The Mountain of Ice and Fire

Eddard Stark was born in 263 AC in Winterfell, the capital of the North.

He is thirty-five years old this year, one year younger than King Robert.

Eddard has a long face, dark brown hair, grey eyes, and a neatly trimmed black beard.

Sixteen years ago, before the outbreak of the War of the Usurper, his brother Brandon Stark led a group of noble children to the Red Keep in King's Landing to duel Prince Rhaegar Targaryen, who had abducted his sister, and was captured by the Mad King Aerys Targaryen. The Mad King used Brandon to lure the Lord of the North, Rickard Stark, and then killed the Stark father and son and their entourage of noble children.

Having lost his brother and father, Eddard Stark inherited the title of Lord of Winterfell in order and became the Lord of the North.

Eddard Stark was not as burly and handsome as his brother Brandon, nor was he as brave and good at fighting. In order to fight against the Mad King, he married his brother's fiancée, Catelyn Tully, in order to obtain the military support of Lord Hoster Tully of the Riverlands. He and Lady Catelyn had five children in total, of whom the fifteen-year-old eldest son Robb Stark is the heir to the family.

Lord Tywin's territory, the Westerlands, is bordered by the Sunset Sea to the west and Lord Hoster Tully's territory, the Riverlands, to the east. A River Road connects the Westerlands and the Riverlands through Lord Leo Lefford's Golden Tooth.

Lord Eddard is honorable, just, selfless, and kind. Because he always has a serious expression like the frozen soil of the North, he is often misunderstood as being cold and arrogant.

Because of his dedication to honor and his fair and just dealings, Eddard Stark has won the respect and love of the northern nobles.

Among Jon Snow and the other children, their father Eddard is their role model.

Jon Snow has more obvious Stark family characteristics than his half-siblings. He is lean, with the same rectangular face as Eddard, the same dark brown hair as his father, and a pair of grey eyes. His half-siblings inherited their mother Catelyn's auburn hair and blue eyes.

Eddard Stark looked at the boy's eager expression and felt a pang of sadness in his heart. He naturally understood the boy's true identity, but he couldn't say it, because saying it would cause a huge uproar and endanger his friendship and relationship with King Robert.

Jon Snow is the son of Prince Rhaegar, whom King Robert hates the most, and his sister Lyanna Stark. Sixteen years ago, after Prince Rhaegar abducted Eddard's sister Lyanna Stark, the two hid in the Tower of Joy in the Red Mountains of Dorne and gave birth to the child in front of him. That year, Eddard took six good partners to the Tower of Joy and fought fiercely with the three members of the Kingsguard guarding the Tower of Joy. Except for Eddard and another friend who survived, everyone else died on the spot.

This is the famous Battle of the Tower of Joy!

Eddard entered the Tower of Joy and saw his sister Lyanna, who was hemorrhaging, with a newborn baby lying beside her. Lyanna entrusted her orphan to her brother before passing away peacefully. Eddard Stark brought the child back and lied to the outside world that he was his bastard. He raised the child for fifteen years and regarded him as his own flesh and blood. Only his wife, Lady Catelyn, always rejected this 'bastard' of unknown origin and harbored contempt and hostility towards the child.

"Father, I want to know who my mother is? Where does she live? Is she dead or alive? What is her surname? Is she the daughter of a fisherman or Lady Wylla?"

Eddard Stark looked at Jon Snow. Snow is the surname of all bastards in the North. Snow is the most common thing in the North, and using it as the surname of bastards inherently carries a discriminatory meaning. For example, in Dorne, the southernmost part of the kingdom, which has a lot of desert land, the surname of bastards is Sand, meaning sand. Sand is naturally the most common thing in the desert, and the meaning of belittling the humble and crude birth of bastards is obvious.

"Jon, when I come back from the south, I will come to the Wall to find you, and I will tell you everything about you and your mother in detail," Eddard said solemnly.

Disappointment flashed in Jon's eyes, but he quickly adjusted his emotions. He knew that his father wanted him to be a strong person.

"Okay, Father, I'll wait for you to come back."

"Wait for me to come back!"

Afterwards, the First Ranger of the Night's Watch, Benjen Stark, said goodbye to his brother Eddard Stark. Benjen and Jon turned their horses and headed north. A direwolf with snow-white fur, waiting for its master, sprang out of the roadside bushes and chased after its master, Jon Snow.

A few months ago, Eddard Stark's soldiers caught a runaway Night's Watchman outside the Wolfswood. The Night's Watchman was frightened by something and incoherently said that he had seen White Walkers in the haunted forest outside the Wall. White Walkers were legendary ice-cold and evil creatures that had disappeared thousands of years ago, and Eddard naturally didn't believe it. He used his family's ancestral sword Ice to chop off the deserter's head. On the way home, Eddard and his party discovered a huge direwolf killed by a stag's antlers and found six direwolf pups left behind by the direwolf.

So, Eddard's six children each had a little wolf pup.

Several months have passed, and the little wolf pups have grown to the size of hounds. The wolf belonging to Jon is named Ghost, and its fur is snow-white without any other colors. Ghost was hunting in the grass when it realized its master was leaving and immediately ran after him.

And not far ahead on this avenue, there was another team waiting for Benjen and Jon. This team included Yoren, a recruiting officer for the Night's Watch. He was an experienced 'crow' and was taking two young men who had committed theft to the Wall to join the Night's Watch. In addition, there was also a dwarf famous throughout the Seven Kingdoms, the second son of Lord Tywin of the Westerlands: Tyrion Lannister, the Imp, and his two personal attendants.

Tyrion Lannister was a deformity from birth, with short, deformed legs and a head that was disproportionately large, making people worry that his neck would not be able to bear the weight and he would fall over when he walked. His forehead was protruding, his appearance was ugly, his two eyes were one black and one green, his long hair was as golden as white, and his chin was covered with a messy beard of brown and gold.

He followed his brother-in-law the King to the North in order to fulfill his great wish: to go to the end of the world - the top of the Wall - and take a piss towards the icy world to the north.

The southern end of this Kingsroad is King's Landing, thousands of miles away, and the northern end leads directly from outside Winterfell to a military fortress thousands of miles away beyond the Wall: Castle Black!

Each generation of Starks sends a Stark to the Wall to be a member of the Night's Watch, a tradition that has lasted for eight thousand years. The Wall is one of the nine wonders of the world, a thousand miles long from east to west and seven hundred feet high, and is a northern barrier to prevent the wildlings from the north from going south to burn, kill, and loot.

*

While the fat King Robert Stark was heading south with the royal courtiers and his Hand, in the Westerlands, the Mountain was stepping up the recruitment and training of soldiers. He was working on three routes simultaneously: Crackclaw Point was personally recruiting 900 infantrymen; Lannisport was having Chiswyck Clegane recruit the former members of the Bloody Mummers, with a target of 1,000 men; Sweetmouth Ralph Clegane and Dunsen Clegane were taking Lord Tywin's recruiting order to the dungeons of the major nobles in the Westerlands to recruit soldiers, with the goal of completing Lord Tywin's order of 500 Clegane cavalrymen.

The first batch of 300 recruits in Crackclaw Point went surprisingly smoothly, with ten times more people coming to sign up than expected. Under the benefit of tax reduction for the whole family when one person enlists in the army, under the stimulus of exemption from food tax in the first year of military service, and under the attraction of not having to bring their own weapons and armor and having a military salary of seven silver stags per month, the enthusiasm of the people who came to enlist in the army was unprecedentedly high, and they came to line up in the middle of the night, bustling and endlessly, alarming Crackclaw Point in their sleep.

Ten days later, Crackclaw Point successfully and perfectly completed the recruitment, with all 900 new recruits in place. All 150 garrison troops in Crackclaw Point were incorporated into the new recruit team. In just half a month, Crackclaw Point had an infantry team of 1,050 men and began almost cruel combat training under the eyes of the Mountain. What surprised Lord Gawen was that the cruel training did not see the soldiers' complaints, and their training enthusiasm was high.

Such a high-efficiency troop building speed swept in like a whirlwind, making Lord Gawen of Crackclaw Point feel like he was dreaming.

*

Night.

The lord's bedroom in the main castle.

A large wooden box was pushed in front of Lord Gawen and Sybelle.

The Mountain and Jenny, as well as the old man Booz, who had just arrived from Clegane's village today, and his granddaughter Ester.

Old man Booz came to Crackclaw Point with his granddaughter Ester in a carriage, and brought this box to Lord Gawen of Crackclaw Point.

Ester is the new wife of Ser Polliver Clegane.

At the Mountain's signal, Lord Gawen opened the large wooden box.

The next second, the lord and his wife widened their eyes.

A large wooden box filled with gold dragons.

There is another such box in the hall below.

The gold dragons are very beautiful, emitting a shining golden light, as if each one is new.

That's right, this is the result of the Mountain minting coins privately.

He has very rich gold mines, and as long as there are enough people in the mint, everything is assembly line work, non-stop day and night, and directly minting coins is really too simple.

"Father, there are five hundred gold dragons here, plus five hundred in the hall, enough to pay three months' worth of military salaries," the Mountain said.

Lord Gawen and Lady Sybelle were surprised and couldn't believe it.

"I said, I will solve the matter of gold coins," the Mountain said, "and about the acquisition of milk, it is not only acquiring the hearts of all the people in the territory, it can actually be made into a business that can make a lot of money. Jenny, have you done the glass tubes I wanted?"

"I have asked the merchants in the city to find several kinds of glass tube products of different forms and sizes in Lannisport. What do you want to do, teach me."

"I will teach you tonight, and Father and Mother will come together," the Mountain said.

1 more chapter, 2000 words will be changed to 3000 words during the day, reducing the number of chapters and increasing the number of words.