this age were little more than predators.
Li Keyong, Zhu Wen, Shi Jingtang, Liu Zhiyuan, Guo Wei…
Their glories were built upon mountains of corpses.
Some killed their own brothers and fathers; some sold their land to foreign powers;
some indulged in debauchery; some trusted the wicked.
Morality crumbled—fathers took their sons' wives; patriarchs seized their daughters-in-law.
Golden dragons upon the throne rotted into venomous serpents under greed.
Their dynasties rose one after another, and fell as swiftly.
What remained were fields of graves and endless white bones.
If these were heroes, then justice no longer existed under heaven.
They were beasts—raised by blood and lies.
Yet even the deepest darkness cannot extinguish every spark of light.
In these chaotic years, there were still those who refused to bow.
They sought not power nor wealth—only a breath of peace for the people.
They knew heaven was merciless, yet still dared to bleed against it.
One such man was Yang Gun, later known as the Fire-Mountain King.
The Birth of a Legend
In the northern lands, snowstorm winds slashed like blades.
On Fire-Mountain Ridge, pines roared under blankets of snow, sky and earth merging into white.
A lone rider cut through the blizzard—armor glinting with cold steel, long spear catching the moon's pale glow.
His horse shattered ice beneath its hooves; snow scattered like silver shavings.
He reined in atop the peak, cloak snapping in the wind.
Yang Gun gazed upon the broken world below.
The wind cut his face like knives, but he remained unmoved—
his silence brimming with a righteous fury tempered by blood and fire.
He had seen too many weeping families, too many arrogant tyrants.
He knew: if no one acted, the land would soon have no people left to save.
He whispered into the wind:
"In troubled times, villains must be slain. Blood shall open the way."
Those words vanished into the gale, but carved themselves into his destiny.
From that moment on, he was no longer a mere warrior.
He carried not only vengeance for the realm, but sorrow for all under heaven.
He forged the Fire-Mountain Spear—thirteen forms of lightning and thunder—
a spear art that would later become the root of the famed Yang Clan Spear.
With a single spear, he cut down rebels, drove back foreign invaders, guarded the northern borders,
and his name thundered across the land.
He was called the Fire-Mountain King—
not for his spear,
but for the unyielding heart within him:
a heart that burned like a volcano,
relentless and indestructible.
People later said:
"The loyalty of the Yang Clan lives for a hundred generations."
And that loyalty, that iron and fire, began here—
on a snowy mountain where a man's roar shook the sky.
Thus began the tale of a true hero.
Yang Hui and His Son
Dusk darkened the sky as wind swept ragged clouds aside.
At the foot of Yongning Mountain near Xining, the stones of Yang Family Valley shone with cold, metallic blue in the wind.
The fading sun illuminated an old courtyard—the home of Yang Hui, famed as the Golden-Blade General.
He once guarded Tong Pass for ten years, wielding a massive nine-ringed sabre that drank the blood of thousands.
His name alone made the warlords of the region tremble.
Yet heroes age, and nations fall.
Emperor Xizong grew foolish, eunuchs wielded power, and warlords ravaged the land.
Though Yang Hui repeatedly petitioned the court, he was met only with suspicion.
Refusing to join corrupt ministers in their schemes, Yang Hui was stripped of command and sent home.
On the day he left, he stood upon the battlements and wept as the Yellow River roared below.
"I have fought half a lifetime," he cried,
"slain countless foes—yet today I cannot protect even one city!
If the world never again knows a wise ruler, this body shall never return to war!"
He plunged his sabre into the earth, his vow echoing across the mountains.
He returned to Yongning Mountain, living in seclusion—farming by day, resting by dusk.
Only one joy remained: his young son, Yang Gun, courtesy name Jun'ai.
The boy was bright-eyed and unusually steady for his age.
At five or six, he listened quietly to his father, never speaking out of turn.
But he disliked books and loved weapons; when other children played, he arranged them into "troops," issuing commands like a general.
Yang Hui watched with hidden satisfaction.
"This child," he often thought, "is born for the battlefield."
When Yang Gun turned seven, Yang Hui finally asked,
"My son, would you learn the martial arts?"
The boy's eyes lit up, and he immediately bowed with excitement.
Thus began father and son's training.
But in the boy's heart, a seed of ambition stirred—
not merely to inherit his father's sabre,
but to create something greater,
to carve a name for himself across the world.
The Mysterious Old Gardener
As months passed, Yang Gun trained tirelessly, though a quiet frustration grew within him.
One day, while panting through another round of sabre drills, he complained softly:
"Practicing the same moves every day… There must be a stronger art than Father's blade."
These words were heard by Wang Laohǎo, the quiet old gardener of the household—
a man who swept the courtyard without complaint, spoke little, and seemed no more than an aging servant.
But when the boy voiced his hidden ambitions, the old man's eyes gleamed.
After a few exchanges, he offered to teach Yang Gun a "real spear art."
The boy scoffed—until the old man picked up a heavy iron spear and transformed before his eyes.
Wind roared as the spear danced;
moves like "Python Leaves Its Cave," "Flood Dragon Turns the Tide," "Black Dragon's Tail," "Reverse Beam Smash"
exploded from the old man's hands.
Leaves whirled. Dust billowed.
The spear's shadows filled the courtyard with thunder.
Yang Gun stood speechless—then fell to his knees and begged to learn.
The old man accepted—
on one condition:
Yang Hui must never know.
Thus began three hidden years of training—
years in which the boy learned the secret North-Dominating Six-Harmony Spear, a lost art of astounding power.
The Secret Revealed
But no secret lasts forever.
One misty dawn, Yang Gun finished sabre practice, grew restless, and switched to spear.
He performed the spear's "Three-Thrusts Breaking the Clouds."
At that very moment, Yang Hui happened to pass by.
He froze.
That move belonged only to one lineage—
the Summer Clan's Six-Harmony Spear,
a technique outsiders could never learn.
He investigated quietly and soon discovered the truth:
the old gardener had been secretly teaching his son.
The next morning, he hid in the garden and witnessed the two practicing together—
their spears clashing like twin dragons,
leaves swirling in the air.
At last, he could not contain himself and shouted,
"Excellent spear-work!"
The boy turned pale with fright.
The old gardener bowed, pretending humility.
But Yang Hui seized the old man's wrist and asked in a low, sharp voice:
"You—who are you really?
The North-Dominating Six-Harmony Spear is a secret art of the Summer Clan.
How does a gardener know it?"
A long silence followed.
At last, the old man sighed, dropped his spear, and said:
"Since General Yang has already seen through me…
I will no longer hide the truth."
The wind rustled through the bamboo.
A long-buried secret was about to surface.