Luowenyu Great Wall

Luowenyu Great Wall

The Luowenyu Great Wall is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Luowenyu, also known as Luowenyukou, is an important pass along the Jizhen section of the Great Wall.

According to the *Records of the Four Towns and Three Passes*, “The Luowenyu Pass was built during the Hongwu era (1368–1398) of the Ming Dynasty.” The pass is very narrow, only about 4 meters wide, making it easy to defend but hard to attack. The fortress is built right against the Great Wall wall, with only the western wall ruins remaining today. The nearby sections of the Great Wall are well-preserved. At the pass, there is a nested wall formation made up of the main wall and a branch wall. Most of this stretch of the Great Wall is built from stone, except for a 322-meter-long brick wall in the middle. Some sections of the wall feature arrow slits and observation holes on the outer side. On the western side of the river mouth, there is a well-preserved stone retaining slope — a branch wall of the Great Wall — which is 1.4 meters wide, 4.4 meters high, located about 30 meters from the main wall, and stretches approximately 30 meters in length.

The Luowenyu Great Wall has witnessed the fury of modern warfare. During the March 1933 Battle of the Great Wall, the invading Japanese forces suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the 29th Army troops in the Battle of Xifengkou. The Japanese then changed their strategy, launching an offensive through the central route targeting passes such as Luowenyu and Longjingguan. The 29th Army’s war command, led by General Song Zheyuan and stationed in Zunhua, issued an emergency order. Under the command of 134th Division Commander Liu Ruming, over 6,000 troops engaged in a fierce three-day-and-three-night battle at Luowenyukou against two Japanese regiments and over 10,000 Manchurian and Korean puppet troops. They completely repelled the Japanese attack, which included coordinated air support, tanks, and cavalry, killing more than 3,000 enemy soldiers and significantly dampening the invaders’ morale. Later, due to the Nationalist Government signing the Tanggu Truce with Japan, the 29th Army was ordered to withdraw from the Luowenyu Great Wall front. Subsequently, the Great Wall defenses fell one after another, and the invading Japanese army occupied the eastern Hebei region.