The Setting Sun of Daros

In the year of the tenth of the Tianbao era, An Lushan, the military governor of Anxi, launches a reckless campaign to the west in pursuit of military glory. After enticing the state of Shiguo into surrender, he razes the city to the ground, forcing the king's son to flee to the west in search of aid from the Abbasid Caliphate, thereby sowing the seeds for a disastrous future confrontation. A young man named A Bao from the capital, along with his fellow villager Shi Tou, sets out to war together, having previously shared a bond of life and death in the snowy winds of the Jizhou Mountains, where they made a pact to return to Chang'an together and enjoy the blossoming apricot flowers and eat Hu bread. In the month of July, at the valley of the Dashi river, An Lushan's 20,000 elite soldiers face off against the tens of thousands of combined forces of the Abbasid Caliphate led by Abu Muslim, the governor of Khurasan. With the enemy forces outnumbering them two to one, Li Shizhi leads his 3,000 elite swordsmen to form an unbreakable steel wall, striking down horse and rider in one fell swoop, holding out against the enemy for four days. However, the Tang army ultimately falls to hunger and exhaustion, compounded by the defection of the troops led by Geshu Han during the battle, leading to a crushing defeat. Amidst the chaos, Shi Tou is impaled by a traitor's spear, and the wooden apricot flower he treasured as a symbol of his longing to return home is crushed into the mud. A Bao, his eyes wide with despair, fights his way through the carnage, and only 700 survivors are left to return. The remnants of the army on their way back to Chang'an are met with an imperial decree: An Lushan is stripped of his post and sent back to the capital in chains. This renowned general, who had previously pacified the Western Regions, would later fall victim to the intrigue on the imperial court and be executed unjustly, during the An Lushan Rebellion. The defeat also marked a turning point in the history of the Tang dynasty's expansion into Central Asia. A thousand years later, the sound of the whistle of a train shatters the winds of the Gobi Desert, as a steel dragon speeds along the ancient Silk Road. Archaeologists excavate a carbonized wooden apricot flower in the valley, which is brought back to Xi'an. In a museum, a young girl gently blows on the ancient relic, and apricot flowers dance in the wind, as if echoing the words "Let's return to Chang'an together."