Tales of Xiejie Street

The Chronicles of Xiejie takes the thousand-year-old trading town of Chuwang in northern Henan as its narrative center, tracing the rise and fall of Xiejie on the banks of the Wei River. It paints a sweeping picture of how the tides of history from 1934 to 1952, from the Agrarian Revolution through the War of Resistance, the War of Liberation, and land reform, swept over a prosperous town, bringing it down in flames and raising it anew from the ruins.

The novel follows the changing fortunes of three ordinary young men: Kong Yishan, a poor boy; Liu Xi, an adopted son of the streets; and Liu Zhangqun, a compassionate doctor. They begin as boys from the lowest rung of society, scavenging coal and selling pastries or practicing medicine to help the sick. Awakened by progressive ideas, they join the revolution amid bandit raids, Japanese invasion, and power struggles. They wield covert intelligence, cover among the common folk, and medical aid as weapons, holding fast to their beliefs through white terror and the flames of war. The story links the spark of ideas at Chuwang Middle School, secret battles at Japanese puppet-regime blockhouses, the thunderous strike of the Chegu campaign, and the people’s jubilant songs as land is redistributed. It binds individual destinies to the nation’s peril and the town’s turbulent past, depicting the suffering and sacrifice of a chaotic age while celebrating the light of ideals, the strength of the people, and the undying spark of revolution. Thus it forges an epic of ordinary heroes, etched into the Wei River Plain.