1937in 2018, tong jiaru (played by yang zhigang) from rehe left his hometown to teach chinese at nie zhongcheng middle school in shanghai. he adopted a daughter and became disabled. he wanted to flee south again and was forced to stay. ddd。 witnessing the invaders to harm his compatriots, he swallowed his anger and only sought to save his life. student ouyang (played by zhang jiayi) works for the country and urgently needs an assistant, tong jiaru bit the bullet and help. ouyang died, tong jiaru was exposed to being targeted by japanese spy dongcun. he cleverly handled the task and got rid of suspicion. ouyang's boss yang xiao was arrested and tong jiaru rescued him. his wife, gardenia, had just given birth to her son, but was killed for protecting yang xiao. in half a year, all four murderers who participated in the killing of gardenia were killed by tong jiaru without showing off their strength. dongcun suffered from lack of evidence and tried to force tong to plead guilty with cruel torture instruments. the communists organized a parade of teachers and students to rescue tong jiaru. three years later, tong jiaru used himself as bait to help comrades from the kuomintang and the communist party unite with the japanese spy base. when the japanese invaders surrendered, dongcun was unwilling to fail to kidnap hope, and forced tong jiaru to duel with him. the comrades subdued the east village and rescued hope. dongcun scolded tong as a coward, and tong jiaru told him: "the chinese have a brave heart when dealing with invaders.