It describes the story of rural areas in eastern Hebei in the 1980s. It takes the suffering and death of the Tian family as the main line, showing all kinds of characters in the countryside in the new period. There is a remote mountain village in eastern Hebei called Tianjiazhuang, but Tian is the only one in the village, and the only family named Tian is also in danger of extinction. Tian has two sons. The eldest son, Liu Gen, is twenty-seven or eight years old and hasn't found a partner yet. The second son, Bao Gen, is 24 years old. He failed in the college entrance examination for three years, and still squatted in his shabby house to review his lessons. It was the first early spring in the 1980s. Honest Tian Zheng and Liu Gen were carrying stones over mountains and mountains together to build a house. No girl can afford to build a house, and the father and son are too tired to vomit blood. At noon that day, the old landlord invited Tian to dinner, because his son Ba Ping-an got married today. The bride is the girl who once met Liu Gen and thought that Liu Gen had no house. In the red brick courtyard walls of Bajia, you come and go, the drummers in the western class compete to blow the trumpet, and Qiu Zhiguo, secretary of the village party branch, comes to congratulate the village cadres, which is very lively. Looking at others and thinking about himself, Tian was so sad that he was half drunk and walked silently to the ancestral grave for a long time. After liberation, the old landlord Bafulai was controlled for 30 years. 1979, the village took off his landlord hat according to the central document. After the implementation of the responsibility system, Qiu Zhiguo took the initiative to contract the orchard in the village to Bafulai at a low price in order to show his determination to implement the central policy. Ba Fulai only sprayed medicine a few times, earned seven or eight thousand dollars a year for nothing, built a new house, and his 40-year-old son also married a daughter-in-law. The orchard was built by the whole village in several years, and a nephew of Jiantian Orchard died, so now there is only one family left. At the time of contracting, Tian Baogen, a high school graduate in the village, Guo, secretary of the Communist Youth League branch and a group of young people asked to jointly contract the orchard. Qiu Zhiguo disagreed and simply contracted it to Bafulai. Therefore, the villagers are full of resentment against Qiu Zhiguo and Ba Fulai. Qiu Zhiguo once had a glorious history. He was the leader of land reform, cooperation and learning from Dazhai, but now he has become a local tyrant. He contracted the kiln to Kong Xiangfa and joined the "power stock" himself-participated in the management in the name of the secretary of the village party branch and made a fortune. Most people in Tianjiazhuang still live in poverty. Seeing that Tianjiazhuang had no way out, young people ran away. Su Jixiang went to the Red Flag Brigade when he was a son-in-law, and Guo went to the south seaside to beg for famine, and lost the title of secretary of the Youth League branch to run business. Baogen is naughty, smart and competitive. He doesn't want to be a farmer, struggling in poverty and hard work like his father and brother. He is determined to make his own way to see Qiu Zhiguo. In summer, when the house was built, Baogen was admitted to a technical secondary school, packed his luggage and went to school in Beijing. After several twists and turns, Liu Gen's marriage finally made progress. Du Shuyuan is a kind and simple mountain girl. When her parents died, she gave her grandmother a pension, raised her younger brother Du Youzhi, and then found her husband's family. She asked Liugen to buy her an imported watch, and Liugen agreed. However, an imported watch needs 158 yuan. Liu Gen knew that his parents were exhausted to build the house, and he really couldn't bear to let his parents suffer for the watch again. That night, he took a pair of pliers to the store in Yanshan town to steal watches. On the way, he met an electrician in Tianjiazhuang. The electrician said that his relative's house was stolen and the thief was put in prison. Liugen realized that if he did this, he would go to prison, so he hurried home. But the electrician told him that Baogen was not admitted to any technical school at all, but only worked as a coolie on the construction site in the county. He said he would go to school in Beijing, which was purely a face-saving prank. After getting this news, Aunt Tian rushed to the county to find Baogen the next day. Baogen smirked and lied that he couldn't learn real skills at school, so he dropped out of school and went to the construction site to learn technology. He borrowed 160 yuan from Aunt abel tamata, saying that it was his savings and asked his mother to take it back to buy a watch for her sister-in-law. Aunt Tian believed it and returned to Tianjiazhuang happily. Tian Liugen bought Du Shuyuan a watch. On the fifteenth day of the first month of the following year, the two married and the family lived in harmony. Later, Aunt Tian overheard that Baogen's money was borrowed, not a deposit at all, and she was angry and worried. She was afraid that Baogen would play tricks outside and get into trouble, so she let him go home to find his wife and be a farmer honestly. In order to continue wandering outside, Baogen took his friend's wife home, saying that she was my object in the city, and went home for the Mid-Autumn Festival to get engaged, so that the family would no longer worry about him. Aunt Tian Tian laughed happily. Baogen returned to the county seat and still worked as a coolie in the infrastructure team. Because of his cleverness and loyalty, he soon learned to build a wall and drive a car. In summer, the construction team built a large cold storage in the county, and all the bricks were supplied by Kong Xiangfa of Tianjiazhuang and the brick kiln contracted by Qiu Zhiguo. Kong Xiangfa and Qiu Zhiguo colluded with the person in charge of the cold storage, and used the method of collecting more money and paying less bricks to embezzle a large amount of state funds. After learning about this, Baogen grasped the evidence through an acquaintance who was responsible for transporting bricks and complained to the county government. However, the county transferred the materials to the village, and the township head had a relationship with Qiu Zhiguo. The news leaked to Qiu Zhigen without success. Yaohua Chen, a brick kiln accountant, is a classmate of Baogen and has always loved Baogen. Baogen knew that she was related to Qiu Zhiguo and the head of the township. Without money and power, it is difficult to survive. She was worried that she didn't have the same language as herself, and she hesitated. Now, he decided to get more conclusive evidence through Yaohua Chen and beat Qiu Zhiguo. Although Aunt Tian was happy for her second son to find a girl in the city, she saved face and talked about the old rules. She also wanted to give her second daughter-in-law an imported watch on the day of engagement. I think only in this way can the two sons be even. The Mid-Autumn Festival is coming, and the money for the watch has not yet been settled. Aunt Tian was so anxious that she had to humbly borrow Du Shuyuan's watch for her second daughter-in-law, but Du Shuyuan blushed and refused. Aunt Tian was anxious, angry and sad, saying that Du Shuyuan was heartless. Liu Gen also told Du Shuyuan how he almost became a thief for that watch and how Bao Gen borrowed money. But Du Shuyuan still disagreed. On the morning of Mid-Autumn Festival, Aunt Tian rushed to Yanshan Town to find Du Youzhi and wanted Du Youzhi to convince Du Shuyuan. Only when I met Du Youzhi did I know that Du Shuyuan wanted to import watches for her younger brother. At that time, Du Youzhi was looking for someone, and the woman insisted on an imported watch. Du Shuyuan had no choice but to ask for it at home. She got the watch and secretly gave it to her brother without taking it once. Now her mother-in-law borrowed her watch, and she was embarrassed to tell the truth, so she had to turn it down with a red face. At home, Du Shuyuan felt sorry for her mother-in-law and her husband, and took a bottle of pesticide into the mountain and committed suicide. But thinking of her family's care and love for her and the descendants in her belly, she woke up, broke the medicine bottle and went back. A truck stopped beside her, and Bao Gen, who was dashing and dusty, got off. Now, he and a group of friends have organized a private construction company and served as deputy managers. Du Shuyuan took Bao Gen's car back to the village. Yaohua Chen is waiting at the village entrance. She told Baogen that Qiu Zhiguo had a wide network of contacts and a hard foundation, and advised Baogen not to ask for trouble, but Baogen did not accept her suggestion. Tian Jia saw Du Shuyuan's crooked suicide note in a big mess, and saw Du Shuyuan coming back with Bao Gen, and Tian Dacheng was crying with his daughter-in-law. The Tian family had a happy reunion festival. Tian Lao and his wife found that Baogen had grown up and had a bright future, and decided to leave his marriage alone.