During the Cultural Revolution, the director of a farm collective studies medicine on her own in order to provide a more effective alternative to the collective's "capitalist" health care clinic, then investigates and exposes a sinister plot by the clinic's staff.

The story of the Opium War between China, in the waning days of the Qing Dynasty, and the British Empire, in the 1830s, and the subsequent takeover of Hong Kong by Britain; through the eyes of the key figures, fiercely nationalistic Lin Zexu, and opportunistic British naval diplomat Charles Elliot.