The story takes place at the end of Ming Dynasty and the beginning of Qing Dynasty, when the world was in chaos. The protagonist Jiao Ergou meets a group of low-level people on the way to escape: lame Li, deserter Sun Jinbao, female trader Wang Dajiao, village boss Cao Tou and girl Hu Xiaoniang. Everyone struggled to survive in the flames of war. Everyone carries their own secrets and scars, relying on each other, making fun of each other, and resolving the suffering in desperate situations. The multi-line plot is interspersed, showing the tenacity, friendship, warmth and sense of humor of self and history of human nature in war-torn times from the perspective of the people at the bottom. As the Qing forces moved south, everyone had to look for glimmers of light in the darkness. In the end, the small characters completed their own growth and redemption in the big era, and wrote a humble but great epic of troubled times.
