Series of Dalian travel notes::Dalian Lüshun district

Lüshun estuary & Navy Base

Lüshun estuary is located at the south edge of East-Liaoning Peninsula, surrounded by China Yellow Sea to the east, China Bo Sea to the west, facing Shandong Peninsula to the south. A small river with name Dragon flow towards the sea. This area has a very long history from the Han Dynasty, due to the special shape and geographical position, it became an important navy base and a natural shield of Peking, Tianjin and also the Manchuria area. The Lüshun estuary was either robbed by Japanese or force borrowed by Tsarist Russia, until 1955 Chairman Mao Tse-Tung had a visit to Moscow to ask for Lüshun region. Now Lüshun is a District of Dalian City.

Baiyu mountain is right to the north of the estuary. There are some Japanese memorial constructions, Baiyu mountain tower is one of them.

Behind that tower there is a wide deck towards south-east, you can see the whole Lüshun District from here.

Baiyu Mountain Tower

Baiyu Mountain Tower (or Baiyushan Tower), originally called “Loyalty Tower”, is a monument built for the sacrificed 22723 soldiers of the Great Japan Empire and show the “loyalty” to the “Mikado” (the emperor of Great Japan Empire). The monument is located on the south side of Baiyu Mountain top, also the namesake of this tower. It started building from June 1906, after the First Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese War, forced over 20000 Chinese people for construction, many Chinese workers were died. The construction completed on November 1910. After that, many memorial activities were taken at there.

The tower shaped like a cannon shell, built for show off their “army’s pride”, and also a commend for the local artillery force. The tower has height of 66.8 meters, with 18 windows. Inside the tower there are 273 American designed spinning stairs. The side fence of the scenery deck on the top of the tower have the Japanese shining sun mark on it.

In 1945, the army of Soviet Union started Operation August Storm, destroyed and conquered the State of Manchuria, a dummy state shortly presented for invading China, the SU army removed all the Japanese words on the tower and renamed as Baiyu Tower.

After the establishment of P.R. of China, there are always some voice claiming that this tower should be demolished, but the local government decide to rename it to current name and retain it as a patriotism educational spot, that warning the later generations of Chinese people do not forget this shameful history and always keeps an eye on the revival of Japanese militarism.

To be continued, the next will be the old Lüshun Prison.