Local officials sent by Beijing accused Yang of cruelty to his subordinates among two-dozen "crimes". Yang sent massive gifts, such as horses and silver, as offerings to win redemption.

Eventually, Yang's son was captured in Chongqing and executed. Yang turned against the emperor in 1596.

"The real reason is that Emperor Wanli was intent on unifying China, and all those autonomous territories were to be directly controlled by the central government," explains Liu, who is in his 60s but climbs the steep slope faster than most young men.

Yang Yinglong fought the Ming Dynasty for a dozen years. At the zenith of his power, he seized many towns in Guizhou and Sichuan, even launching attacks in farther-flung provinces.

The Ming government mobilized forces from as many as eight provinces to turn the tide.

Around 1596, Yang Yinglong began to build up the fortress at Hailongtun.

To beef up the existing fortress and palace, he added nine bulwarks of giant stone gates and two more walls stretching five km on the exterior.

Inside this citadel were residences, temples, barracks and even a jail for water boarding. A nearby ground for horses could accommodate 10,000 of the animals, a historian from the later Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) wrote.

What we see now is the ruins of this palatial stronghold, which some call "the most reinforced medieval military castle in China".

One of the mounts hidden deep in this jungle of peaks rises so precipitously that the Chinese saying, "With one man on guard, an army of 10,000 cannot pass" suddenly makes sense.

In 1999, a flight of 36 stone stairs was discovered in thickets of shrubberies. Each step is 50 cm high and 2.6 m wide. One cannot walk up - one has to climb.

This is where thousands of Ming soldiers lost their lives while trying to capture the fortress.

"At the foot of the stairs, the corpses were piled this high," Liu says, in the tone of an old-time storyteller, with flourish and embellishments.

"There were cannons on the opposite peak, but they could not bring down Yang's army."

Scaling the heights brings you face-to-face with remnants of military tenacity.

In some places, giant, cleanly chiseled rocks are stacked atop of one another; in others, they are scattered like toys left by children who left in a hurry.

Most of the regular buildings are gone, except for the foundations. But the gates, called "passes", still inspire awe.

Crops now grow where Yang's warriors once defended themselves.

Liu, the tour guide, has lived here much of his adult life.

"I believe in ghosts and spirits," he says. "I feel they still haunt this peak."

But he is not afraid.

He sees Yang as a hero.

Historians like Fan Tongshou argue that chieftains essentially created serfdoms and strained social progress.

But Fan admits the imperial forces of the Ming and Qing dynasties were brutal and often resorted to massacres to bring chieftains to their knees.

Amid all the violence and gore, there was a love story.

While most serious historians say the tale is "highly fictional", it has become part of the Hailongtun legend.

It goes like this: Yang's daughter fell in love with a young serf, who wasn't allowed to come near the princess, let alone marry her.

They crooned love tunes across the cloudy gorge. Eventually, the daughter threw herself into the ravine, a la the end of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

The mountain's peak is around 2 sq km and quite flat. The place from which the princess plunged is so steep that no mortal could possibly climb up - so believed Yang Yinglong, who put all his forces on the front, the side with the 36 steps.

The Ming army recruited a few "spidermen", who stealthily mounted the precipice and then threw down ropes. Pretty soon, Ming soldiers were attacking from behind Yang.

Upon realizing he faced doomsday, Yang hanged himself along with two of his concubines. Everyone else was killed and hurled into the gorge.

Yang Yinglong left a couplet carved in stone. Part of it reads: "On top of Hailongtun, a half emperor sits over the world".

In a sense, he was toppled by this attitude. Liu, the tour guide, sits exactly where Yang once did, but nobody views him as a threat.

At our departure, he insists on giving all the good wishes he could find words for - and not only individually to those in our party but also to everyone in Beijing and the whole nation. "And a happy 60th anniversary for New China!" he says.