After the September 18th Incident, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the troops not to resist. In just a few short months, Japanese invaders had trampled across vast swathes of the Northeast. Unwilling to live as slaves in a conquered nation, the people of the Northeast rose up in resistance.
Xue Shoucheng, the third son of a liquor-shop owner in Pingyang Town, said goodbye to his newlywed wife and joined the Volunteer Army, throwing himself into the fight against Japanese aggression. He endured the Volunteer Army's rise and decline, its retreat to the Soviet Union, and finally its difficult return to the motherland through Xinjiang.
