Not that a larger population couldn't have been cared for. Oh, not by the villagers. As a fishing village, Sinanju had always been a failure. The waters of the West Korea Bay supported little marine life. If there had been fish there at one time, the bay had long since been fished out. The surrounding plains were bad for farming, not that the villagers had ever shown much of an aptitude for agriculture. There were no minerals to mine, no crafts with which to barter. There was nothing really that the people of Sinanju had to offer.

At least not on the surface. That's where Remo came in.

Sinanju had one great asset, one shining jewel amid the cold and mud that made it far greater than it appeared.

The tiny, seemingly inconsequential village was home to the Masters of Sinanju. The most ancient and deadly martial art had been born on these inhospitable shores. Death was the brush of the Masters of Sinanju; the world their canvas.

If all the other, lesser martial arts were rays, Sinanju was the sun source. The rest had splintered from it. And, being but imitations, they were all inferior. Sinanju was the pure source, the essence of what could be for men in complete control of mind and body.

Since the start, the Masters of Sinanju had used their skills as assassins. And they excelled at their craft. Scalpels employed to take the place of clumsy armies, the Korean assassins were capable of feats that would seem superhuman to the average man.

There were only two Masters of Sinanju in a generation, teacher and pupil. But that was more than enough. The people of Sinanju need never work, for the efforts of the Masters of Sinanju kept them fed and warm.

Since before the time of the pharaohs, emissaries had come to the village to retain the services of the famed Sinanju assassins. And for aeons empires flourished or fell thanks to the secret services of the men from Sinanju.