(Minghui.org) Almost all plagues end just as suddenly as they began. But in some cases throughout history, seemingly mysterious plagues did not begin and end for no reason. Let’s look at some of them.
Chanyu Wrongly Killed a Han General and Brought a Plague Down on His People
According to Han Shu·Xiongnu Zhuan in 89 BC, it rained and snowed for several months. Livestock perished, people fell ill, and the crops were adversely affected. All this happened after the death of Li Guangli, a famous general in the Western Han Dynasty.
Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty had great respect for General Li and relied on him. The emperor once made him “General of Er'shi” in expectation of his success in taking over the city of Er'shi. General Li indeed scored a great victory, followed by another success in taking the city of Dawan.
As the legend goes, when Li and his troops were passing through the Dunhuang sandbank on their way to attack Dawan, they were exhausted and had little water to drink. General Li tapped the mountain rocks and made a vow to heaven. He then drew his sword and thrust it into the rocks. Almost instantly, a spring flowed out between the rocks and saved his troops. This was how the famous legend of Jianquan (Sword Spring) came into being.
Later, Li was implicated in an attempted coup of Emperor Wu, beginning with accusations of witchcraft. He escaped to Xiongnu.
Weilü, King of Ding Ling of the Xiongnu Empire, introduced Li to Hulugu Chanyu, the supreme ruler of Xiongnu, who was so impressed with Li's reputation and military talents that he gave Li his daughter in marriage. Immediately, Li was offered prominent positions and enjoyed an even higher status than King Weilü, who’d helped him when he first arrived in Xiongnu. Weilü became jealous and came up with a wicked scheme. He bribed a shaman to frame Li.
Hulugu Chanyu’s mother happened to be ill at the time. The shaman said to Chanyu: “Your father, the late Chanyu, once vowed to capture Li alive, but now Li is being treated with unprecedented courtesy. Your late father is angry—that's why your mother is sick.”
Hulugu Chanyu believed what the shaman told him, arrested Li, and killed him. According to historical records, Li vowed before he died, “My death will destroy the people of Xiongnu!”
Indeed, soon after Li was killed, a great plague suddenly broke out in the Xiongnu region, causing countless deaths of people and livestock, and no crops survived, either.
Hulugu Chanyu was so terrified, he gave orders to build a shrine to General Li of Er'shi so that people could come to pay their respects. Only then did the plague that had been ravaging Xiongnu for months suddenly come to an end.
Kindness Paid Off in a Crisis
There is a story recorded in the book Yuewei Caotang Biji by Ji Xiaolan, a well-known scholar in the Qing Dynasty about how kindhearted villagers were spared during a plague outbreak.
According to a story told by Ji’s father-in-law Ma Zhoulu, a man named Liao in Nanxiang, Dongguang County (now Cangzhou in Hebei Province) wanted to build a graveyard to bury the unclaimed corpses and started to ask for donations. The villagers thought that it was a good thing to do, so they helped make it happen.
Thirty years later, in the first year of the Yongzheng era (1723), a terrible plague broke out. One night, Liao had a dream in which he saw more than 100 people standing in front of his house. One of them stepped said to him, “The plague ghosts will soon be here. Please make us over a dozen paper flags and over 100 wooden sabers covered with silver foil, then burn them in fire. We will fight the plague ghosts to the death to repay the kindness of the villagers who built the graveyard to bury unclaimed corpses.”
Liao was a kind man and always keen to do good deeds. He quickly did what he was told to do in the dream. One evening a few days later, people in the village heard noises of fighting and yelling around their village. The battle went on till dawn. As a result, no one in the village was infected during the raging plague.
Survivors of Eyam Village: Righteous Deeds and Prayer
Eyam is a village located 35 miles southeast of Manchester, England. The devastating Black Death found its way into the village in the summer of 1665 through a bale of cloth sent from London that contained plague-carrying fleas.
For fear that the infection might spread further north and ruin other towns and communities, the entire village, led by the local rector William Mompesson, made a selfless and heroic decision—to quarantine itself. The villagers made a vow to God and promised that they would not run for their lives in order to halt the spread of the plague.
They drilled holes into the top of the boundary stone and put coins soaked in vinegar into the holes (they believed that vinegar would disinfect them). Merchants from neighboring villages would take the coins and leave them food.
The people in Eyam quarantined themselves for 14 months, and by late 1666, as many as 260 out of 344 villagers had died of the disease, while the death toll in London exceeded 100,000, more than a quarter of the total population of around 460,000.
While in quarantine, the survivors in the village kept praying devoutly. The constant passing of people around them was indeed a most difficult test for their souls and faith, but they carried on bravely. Fourteen months later, the Black Death suddenly disappeared, just as unpredictably as when it came.
The kindness of the villagers of Eyam and their selfless sacrifice is gratefully remembered by future generations.
Avoiding the CCP Is the Best Option to Avoid the Pandemic
Be it in ancient China, Eastern India, or traditional Western society, people believed that plague was a manifestation of the power of God and deities to judge good and evil in the human world. People who were corrupt or had excessive karma would be punished during a plague, but those who lived up to proper moral standards and had firm faith in gods and Buddha would survive.
Since the 20th century, atheism and anti-theism, hallmarks of communism, plus communism’s philosophy of “struggle” that is characterized by lies, exaggeration, and empty talk have dragged all of humanity into a vortex of moral corruption and collapse of faith.
At the same time, the evil specter of communism has found a suitable living space in the Western far-left ideologies. People's fascination with socialism exceeds their faith. In China, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) system of brainwashing has turned the Chinese people into slaves of materialism, money, and power. The on-going persecution of Falun Gong launched by the CCP in July 1999 has further destroyed the legal system, morality, and the faith of the entire society.
In March 2020, three politicians in Spain, including Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s third largest party, VOX, and Javier Ortega Smith, the secretary-general of the party, contracted the Wuhan virus. However, after they condemned the CCP for covering up the virus, which led to a global pandemic, and asked the international community to hold the CCP accountable for the devastation, their symptoms disappeared.
Minghui.org reported on February 19, 2021, that Jemma, an immigrant from Hong Kong and now a manager at an international trade firm in Montreal, Canada, and her newlywed husband Juc, a biology professor, both tested positive for Covid-19 and had to quarantine at home. They were both worried.
Then Jemma remembered her cousin Yu, a Falun Gong practitioner in Toronto. He once told her that if she was ever in a crisis, she should recite “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.” He said these phrases had helped many people out of danger when they recited them with heartfelt sincerity.
They called Jemma's cousin, and, sure enough, he encouraged them to sincerely recite the phrases, which they did. Jemma got better quickly, but Juc started to run a fever, started coughing, and lost his sense of taste and smell—typical symptoms of Covid-19.
Jemma's cousin encouraged them to continue to recite the phrases and further clarified the truth to them about the CCP. He also explained the basic principles of Falun Gong practice and taught them the exercises. After learning the truth, Jemma made a declaration to quit the CCP’s youth organizations she had joined in China when she was young.
Two days later, they both completely recovered and are healthy again.
Plagues come and go for a reason, and the current pandemic is no exception. The CCP has been the source of great suffering and misery, not only for the Chinese people but also for the rest of the world. Miracles do happen when people stay away from the CCP or sincerely recite, “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion- Forbearance is good.”
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Category: News Commentary
