[2] Shimegi Kohei's brother, suborbinate to an engineer at a factory owned by the upstart Godai zaibatsu, is arrested during the March 15 police raids.

Takahata, also working for the Godai company, is abducted from a remote outpost by bandits, and offers to smuggle supplies to them in exchange for his freedom.

Takahata's arrangement is ended when a Japanese agent is spotted on one of his shipments, his post is destroyed, and his wife Motoko abducted.

Tsuge leaves for Taiwan to take part in an investigation into the Musha incident but after criticizing colonial policy, he is also ordered to Manchuria.

In Harbin, Tsuge, working for the Kempeitai, arrests Shigata for dealing in opium, but he is released due to his association with Godai.

Xu still leaves to join the Korean resistance, but turns back and sacrifices his band to divert a Japanese column away from the camp.

Atsuko arrives in Manchukuo and Shunsuke makes arrangements with Kyosuke to pay off Kano and elope with her as a Godai company employee.

After the Xi'an incident, the Chinese form a united front against the Japanese and the full-scale war between China and Japan begins.

Yoriko admits to her father that she married Kohei and lived with him under the guise of a week-long trip, and is told to leave the household.

Yusuke and Kyosuke are informed by Amemiya of an upcoming bill for general mobilization and concur that the government is preparing for war not only with China, but with the Soviet Union or United States.

When his unit is ordered to practice bayonet thrusts on Chinese prisoners, Kohei hesitates and is beaten unconscious by lance-corporal Taneda.

While Kohei is still recovering, Taneda takes him on guard duty along a railway and confides that he would have been beaten more severely had he been properly punished for insubordination.

However, when Kempaitai arrive to search her room for letters, she realizes that Kohei is still alive and has defected to the Chinese resistance.

The army launch a full-scale assault across the Khalkin Gol River, which ends in disaster, and Soviet advances also make no progress.

[9] The trilogy was praised in the Soviet Union for "the clarity of its conception, demonstrating not only the catastrophe of war but its ideology", but was denounced by Yao Wenyuan of the Gang of Four as "an extremely reactionary film that goes so far as to glorify fascists and aggressors".