Nine Gates

The Jiu Men (九门), or Nine Gates, are a fictional alliance of nine families in Changsha in the 1920s and 1930s, invented by Nanpai Sanshu for his Daomu Biji (The Lost Tomb) novels. Each family makes its living from ancient tombs, and each head is known by a title or nickname rather than a full name: Fo Ye (Zhang Qishan), Er Yuehong, Banjie Li ("Half Li"), Chen Pi A Si, Wu Laogou ("Old Dog Wu"), Heibei Laoliu ("Black-Back Six"), Huo Xiangu, Qi Tiezui ("Iron Mouth Qi") and Xie Jiu.

The families are ranked in three tiers of three. Traditionally the upper and middle tiers rob tombs themselves, while the lower tier, the Huo, Qi and Xie families, mostly deals in what comes out of them. The ranks matter in the stories: they decide who sits where, who answers to whom, and who inherits the trouble when a gate falls.

The Nine Gates sit somewhere between a criminal network and a jianghu brotherhood. They break the law, but the dramas also show them keeping relics out of foreign hands and protecting Changsha during the war with Japan. Their descendants, including Wu Laogou's grandson Wu Xie, become the heroes of the present-day Lost Tomb stories.

You'll meet them in The Mystic Nine (2016) and its 2026 sequel, Mystic Nine, which follows the gates as the government moves to break them up.