Set in Hainan in the 1930s, the film centers on a slave girl who enlists in the Red Army and helps to liberate the island from her former master. Wu Qionghua runs away from the home of her master, warlord Nan Batian, and is saved from punishment after she is bought and freed by local communist Changqing. Changqing encourages Qionghua to join the Women's Army and help put an end to Nan Batian's tyrannical rule.