Jianghu (江湖; jiānghú; gong1wu4; 'rivers and lakes') is a Chinese term that generally refers to the milieu in which many Chinese wuxia, xianxia, and gong'an stories are set. The term is used flexibly, and can be used to describe a fictionalized version of rural historical China (usually using loose influences from across the ~1000 BC–280 AD period); a setting of feuding martial arts clans and the people of that community; a secret and possibly criminal underworld; a general sense of the "mythic world" where fantastical stories happen; or some combination thereof. A closely related term, wulin (武林; wǔlín; 'martial forest'), refers to the community of martial artists that inhabit a jianghu setting.