Youth spent on the battlefield, homeland adrift.
Every inch of our land, longing turned to blood.
From then on, we marched south, through a storm of war;
From then on, we fought in the north, our lives steeped in bloodshed.
The wind rises suddenly, the water is still cold.
The heartless are always troubled by the devoted,
Love and hate have nothing to do with wind or moonlight.
A stirring song of war
sweeps across a thousand peaks,
but the lonely city must close its gates.
Gazing into the distance,
the song is not yet finished, but the east grows pale.
>>> Gu Qingyi returned from studying in the United States. She once shared her youth with four brothers from Whampoa: her loving older brother, Gu Qingyuan; her devoted friend, Zheng Junze; Xie Huaian, who loved her wholeheartedly; and Shen Muy an, whom she had always admired. In 1937, with the nation in peril, the four gradually left for different battlefields. Under the guidance of Fu Yuheng, a secret Party member, she found her own beliefs. She traveled through Hunan and Yunnan, then joined like-minded people in Guilin, Guangxi, to take part in the war against Japan. She met classmates from her time in America, including a war correspondent and a pilot with the American Volunteer Group. They all fought for their people and for justice. As war fires blazed across the land, where could love find a home? Love and loyalty alike settled with the passing years, as the war drew to a close. Looking back, only you were still there.
