In the sixth year of Xianfeng's reign (1856), in the Ailao Mountains of Yunnan.
Li Wenxue, a Yi man, rallied his forces at Tiansheng Camp and launched an uprising under the banner “Act in Heaven's name, divide the land fairly, and bring peace to the people.” He led five thousand impoverished people from different ethnic groups in a nearly twenty-year war against the Qing court. After the rebellion failed, Li Wenxue was captured and executed. His son, Li Jizu, took up the commander's banner and continued the struggle against the warlords of the Republic of China.
From the late Qing to the Republic, and from the Republic to the People's Republic of China, the rebel soldiers carried on the fight, one generation after another. Some died on the battlefield, some lived under assumed names, and some devoted their whole lives to guarding Li Wenxue's secret tomb. For eleven generations and more than a hundred and fifty years, the Li family have kept watch over the tomb without a break. They guard not just a grave, but the hope that the poor will never again be bullied.
This is a national epic about faith and steadfast devotion. The commander's banner, riddled with bullet holes, still hangs in a museum today. It cannot speak, but it remembers everything.
