The towering Yimeng Mountains bore witness to years of war, while the monument atop Mount Mengliang enshrined the undying souls of the fallen.
In 1938, the Japanese army’s iron heels shattered the peace of Yimeng. After his home was destroyed and his family suffered, Shigen, a young man from Taiping Village, resolutely joined the resistance. He grew from a poor farmer into a brave soldier. His wife, Li Xiulian, led the women of Yimeng in sewing uniforms, rescuing the wounded, and delivering food to the troops, shouldering the burden of keeping the home front going. Ming Deying, a mute woman known as a Red Sister-in-Law, saved a wounded soldier with her breast milk. Old Shi risked his life to deliver intelligence. Millions of Yimeng people built an iron wall of unity between soldiers and civilians with their own flesh and blood.
After victory in the War of Resistance, civil war erupted. The Kuomintang’s elite 74th Division advanced deep into Yimeng, alone. In the Battle of Mount Mengliang, the East China Field Army achieved the seemingly impossible, taking the enemy commander’s head from amid a million troops. Shigen fought through a bloody assault, while Li Xiulian led thirty-two women into an icy river to form a human bridge under fire, a sight that shook the world. Civilians supporting the front stepped forward one after another, and heroic soldiers risked everything. At last, a great victory turned the tide of war.
Through the lives of ordinary people, this novel bears witness to great historical events. It tells the heroic saga of Yimeng’s soldiers and civilians, bound together like water and milk and sharing life and death, preserving forever the devotion to country and home and the loyal hearts of those wartime years in the mountains and rivers atop the plateau.
Good book, worth reading!
It's very real and very interesting. It's rare to come across such a good book. I hope the author will work hard and write better, updated and true books.
It's good to watch, but some plot points could be cut out.