Homeless

Homeless is a full-length military novel by Xueye Binghe. First serialized on Qidian Chinese Network, it was published as a single volume by Shaanxi Normal University Press in July 2007, comprising roughly 500,000 characters in twenty-five chapters. Set in China from the 1930s through the 1960s, the novel follows Lao Dan, an ordinary farmer from the Henan countryside whose only dream is to live a quiet life on his land with his wife and child. After the Japanese invasion, he is conscripted and thrown into the front lines on his very first day, where the bloodshed and absurdity of war strike him for the first time and sweep him into a historical torrent lasting more than three decades: the Battle of Xuzhou, the Battle of Wuhan, the Defense of Changde, where he and his comrades narrowly escape death in one brutal fight after another; then the fraternal slaughter on the Huaihai battlefield, his transformation after being absorbed into the People's Liberation Army, and his crossing of the Yalu River to fight in Korea. Battle-scarred and bearing wounds too numerous to count, he becomes a veritable veteran hero, yet one thought never leaves him: going home. But the end of war does not mean reunion; the tides of the times keep pushing him toward despair, and home, though close at hand, grows ever more distant. Through Lao Dan's humble yet tenacious life, the novel portrays a generation of farmers who tasted parting, fear, and despair amid the sweep of history, yet never abandoned their faith in returning home. The author says the book is written for the Chinese peasants who once endured such immense suffering.