山高必有怪，冷峻卻生精。So says Water Margin, one of the six great Chinese classic. Kaiju Yi Zuo Shan/It started with a mountain/Rise of the Mountain Chief/etc, is no Water margin, it's a webcomic drawn by an artist whose art can be called serviceable at best, but it does echo some of the themes of that legendary novel. We can best describe it as a webcomic that starts off with a pretty generic isekai setting with a system and some power-fantasy glazing of the protagonist that quickly grows beyond this premise by taking its world and setting quite seriously and transforming into a tale of Chaos Under Heaven, with heroes and villains aplenty.

At around chapter 20, you start to see the first inklings that this webcomic is not all it seems, at chapter 40, you're starting to get into the swing of things, and at chapter 80, the webcomic blows itself open at its hinges and reveals its true heart to the reader. This is mostly a story about what happens to people during the decline of a dynasty. Throughout Chinese history, dynastic shifts are almost always accompanied by immense amounts of human suffering. The narrative draws upon that keenly in order to paint its setting. The regional lords and greedy and powermongering, the governors are disloyal, the emperor is fatuous and/or powerless, the noble princes and princesses are suppressed by their unscrupulous siblings- all those with a good heart who care for the people are suppressed by their surroundings except for the bandits. Those who live on the outskirts and only seek eek out another day of living must take action to save the world because nobody else can.

I've read this webcomic up to chapter 590ish. It's a pretty decent story. Not spectacular, it still relies on pretty common genre caveat and its gag humor sometimes falls flat. Sometimes its characters are fleshed out to an impressive degree, sometimes they're understood to be there just because you need a character like that. But when it wants to hit a mood, it generally manages to hit that mood and when it wants to tell a narrative, generally that narrative will sink in and stay for quite a good while. Not going to be a classic by any standard, but it's well executed and worth reading. Among webcomics, it's one of the better ones, possibly even the best of the genre. There are better webnovels out there, but those don't come with illustrations and Zhui Xu is yet to be translated into English beyond even the first arc so you're kind of out of luck there.

Typical shtty manhua art style and translation bro💀💀 maybe I've been spoiled by the works of art I've been reading recently, bcs I used to read these kinds of shtty manhua without batting an eye— but now its just irritating me. Maybe in the future, i’ll try reading this

Slow start but get better overtime
Also i like manhua with lot chapter
So its great for me

It basically has what I dislike the most about these types of manhuas.

Modern person gets isekaid with no consequence to the plot as it's purely for a reader to be able to self-insert or find the MC more relatable since he can be viewed as your average guy from modern times.

A goddess/anthropomorphised game-like system with gacha that functions as lazy plot armour and have it's main personality trait be that the MC finds them annoying but has to listen to them since it's the only way for him to survive leading to dry slapstick comedy scenes.

Horny, down bad, rapey thinking process of the MC. Common sense of modern person be damned, he only really thought of getting a "wife" and sleeping with them (somebody whom he had never met before nor had a conversation with) Ignoring the pros, cons of the situation (such as the fact he's alone, there are multiple armed escorts) during one of the first few situations he gets himself into but it's okay due to gacha system plot armour.

I read hundreds of manhua but very few out there have the kingdom building plot, this series not only has the kingdom building plot, but there is also wars. Main character gets development here and there, the story progresses nicely, I have to say that they stretched out one arc for way too long, which is why I initially gave this series 6->7/10, the reason why I gave it an 8 now is because this type of manhua is rare, and its also pretty good art wise, and has a decent cast. It does have ur common used tropes such as (isekai, system,annoying girl hitting mc for comedic purposes) but they complement the series nicely, and the annoying girl gets sent into the shadow realm for dozens of chapters(guessing chinese readers told author to either get her off-screen or fix her atitude)

At first sight "It Starts with a Mountain" is yet another lame manhua mixing isekai, martial arts and a system, for many that alone is reason enough to drop it right there, but sometimes (really rarely) something good comes out of giving this kind of manhua a chance, this is one of those.

Having said that, it's the story of a modern age guy that transmigrates (not clear) into a world similar to a game he was playing as a bandit, leader of a bandit camp that's in ruins, he then gets a system that forces him to do things to make the camp prosper, ranging from recruiting someone, to saving others or stealing people, cities, etc.. I'm aware it sounds dumb, but I recommend sticking with it for at least 20ch before throwing the towel. The story after the intro is that of a resourceful guy that struggles to thrive in this world, him getting stronger is not the main thing, but his whole group getting stronger is. The good thing is that the storytelling is good, the problems he faces, the actions his enemies, him and the characters take are believable and reasonable, it has a lot of comedy mixed in so some things look dumb but the plot itself makes sense and is cohesive, imo. Above all, the journey is not a flowery road, the MC suffers defeat or hold-ups a few times, he not always gets what he wants and so his victories are fought for, unexpected from a story with a system (of course there are some inevitable convenient moments, although it rarely is the kind that happens out of nowhere and mid-fight to same the MC).

As for the characters, the MC is great, he's a normal guy that struggles through, he's a bit detached at first for a person from the present thrown into a classic China setting were wars are constant, but it's later explained why, he's so far, a good guy and he's a mature character, he's willing to do what needs to be done to achieve his goal when there's no other choice, but would otherwise try the hard way to uphold his morals. Then there is a huge secondary cast with characters of different degrees of relevance, some are interesting, others annoying, others funny and so on, but they all feel distinct and well thought, also, the different female leads are more than there for decoration as it often happens in manhuas. Even the enemies are varied, from the dumb guy there to be slapped to smart or conniving adversaries that might actually win against him.

The art is quite good when it wants to (specially for manhua), the pace is quite good considering it's already over 300ch and it's still going strong, just know that there are long stretches without fights, the dialogues are fitting and even deep at times (though the translation doesn't help here) and the comedy has it's moments and is sparse after a while.
The negative points might be that the humor is a bit dumb at times, the existence of a system itself is a minus and the loli system is annoying at times (but later develops as an interesting char) and the story, while well told isn't particularly original but telling the story of the Toad village rather than only the MC is different than most (still not that uncommon thou). And, the harem, it's done slowly but there are too many maidens in distress that end up with the MC in the 300+ chapters that are out.

Overall, I'd say its one of the best manhuas with ancient China setting and it has been a surprise to read for the past year or so I've been following it.

Great thanks to Realm for the hard work, the translation is lacking, but it's better than standard MTL crap.

Edit: 500+ chapters in and still going strong this one is excellent.