 The Japanese soldiers oppress the rural Chinese, requisitioning their rice and their cattle and forcing them, even the old and infirm like Zhonglianag's elderly father, to work in the rice fields.The starving villagers beg Zhongliang's father, a cultivated man, to use his wisdom and authority to try to convince the Japanese officers to reduce the rice levy so they will have something to eat and be able to work harder.When he does so, the Japanese accuse the old man of inciting the villagers to rebel and they hang him for his presumption, ordering that his body remain suspended, unburied, as a warning.