This novel mainly describes the difficult transformation of the lower classes in Northern Jiangsu from spiritual desolation to the establishment of beliefs in the decades between the 1920s and 1937 when the Japanese soldiers massacred civilians in Nanjing. Focusing on the small town of Wujiaji in Northern Jiangsu and the maturity of the main character Zhang Rujin (pet name Nafu), the novel highlights the historical change of the common people from paying no attention to national affairs to devoting themselves to the cause of fighting against Japanese aggressors. It can be called the annals of the Chinese lower society in the first half of the 20th century. It also offers a profound and objective analysis of the living condition and spiritual world of the lower classes in China during that turbulent period to the extent that this is a rare epic in China about the life of common people on the Northern Jiangsu Plain.