Academic refuge

The old town of Lizhuang still draws tourists with its wartime contribution, Huang Zhiling and Quan Yubin report.

Despite the latest sporadic COVID-19 outbreak in Southwest China's Sichuan province, people are flocking to Lizhuang, a 1,478-year-old town on the southern bank of the Yangtze River, on weekends and holidays.

During the five-day Labor Day holiday from April 30 to May 4, a daily average of 30,000 people arrived in the small town in Yibin, Sichuan, said Pan Chengjun, head of the tourist service center of the town's management committee.

Many tourists have taken their children on historical tours of the town, as it has become one of China's four wartime cultural centers along with Chongqing, Chengdu in Sichuan, and Kunming in Yunnan province.

After the Lugou Bridge Incident (July 7, 1937), in Beijing, the Japanese troops started an all-around invasion of China, leading to the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45).