Director: Kang Honglei

Starring: Sun Hongtao  /  Sun Qian

First aired: 2016

Plot Summary:

     In the 1920s and 1930s, warlords waged relentless conflict, leaving the people in dire straits. Ji Hongchang endured hardship in the darkness… Seeking the truth to save the nation and its people, he followed Feng Yuxiang in his oath‑taking at Wuyuan to launch the Northern Expedition. During the Central Plains War, Ji Hongchang, enduring humiliation and bearing great burdens, was forced to pledge allegiance to Chiang Kai-shek and dispatched to suppress the Red Army. Yet he secretly supplied the Reds with food and ammunition; after conspiring with anti‑Chiang forces, he was dismissed and compelled to go abroad for “study.” At the time of the September 18 Incident and the Battle of Shanghai, he submitted a lengthy memorial pleading to join the war effort, but it vanished without a trace. When the Japanese occupied Chahar, Ji Hongchang, together with patriotic generals like Feng Yuxiang, established the Chahar Anti‑Japanese Allied Army. Just as this force was locked in fierce combat with the Japanese invaders, the traitorous government colluded with the Japanese to open hostilities against the Allied Army, forcing Feng Yuxiang to retire from public life. Ji Hongchang led his troops in bloody battles along the Great Wall for dozens of days, but, exhausted of ammunition and provisions, they were ultimately compelled to lay down their arms. Influenced by Liang Shixia and others, Ji Hongchang joined the Chinese Communist Party, participated in the Anti‑Fascist United Front, and organized an anti‑Japanese, anti‑Chiang coalition. He was placed on Chiang Kai-shek’s wanted list, arrested, and extradited to the Beijing Army Prison. Facing the guns of the treasonous regime, he met his martyrdom in bitter indignation: “I regret not dying in the fight against Japan, leaving only today’s shame. If the country can fall to such a fate, how could I begrudge my own head?”