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The novel is set in western Hunan in the final years of the War of Resistance Against Japan. Most people know of Zhijiang Airfield, but few are aware that another airfield, Phoenix Airfield, lay hidden in the Wuling Mountains; and no one knows that on the eve of the Xuefeng Mountain Campaign, a Japanese special-operations squadron raided Phoenix Airfield and then vanished mysteriously into the vast Wuling range. The story centers on Wang Shihua, a son of a prominent local clan. Ruthless in advancing his family's rise, he stops at almost nothing; to bolster its prestige, he three times stages the "Torch Wine" ceremony to rally clan members and local militia. Yet this same man, who once kept silent on and shied away from the very word "resistance," ultimately lights the Torch Wine without hesitation and personally leads four hundred suicide volunteers deep into the Wuling Mountains to intercept the vanished Japanese unit.

Beginning with clan feuds, ethnic strife, and rivalry among local power brokers, the novel unfolds against the mounting threat of foreign invasion as the great families set aside old grievances and join together in defense of the nation, seeking to express the theme that "only when the nation is strong can the family know peace." The author states that the book is a work of fiction, with plot and characters alike being literary inventions, though it draws extensively on the geography of western Hunan, the folk customs of the Tujia people, and the historical atmosphere of local support for Zhijiang Airfield and participation in the war effort.