The EK towns are all members of the Chinese syndicate in w9. There are a few towns besides the EK towns they control, their people are moving in and out of these towns all the time.
One player CNzhou, a level 12 player last time I looked, were extremely busy last week, he challenged 4 big forts in 5 days, he was in a town called BMW, now called new, yes just "new". It was him who challenged our big fort, where players from the Chinese towns, including that Chinese town we thought we had an alliance with, showed up in droves to attack us and where our other so-called allied turned their backs at us. I also noticed some players from some other towns participating in the attack in that battle report. "Made in Hong Kong"!
So yes, I think it's safe to say that the Chinese towns truly have found gold in the Black Mountains from the adventurer's quest, they certainly have found some gold mines somewhere.
Send me an ingame telegram in w9 for more information, also about how my emails have a tendency to disappear into the void of cyberspace. That's a very weird but also intriguing story!
As for this infight of the EK Fancy towns, I guess they just have too much money so they need to burn off some to fight each other. The result is the same, a Chinese fort is being lost and won by the Chinese! ::shrug::