Beacon Fire in Luzhou

In the winter of the twenty-sixth year of the Republic of China (1937), the biting cold wind carried the smell of gunpowder smoke in the North and swept across the Jianghuai Plain. The gunfire at Marco Polo Bridge has not stopped, the bloody battle in Songhu has just ended, the city of Nanjing has fallen to the iron hoof of the Japanese invaders, and the wails of 300,000 compatriots are shaking the world. The dark clouds of war pounced unstoppably on Hefei, the capital of Luzhou, which is "the lips and teeth of the south of the Yangtze River and the throat of the right breast of the Huaihe River". This thousand-year-old city, together with the streets, lanes, lakes and mountains inside and outside its walls, as well as the people who have lived here for generations, are about to be involved in a bloody purgatory related to the survival of the country and the dignity of the nation. Zhu Shouyi, a squire in Modian, Feidong, Zhu Shengxuan, a dye shop owner in Yicang Lane, Zhu Jiwen, a female teacher in Gospel Hall... Countless ordinary children of Luzhou and Jianghuai, where will their destiny be pushed by this huge wave? What kind of soul-stirring chapter will their love, hate, and righteousness for their family and country write in these war-torn years? The story begins with the centuries-old "Bench Kung Fu" passed down by the Zhu family in Modian and the early morning bustle of Yicang Lane...