Ten-Corner Draw: Fight to the Death in the War of Resistance

In 1944, Japanese invaders surrounded Shijiao Village in North China, cutting it off completely and demanding that the villagers hand over the hidden guerrilla fighters. The old clan chief brought out the long-sealed Ten-Cornered Bronze Box, a box of lots left behind during the resistance against the Qing at the end of the Ming dynasty. Of its ten lots, only one meant "life"; the other nine meant "death." The village's able-bodied men drew lots in turn. Whoever drew a death lot had to fight to the death, covering the others as they broke through. The blacksmith, the hunter, the schoolteacher, even a boy barely grown... One death lot after another was drawn, and no one backed down. It was the most desperate of draws, and the most unyielding answer: beneath the Ten Corners, fight the invaders to the death, and never surrender!