Three-Million-Dollar Messenger recounts the true story of a mid-level Chinese bureaucrat who gets swirled up in historic events in China preceding World War II. Sung Chiao Chen's sparsely but beautifully written memoir tells how he smuggled China's state seal and three million Chinese dollars past Japanese checkpoints to a key Chinese government agency, as the two countries clashed for control of the Chinese mainland. Mr. Chen's story unfolds amid a backdrop of a China in transformation and of his own victorious struggle against a life of poverty and lost love.