Street Fighting Night

Mr. Zhang Henshui's novel "Street Fighting Night" is based on the crisis situation on the eve of the fall of Tianjin after the "July 7th Incident" in 1937. It focuses on the survival and struggle of the intellectual Zhang Jingcun and the ordinary citizens around him in the war. The story begins with a special "anniversary" - the guerrilla leader looks back on his street fighting experience in Tianjin last year. Subsequently, the novel flashes back to the eve of the incident: the situation in Tianjin is becoming increasingly tense and people are panicked. The protagonist Zhang Jingcun reluctantly bid farewell to his wife and children and went south, but he decided to stay behind and wanted to witness the fate of this city with his own eyes. As the Japanese army pressed closer and closer, the city of Tianjin was in turmoil, and people of all colors had very different mentality: Zhang Jingcun was worried about the country and the people, and actively sought to contribute; the landlord, Mr. Chen, and his family were wavering between fear, peace, and reluctance to abandon their family property; the people at the bottom, such as coachmen and servants, were initially confused and numb, but gradually awakened to the spirit of resistance under the atrocities of the Japanese invaders. The climax of the novel vividly depicts the tragic and tragic night during the "July 28" Tianjin Defense War. Zhang Jingcun was involuntarily involved in a bloody street fight that took place at the entrance of his alley. Led by soldiers of the 29th Army, he and other ordinary citizens fought the invading Japanese army with their flesh and blood and simple weapons (blade, shovel, hoe), creating an astonishing result of "four to seventy-nine". This spontaneous resistance profoundly revealed the test of human nature caused by war, the awakening of national consciousness and the birth of civilian heroism. In the end, under the brutal bombing and continuous military pressure of the Japanese army, Zhang Jingcun led the surviving neighbors to break out of the encirclement and evacuated the scorched earth of Tianjin. The novel ends on the "Second Anniversary" two years later. Zhang Jingcun is behind the scenes, looking back on the past, filled with the hope of regaining his homeland and the complex emotions of peace.