Henan gives Wu Dawang’s story its geographic and social frame: he begins as a poor farmer in a remote western mountain village, serves in barracks on the province’s eastern plains, and eventually receives an assignment to a city in his native province. Across these settings, movement toward the city becomes a measure of advancement, while military restructuring redirects the future he had tried to secure through years of service and personal promises.

Rural origins

At twenty-two, Wu Dawang lives in Wujiagou, a poor, remote, drought-stricken village in the mountains of western Henan. His father has died, leaving him and his widowed mother with a difficult livelihood. His mother keeps him in school until he is sixteen; that education later qualifies him to become the accountant of the village production team. The rural beginning is therefore both an experience of deprivation and the source of the skills and ambitions he carries into military life.

The prospect of leaving the village becomes bound to marriage. Wu promises Zhao Ezi’s father that he will win commendations, join the Party, and become an official, then bring Zhao Ezi to a city where she can eat steamed rolls every day. If he fails, he pledges not to return to Wujiagou unless she allows it. The promise makes urban relocation a concrete measure of success, but also turns career advancement into an obligation owed to his wife and her family.

Military life on the eastern plains

The narrative places the Division barracks on the plains of eastern Henan. In one remembered evening, the sunset marks the close of Wu Dawang’s kitchen work and gardening in the Division Commander’s compound; beyond its gate, a relief patrol crosses the courtyard, and he recognizes a soldier from his former company. The provincial landscape and the routines of military life meet at the guarded compound, where Wu’s household service is part of a larger hierarchy.

The eastern plains also provide the setting for the Division’s mass political and military activities. During a hot midsummer evening, soldiers gather across the drill ground, roads, and company yards for post-meal drills and educational activities. The senior officers’ residences stand apart in a guarded enclosure, divided from one another by fences. Against this carefully ordered military landscape, Wu takes as self-evident the idea that service to senior officers is service to the people.

Ambition, marriage, and advancement

Wu’s path through the military is shaped by the promise he made before leaving Wujiagou. After two years without a commendation or Party membership, he faces mounting anxiety as letters from his wife and father-in-law ask about his progress. He competes for a position in the Catering Squad, where arduous work is known to offer quicker advancement. His appointment as deputy sergeant begins a period of rapid progress: he becomes a full sergeant, joins the Party, and receives commendations, though official rank remains out of reach.

His later position in the Division Commander’s household appears to improve the prospect of promotion, but the promised urban future remains dependent on military decisions and personal influence. When Wu explains that he wants his family to join him, Liu Lian offers to help arrange a move when promotions resume. The exchange links his village-born ambition to the household of a senior officer, while showing how private assurances and formal career structures operate alongside one another.

Restructuring and the city assignment

The Division Commander volunteers for a pilot plan to streamline and restructure the army, and the Division is slated for disbandment. Promotions are suspended amid the reorganization, threatening Wu’s hope of becoming an official. Yet an exception is arranged for him: he is to receive a job in a city in his native province, with work there also arranged for his wife and a move for his family. The assignment brings him closer to the urban destination promised in his pledge, but by a route bound up with the Division’s dissolution rather than the promotion he had pursued.

Within a week of his return to the barracks, Wu and his family have been assigned work and housing in the city nearest their village. A management official tells him that Liu Lian is the reason he has fared better than the others. The move thus carries two meanings: it fulfills part of Wu’s long-standing rural-to-urban ambition, while exposing how unevenly the Division’s institutional upheaval distributes its consequences. Henan is not merely the place he leaves behind; it is also the province in which his new civilian future is arranged.