During 1945, the US military bombed Japan on a large scale. In the days when the war was coming to an end, 2000 tons of bombs were dropped on cities such as Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya, and all the bombed cities were in ruins.
Almost all Japanese believe that the ancient Kyoto and Nara are bound to face extinction.
In this regard, the shrewd Japanese made the worst plan. On the one hand, referring to China, they moved a large number of precious cultural relics in two ancient cities to the deep mountains. On the other hand, they demolished and moved all the historical sites with great cultural value, especially the ground buildings, and restored them as they were after the war. Due to the huge number of architectural monuments, the project is huge and people are worried, and the demolition project is progressing slowly.
However, what makes the Japanese feel incredible is that in the overwhelming bombing by the US military, the two ancient cities of Kyoto and Nara have miraculously never been attacked in the real sense.
The war came to an end after the Japanese tried their best to dismantle the entire wooden corridor of the famous Kyoto Palace. Ancient buildings such as palaces, ancient temples and pagodas spread all over the two cities were spared, thus preserving the roots of the Japanese nation and leaving a fortune for the world human culture.
Why didn't the US military bomb Kyoto and Nara, two places with the most cultural relics? The mystery was not solved until forty years later.
According to Luo, a disciple of Liang Sicheng and an archaeologist in China, in 1945, the Chongqing National Government established the China Battlefield Cultural Relics Protection Committee, and Liang Sicheng was hired as the deputy director to take Luo to Chongqing to compile a set of cultural relics catalogue in the occupied area to protect cultural relics from being burned by the war.
Just like the Catalogue of China's Occupied Areas compiled by Liang Sicheng, the Allied Command, which attaches great importance to the achievements of human civilization, requires Liang Sicheng to list important Japanese cultural relics and sites through the Chinese side and mark their positions on the map, so as to pay attention to protection as much as possible during the bombing. Therefore, Liang Sicheng deliberately marked Kyoto and Nara as unsuitable for bombing. Later, the US military adopted Liang Sicheng's suggestion and bypassed the two ancient cities in the bombing.
1986, Luo went to Nara, Japan for a meeting and told this story to Japanese scholars. After listening to this, the Japanese were both shocked and grateful. Japanese newspapers then reported Liang Sicheng of China, the benefactor of the ancient capital.