Old Stories in Yantun

In the seventeenth year of the Republic of China, soldiers and bandits were rampant in western Shandong. The tenant farmer Zhao Laowen left his hometown with his wife and children and embarked on a road to survive in Guandong. After suffering hunger, cold, and displacement all the way, the refugees were scattered dead and injured. The family narrowly escaped death and arrived at Yantongtun on the banks of the Songhua River in Northeast China. Living in a shack and working hard as a coolie, Zhao Laowen's family was exploited and bullied. Fortunately, the local old Orion Guan Shoushan helped them open up wasteland, cultivate land, and establish themselves. After several years of hard work, they finally built an adobe house and secured a few acres of thin farmland. They were just beginning to see stability when the September 18th Incident broke out and the Northeast fell. The troubled times crushed ordinary people's expectations for food and clothing. After the Japanese army entered, they confiscated food and occupied forest farms, making the people's lives difficult. Zhao Laowen's family went from being patient and surviving to feeling resentful after witnessing the atrocities. With the help of Guanshou Mountain, they took the risk to take in the sick and wounded anti-Japanese people. They used the farmyard as a cover to secretly deliver food and messages to the anti-Japanese forces in the mountains and forests. The son Huzi grew up to be a traffic officer, and the daughter Xiuer cleverly concealed herself as a child. The ordinary family shouldered the responsibility of guarding the land and protecting the family. Under the Japanese army's siege and suppression of the countryside, the Zhao family was in danger several times. The neighbors gathered together to defend each other, some stood firm, and some sacrificed their lives. From the desperate struggle to survive in Guandong to the secret struggle during the fall, the Zhao family spent half their life writing the story of refugees settling down and civilians defending the country on the black soil. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War in 1945, peace returned to Yantongtun, and the Zhao family welcomed a new life with the land they had cultivated for half their lives. This period of fireworks and perseverance hidden in the cold years is not only the ups and downs of a family, but also a true epitome of a generation of Guandong people trying to survive, settle down, and protect their mountains and rivers in troubled times.