It can be said that there is a prototype or there is no actual prototype, because Hong Sanyuan represents every young man with dreams who came to Shanghai to make a living in the chaotic old society. Just like Shanghai today, it attracts thousands of young people from Qian Qian to struggle in Shanghai to realize their ambitions and ideals. However, it was the era of Beiyang War, so there were many wonderful legends of young people. In that era, Hong Sanyuan gathered too many young people with dreams, including those who had succeeded in their youth. Therefore, Du, Huang,,, Mei Lanfang, Ruan and other people who have succeeded in some industries we don't know, and so on. They used to be Hong Sanyuan, once lived in precarious conditions, once dared to play the game of life and death, and there will be happy moments when fate will meet at the next level, which will rise and fall in this fast-changing big Shanghai.

During the Beiyang period of the Republic of China, China was still in the semi-feudal and semi-colonial period. As the largest port international city in the Far East, it gathered the interests and forces of all parties. In such a metropolis, the legal system and public security are not particularly good, but they are extremely prosperous. Only the primitive jungle law of survival of the fittest exists. If you want to succeed in the counterattack, you must have a chance of one in ten thousand and the ability to change things different from ordinary people in peacetime. Just like Huang's thick black and cruel, Du's versatility, desperation, wisdom and courage, Mei Lanfang's talent is more than Ruan's. They are all ways to survive. Although they have their own characteristics, they are all mixed.

It can be said that Du is the most representative among them. I have read many biographies of him. An honest little rural apprentice was gradually involved in the small gang at the bottom of Shanghai Lane under the influence of the big era. Through fighting and killing, he flexibly United a group of brothers, and finally joined green gang and entered Fu Huang to serve Huang's wife through the introduction of friends. Because of his willingness to help others, he gradually gained the trust of Huang's wife. In fact, Huang has been afraid of his wife since she started. However, lecherous couples often have conflicts after high positions. Du was good at mediating the contradiction between the Huang family and gradually became an indispensable figure in the Huang family. During the changeable period in Shanghai, Huang also faced many crises. With Du's intelligence, he helped him tide over the difficulties many times, and gradually expanded green gang's pure illicit business into the fields of finance, commerce and trade. With its gradual rise, it became one of the three most famous Shanghai operas at that time, and gradually became friends with Dai Li, the core figure of Jiang Zhongzheng's secret service.

Du, on the other hand, embodies a strong contradictory complex of that era. He was born a scoundrel, as ruthless as everyone else. At the same time, he often expressed sympathy and help to many people and even the people at the bottom. He will not only gain benefits by hook or by crook, but also resist Japan with patriotic feelings when the country is in danger. It should be said that Du Fu was the most typical representative of contradictions in that era. Hong Sanyuan is also a little person who has gone through ups and downs in Shanghai, and at the same time, he is closely related to the love and hate of his home country, so he has too many young people who struggled in Shanghai at that time.