A Brief Introduction to the Story of China Northern Year

After the end of the shogunate system, the Meiji Restoration brought great changes to Japanese society. The rice field family, who lived in Shikoku Awaji for generations, was ordered by the Meiji government to move to Shizuuchi, Hokkaido because of political disputes in Tokushima.

In the fourth year of Meiji (187 1), 546 members of the first immigrant group of the rice field family finally arrived in Hokkaido by boat after half a month of turbulence. On this ship, Komatsubara Yingming (Ken Watanabe)' s wife, Komatsubara Zhinai (Sayuri Yoshinaga), has been taking care of family affairs, and this time she is also the backbone of the whole ship. Komatsubara Yingming, as an advance team, arrived in Beijing ahead of time to start land reclamation, and the husband and wife were reunited.

Rice fields ignited their ambition to build their own homes. Under the wise leadership of Komatsubara, they will open up a new world in this land. However, Hokkaido's cold climate and dense virgin forest are completely different from its warm and rich hometown, and the crops brought by the light path cannot grow here at all. At this time, the second immigrant group suffered heavy casualties in the shipwreck, and the samurai class was completely abolished because of withdrawing from the county. The granary caught fire and the blow followed. Faced with these blows, almost all men began to waver. Komatsubara, who comes from a samurai family, is very strong. Instead, she stood up to encourage everyone and advised everyone to live in Hokkaido.

After despair, Yingming and others cut off the bun symbolizing the samurai and vowed to have a fate with this land. However, if crops cannot be harvested, it is impossible to accumulate food. In order to learn the latest agricultural technology, Yingming decided to go to Sapporo alone. However, Zhinai and her daughter searched everywhere, but never came back with Zhien.

Shortly after Yingming disappeared, there were discordant voices in the crowd, and Zhinai began to be isolated. She believed in her husband, so she took her daughter Duo and embarked on the road to find her husband. Unexpectedly, both mother and daughter fell in the snow during the snowstorm. An American named Edwin Dunn saved the mother and daughter. In the following years, Zhinai has been learning to raise horses with Edwin Dunn. She was deeply attracted by foreign good ponies and decided to raise horses in Hokkaido by herself.

A few years later, her daughter Duoyi (Satoshi Ishihara) has grown into a beautiful girl, and their pasture management is on the right track. ASHIRIKA, a mysterious person who lives with the Ainu people, has been helping them like relatives when her husband is away. Gradually, Zhinai, Duoyi and Zulika developed family-like feelings. Just when the pioneering and reclamation of immigrant groups achieved initial results and everyone began to expect a bumper harvest, the accident came again.

The government issued a written order to hand over the horses to the state. But at this time, horses have become an indispensable and important labor force in agricultural production. Once there are no horses, the whole reclamation project will be paralyzed.