An old leper who owned a remote sorghum winery dies. Jiu'er, the wife bought by the leper, and her lover, identified only as "my Grandpa" by the narrator, take over the winery and set up an idealized quasi-matriarchal community headed by Jiu'er. When the Japanese invaders subject the area to their rule and cut down the sorghum to make way for a road, the community rises up and resists as the sorghum grows anew.
An old mother of five struggles to get by after her husband is killed during the liberation war. The simple and kind-hearted Ah-Fu stumbles across them, and tries to help them as much as he can.
A wounded soldier of the Northeast Anti-Japanese forces is found and helped by a local girl. They fall in love, but the soldier wants to return to his team.
In 1946, Chiang Kaishek commits 200,000 troops to an attack on the Communist-held central plains of China. After the PLA main force in the area retreats, the Nationalists also capture the area around the Dabie Mountains. County Party Committee Secretary Liu and county organizations department director Mo Wenjie lead a guerrilla troop against the KMT forces. Will the film belief of the revolutionary cadre be able to overcome not only the enemy, but cold, hunger and betrayal?
