Assembly
In 1948, during the Chinese Civil War, the Captain Gu Zidi from the Liberation Army falls in disgrace with his superiors after an incident with prisoners of war. He is assigned with his forty-seven soldiers from the Nineth Company to defend a coal mine until they hear the retreat assembly of the bugle. Gu Zidi never hears the call, his men die and he gathers their bodies inside the mine.
Gu Zidi awakes in a hospital and neither his identity and nor his officer ranking are recognized; the forty-seven soldiers that heroically died are only considered missing and their action is completely unknown by the high-command.
Gu Zidi fights in the Korea War and spends the rest of his life feeling guilty for the death of his men and trying to prove and achieve recognition for the honorable deed of his forty-seven soldiers.