In order to fulfill his father's legacy, Huang Bai, an overseas Chinese in Sydney, responded to Dr. Sun Yat-sen's call to "save the country through industry" and returned to China with his family. In the 10th year of the Republic of China (AD 1921), Wanguo Department Store was founded in Shanghai. He became the competitor of Xu Zihou, chairman of Jiusheng Department Store, the largest department store in Shanghai and a former comprador of a German foreign company, as well as his eldest son Xu Chonghan and his second son Xu Chongxuan who returned from France, thus kicking off a business legend in Shanghai, a ten-mile foreign market.
The 17 years that the story spans (1921-1937 AD), if measured using the historical timeline, would only span the blink of an eye. But for some of the protagonists in the story, it was the most beautiful period of their lives!
From the May 30th Incident to the Northern Expedition of the National Revolutionary Army, to the fall of Shanghai after the Songhu Battle, and into the period of isolation, on the stage of the Ten Thousand Kingdoms and Long Sheng, whether they are ambitious returning entrepreneurs, wily local businessmen, speculators who are good at making money, traitors who follow the trend, or humble and cautious middle-class intellectuals , passionate patriotic young people, and the working people at the bottom of society, in this era of national crisis, internal and external troubles, and turmoil, without exception, they are all involuntarily caught in the torrent of history, struggling up or down, and each performing the tragedy and comedy of life of love, hate, sadness, joys and sorrows.
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