On June 1, 1938, the invading Japanese army that had just occupied Bozhou in Anhui Province led a large number of people and horses to break into Luyi County, Zhoukou, Henan Province, instantly breaking the tranquility of this small city.
Just a few hours later, Luyi County was filled with the sound of shelling and machine gun fire, and houses and walls collapsed under the strong attack of Japanese fire, and dust and fire were everywhere.
Soon, the towering old throne also became the main target of the Japanese attack.
Because it was mistaken for a military stronghold of the Chinese army, the Japanese army fired 13 shells in a row, threatening to blow up LaoJuntai.
However, to everyone's surprise, Lao Juntai didn't have anything to do, and even the shells fired became squibs.
Out of curiosity, the Japanese army boldly entered the old Juntai to check it out, and the next second they were frightened and knelt down and prostrated their heads to apologize.
So what exactly are they seeing? Where did all those 13 shells hit?
Luyi County was suddenly devastated
Since the outbreak of the Lugou Bridge Incident, most of China's rivers and mountains have been plunged into endless wars, and in order to realize the plan of "destroying China in three months", the Invading Japanese Army has successively created a number of tragic cases that shocked the whole country and even the world, and all kinds of crimes are too numerous to count!
By 1938, the war situation continued to deteriorate, and most of the Central Plains were unfortunately occupied by the Japanese army, and Bozhou in Anhui was one of them.
At the end of May of the same year, under the cover of artillery fire, the Japanese army forcefully broke through the defensive line set up by the Kuomintang army, and surrounded the county town to the point of collapse, and in the end, Bozhou still fell.
On June 1, the Japanese sent their 4th Cavalry Fujita Brigade to the Highland Wing and began to attack Luyi County in Zhoukou, Henan.
When the news spread quickly to the city, the Kuomintang county government and the security regiment did not hesitate to abandon the city and flee, and the villagers dragged their families to take refuge outside the city in order to survive.
Soon, the large japanese army had reached the village of Yingzizhai in the east of Luyi County, because they did not understand the situation in the city and were worried that there would be Chinese troops lurking inside, so they stopped three kilometers away from the city wall.
By looking at Luyi County from a high place, the Japanese army found that most of the houses in the city were very low, and if they were bombed with shells, it would be effortless.
But there are also two towering buildings, which look very strange in appearance, much like fortifications built by the Chinese army. Just in case, the Japanese ordered gunner Taro Umekawa to attack the tall building on the left first.
Just listen to the "bang" a loud sound, the walls of the high-rise buildings were instantly blown to pieces, and dust flew everywhere.
Seeing this, the Japanese army cheered and cheered, as if greatly encouraged, and then Umekawa Taro turned the muzzle of the gun and faced the high platform on the right.
He confidently fired his first shot, but after waiting for a few seconds, he didn't hear a sound at all.
Umekawa fired eleven more shells in a row, and finally it was the same.
At this time, not only him, but even the Surrounding Japanese Troops began to feel a little confused, they had never encountered such a situation in the past, was that high platform made of steel?
Just when everyone was speculating about what was going on, the Japanese commander next to him was angry, he felt that Umekawa Taro's ability to aim was not enough, he simply kicked the people aside, went into battle himself, and fired the thirteenth shell at the high platform.
The crowd hurried to prick up their ears to listen, but they still did not hear the explosion.
It's really strange, other places are all collapsed as soon as they explode, how did they get here and become squibs?
With full of doubts, the Japanese leader quickly asked the gunner to fire shells in other directions in the county town, and the result was that each shot was a tremor.
In order to find out what was going on, the Japanese immediately gathered their troops and attacked the high platform.
When they approached, they found that the shells they had just fired had either landed on the roof, or were inserted in the wall, or were caught in the branches of the trees, or planted upside down in the ground, in short, none of them exploded.
The Officer of the Japanese Army was very confused, and at this moment, a scout next to him suddenly said, "Sir, is this the god of the temple doing something wrong?" ”
The officer verbally rebuked him for lying to him, but in his heart he felt very uneasy, he ordered people to go over to check the situation, and the soldiers quickly climbed up the high platform.
After seeing the font on it clearly, the soldiers' eyes widened in an instant, and it turned out that the name of this place was Lao Juntai, or the Ascension Sendai of Taishang Laojun.
Because the Japanese were also very religious, they invariably knelt down in front of the main hall door, prostrating their heads in front of the statue of Lao Tzu, and muttering to themselves in their mouths, as if begging him to forgive their offense.
After that, the Japanese army put away their weapons in unison, quickly withdrew from Laojuntai, and moved in other directions.
In fact, what they didn't know was that the ammunition depot of the officers and men guarding the city was set up on the old juntai, and as long as a shell hit here, then the whole town would become scorched earth, and then not only the people in the city, but even they would suffer heavy casualties.
Why is the old juntai intact?
The fact that Lao Juntai was bombarded by thirteen shells without any damage quickly spread throughout the county towns and villages within a radius of ten miles.
Everyone is speculating, what exactly did it rely on to resist the thirteen shells of the Japanese army? Is it true that there are gods who are protected from the sufferings of war? No one knows.
As the fighting gradually subsided, the people who had previously fled from Luyi County also returned to their hometowns from other places.
They came to the surrounding area of Lao Juntai and saw that there were still shells left by the Japanese army, so they quickly informed Zhao Wancheng, the president of the Charity Association.
Zhao Wancheng sent his brother and a few students, with dung baskets and grappling hooks, to help unload all the shells scattered everywhere, and then bury them all on the spot.
The danger was lifted, and the villagers were living as peacefully as before, so naturally they forgot about it.
However, for the outside world, the legend of Lao Juntai is far from over, and many people want to find the answer.
For example, around the 1970s, several artillerymen and experts in the country rushed to Luyi thousands of miles away to find out the real reason why the cannons did not sound.
Through observation, they felt that perhaps the Japanese artillery was too far in range and the position of lao Juntai was also high, so they failed to hit.
For this statement, many people do not agree with it, after all, there was a tall building that was also blown down in an instant, how to explain this?
The experts could not give a precise statement for a while, so they had to return home in sorrow, and because of this, the bizarre color of Lao Juntai added a few points.
By 1983, with the advent of an old Japanese man, the old story was revived.
At that time, I saw that there was an old man with a sad look who seemed to be confessing to the statue of Lao Jun, and the bystanders came forward to inquire out of curiosity, but they were told a shocking secret, the identity of the old man was not simple, he was actually the gunner Umekawa Taro who had shelled Lao Juntai!
After communicating with Umekawa Taro, it was learned that he was luckier than other soldiers and returned to his hometown alive after the war.
Since experiencing that bizarre "dud" incident, Umekawa Taro has also personally experienced Lao Tzu's "power" and "divine power".
When he returned to Japan, he began to worship Lao Tzu, and even found a way to find his book "Tao Te Ching" and began to taste and appreciate it word by word.
Whenever he saw philosophical sentences such as "where misfortune and happiness depend" and "doing nothing and doing nothing", and understood the profound ideas contained in them, Umekawa Taro would worship Lao Tzu even more.
At the same time, he also felt that the original war of aggression against China was really shameless, and if he had the opportunity, he wanted to personally come to Lao Tzu to repent, hoping to get forgiveness from the Chinese people.
Fortunately, with the gradual friendship between China and Japan and the reform and opening up of China, Umekawa Taro finally found an opportunity.
He proposed that he wanted to visit Lao Tzu's hometown, and then he traveled thousands of miles to Lao Juntai, and climbed 33 steps step by step, and prayed reverently in front of Lao Tzu's stone statue.
After more than thirty years of coming to this land, Umekawa Taro felt that it was very rare and enough to impress him.
In 1997, Umekawa Taro, who had already entered the age of ancient rarity, because he had always been obsessed with Luyi County, so in September, he rushed here thousands of miles away and repented to Lao Juntai again.
However, unlike the last time, he brought back a stone stele with the words "We wish peace to mankind in the world" on all four sides of the stele in Japanese, English, Chinese Traditional and Chinese Simplified respectively!
After returning from this time, Umekawa Taro fell ill and died shortly after.
War for national self-defense
There is no doubt that the arrival of Umekawa Taro provided more powerful proof for the unjust war of aggression against China, and also made the story of Lao Juntai more realistic.
However, according to Umekawa Taro, his unit fired thirteen at LaoJuntai, but the locals only found twelve, where did the last one go?
In order to find the answer, experts and scholars spent five or six years to explore, but unfortunately did not get any results, until 2003, the matter finally came to an end.
In September of that year, due to many days of rainy weather, the mountain gate of Laojuntai contained a platform 15 meters west of the West Side Hall, which had been soaked by rain for a long time and collapsed unexpectedly.
At the same time, cracks began to appear in the walls of more than a hundred meters, and the glaze of rubble and green bricks also peeled off, and some of them even began to weather.
Seeing that the entire building was already in a precarious state, the Henan Cultural Relics Bureau immediately allocated funds and sent a construction team to repair it, and it was at this time that they accidentally found a rusty shell in the cleared ruins.
As soon as the news came out, it alarmed the entire county and even the entire province, and soon the relevant technical personnel began to conduct professional appraisals of it, and finally determined that it was the thirteenth shell that had "disappeared" for a long time, and it was not hit on the Laojuntai at the beginning, but hit the soil.
Because the shells had been corroded for a long time and were not convenient for safekeeping, they were handed over to the armed forces of the county to detonate.
What no one expected was that this shell had obviously been buried for nearly seventy years, and its power was still very fierce after detonation.
After this incident, more and more people were more curious about Lao Juntai, and they were more and more eager to know why those shells did not blow up after they were hit.
Some people think that this is just a coincidence, a coincidence. Of course, most of the people are still more willing to believe that this is the apparition of the "Lao Jun" and bless Luyi from the pain of war.
For literary historians, what is more concerned is Lao Tzu's thinking on war.
Lao Tzu once said that "the weapons, things or evils of the soldiers are unknown, so those who have the Tao are not there", and at the same time he felt that "the soldiers are unknown, and they have to use them as a last resort, and they are indifferent"!
In Lao Tzu's view, although the bingge is a killing instrument, there will inevitably be damage when it moves, which is contrary to the gentleman Shangde. However, if you serve the country as a king, you are bound to raise an army.
In the face of unjust wars, military force can be used to defend oneself and one's nation, which is a last resort.
Because the Japanese invasion of China was unjust and did not conform to the original intention of the Tao, under the absolute circumstances, the military and civilians on the mainland must also take up arms to carry out a just war of self-defense.
In the end, the Japanese army fell to a miserable end, and this living example is also telling the world and every country that it must enhance its sense of national crisis, otherwise it will be beaten if it is backward.
Although we yearn for peace, we will not forget history, and only by improving our comprehensive strength can we stand in an invincible position.