The Yellow River was frozen, the veteran general died for his country, and the golden soldiers pressed the border.
Refugee Shen Yan knelt on the ice and put the knife to his chin. Behind him were hundreds of defeated soldiers who were short of food and clothing, and in front of them was a frozen Yellow River. No reinforcements, no retreat. He wants to live, everyone wants to live. But those who want to live are often the first to die.
This is a group of imperfect people. Afraid of death, they withdraw, have nightmares, and complain privately. The veteran thought about running away, the boy cried and missed his mother in the middle of the night, and someone almost sold the entire team to Jin Bing in order to find his kidnapped granddaughter.
But they didn't disperse.
From the frozen Heshuo to the misty Jiangnan, from the thousands of miles of migration to the stalemate at the barrier, this team of refugees traveled all the way south and took root along the way. They cultivated land, stored food, and resettled refugees, and they managed to create a world of fireworks in the cracks of troubled times. They are not heroes, they are just a group of people who have lost all retreat and are forced by friendship and obsession to hold on to the bottom line.
This book is set against the background of the great changes in the mountains and rivers between the two Song Dynasties. It uses the deeds of famous generals such as Yue Fei, Han Shizhong, and Zong Ze to describe the tolerance and redemption of the wronged ministers. The Yellow River, Huaisi, and Jiangnan—geography is the narrative, and customs are the flesh and blood. The frostbite on the glacier, the broken bowl in the alleyway, and the note hidden in the cigarette rod, every real-life line drawing is the texture of history.
It describes how ordinary people can maintain the bloody nature of "fearing death but not retreating" in desperate situations, and how to retain the warmth of a bowl of hot porridge in the bitter cold.
Not because someone became a hero, but because every ordinary person did not turn around.
