The Japanese Army's soul-removal tower stands on top of Baiyu Mountain in Lushun 184

Baiyu Mountain is located in the heart of the city of Lushun, and is the centre of one of the eight scenic spots in Lushun, formerly known as Xiguan Mountain, and was named Baiyu Mountain in 1880 when Li Hongzhang, accompanied by Prince Almighty, the father of Emperor Guangxu, inspected the mouth of Lushun, saying that as there was a golden mountain in Lushun, there should also be a white jade mountain. The main attraction of Baiyu Mountain is the view of the famous Lushun military port and the Japanese built "Omotesando Tower" at the top of the mountain. The main attraction of Baiyu Mountain is the view of the famous Lushun military port, and the Japanese built "Omotesaka Tower" at the top of the mountain, now called Baiyu Mountain Tower, and a huge ancient cannon of the A-bomb. The entrance fee to Baiyu Mountain is 40 RMB and the hike takes about 1.5 hours if you hike up the mountain.

The most conspicuous feature of Baiyu Mountain is the century-old Baiyu Pagoda, the tip of which resembles a slug and a candle, while others say it is a cultural symbol of male roots. The pagoda is full of controversy, with some saying it is a disgrace and should be blown up, while others say it is historical and should be preserved. It was built by the Japanese army in 1909 to commemorate the fallen officers and soldiers who served the Emperor during the Russo-Japanese War and is in a sense the Japanese equivalent of the Yasukuni Shrine in China.

The Baiyu Mountain Pagoda stands at the top of the mountain. Even without climbing the mountain, this ugly stone pagoda that pierces the sky can be seen from many locations in the city. Why didn't the Soviet Red Army blow it up? Why didn't the Chinese government demolish it? Let's start with a visit to Baiyu Mountain.

Halfway up the mountain, the ancient cannon of Jiawu is a cannon with a calibre of 210mm, purchased by the Qing government from Germany in 1881. During the Russo-Japanese War, the Tsarist army, in order to strengthen the defence of the fortress at Lushunkou, carried this gun from the Tiger Tail West Jiguanshan Battery to the top of Old Iron Mountain, where the Japanese placed it on Baiyu Mountain in February 1908.

The inscriptions on the old gun are from various periods, the Russian inscriptions from the 1950s are undoubtedly those of the Soviet Red Army who occupied Lushun, while the inscriptions from the 1960s and 1970s are mostly those of sailors from the Lushun military port, which is somewhat puzzling as it must not have been an easy task to inscribe on the hardened gum.

The old gun now sits halfway up the hill at a bend in the road, opposite a lighthouse.

It takes about ten minutes to climb to the top platform, which is the best place to get a full view of Lushun military port, which was a restricted military zone for a long time from the time the Qing government established it in 1880, until December 2008 when it was fully opened to the public.

In the old days, this kind of hilltop location with a full view of the topography and dynamics of the military port would never have been open to tourists, but now it's a different story and Baiyu Mountain is one of the must-see attractions for tour groups.

It was a foggy day, but you can still get a full view of the Lushun military port, a natural haven and a famous military fortress in modern Chinese history, once the base of the Beiyang Marine Division.

The port opens to the southeast, with the Golden Mountains to the east, the Tiger Tail Peninsula to the west, and the lofty Old Iron Mountains to the southwest, and what we often call the "Lushun Mouth" is the middle of this waterway, nearly 300 metres wide, which is made up of two mountains facing each other.

Standing here, you can often see various warships coming in and out, and sometimes submarines entering and leaving.

The North Sea Fleet is the strongest and most well-equipped of China's three naval fleets, with three naval bases at the military level - Qingdao, Lushun and Huludao - and from the equipment of these ships, they are probably security vessels.

After the end of the Russo-Japanese War, at the suggestion of Heihachiro Togo, the commander of the Japanese naval fleet, and Hidenori Niki, the commander of the Third Army, the "Tower of Allegiance" was built at the top of Heihachi Hill to honour the Japanese soldiers who served the Emperor during the Russo-Japanese War.

The construction of the tower began in June 1907 and was completed in November 1909, taking two years and five months and costing 250,000 yen, with as many as 20,000 Chinese workers forced into labour to build the tower.

In 1945, after the Soviet occupation of Lushun, the three characters and the bronze inscription on the tower were removed by the Soviet army and later replaced by the Baiyu Pagoda, which was officially named Baiyu Mountain Pagoda in 1986.

Opposite the Baiyu Mountain Pagoda is the Lushun Naval Weapons Museum, which can be visited with a ticket to Baiyu Mountain. The Japanese also built a "Bone Shrine" on the northern peak of Baiyu Mountain (under the bridge of the Lushun Naval Weapons Museum), where the ashes of 22,723 Japanese soldiers who died during the Russo-Japanese War are buried.

The naval armament museum is actually full of land, sea and air armaments, all of which are very old.

Basically, all the weapons are from the 1960s and 1970s, and only a worn and empty shell remains.

"The Sea Eagle No. 1 was a torpedo boat with a lot of combat power in the 1960s.

There is a lot to see and do at the foot of the mountain. Lushun is a huge open-air museum of the city's history, which has been shaped by its unique location.

The military port tour park is the military port park, the entrance fee is 10 RMB, it is a very small park, you can see it all in 10 minutes, and you can't see the warships in the military port inside.

There are a lot of tour groups in the military port park, and there is always a queue in front of this stone to take photos, "sleeping in the car, peeing in the car, taking photos at the attraction, and not knowing anything when you go home".

There are also several artillery pieces from the late Qing Dynasty in the park.

There is a wall inside the park, so you can't see the warships in the harbour, but you can see a bit of the moored warships from the road outside the gate.

The Lushun Railway Station is the best-preserved European-style building along the north-eastern railway line and was put into operation on 14 July 1903.

1.3km further west of Lushun Railway Station is the Lushun Victory Tower, which was actually originally called the Soviet Victory Memorial Tower.

The tower is 45 metres high and symbolises the victory of the world war against fascism in 1945, with a five-pointed star at its tip surrounded by gold-plated spikes.

On three sides of the pagoda are copper-plate inscriptions, two of which mean recognition of the victory of the Soviet Red Army over the Japanese, and one of which reads Long Live Soviet-Chinese Friendship, and it is said that similar memorial pagodas were built in many places after the Soviet occupation of the north-east. But history is not always what it seems. On 6 and 9 August 1945, after the US dropped the "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" atomic bombs, the Japanese Emperor felt unable to resist and decided to surrender, and the Soviets saw that the war was about to end. On 9 August, the Soviet army, seeing that the war was about to end, seized the opportunity to send troops to the northeast to seize the fruits of victory.

After the Soviet army had destroyed the Kwantung Army, they dismantled the entire industrial system established by Japan in the Northeast and moved it back to China.

If anyone still thinks that the Soviet Red Army only sent troops to the North East to fight the Japanese fascists, they are very wrong. The US, Soviet Union and Britain sold out China's interests in the Yalta Agreement in February 1945 in order to get the Soviet Union to send troops to the Asian theatre of war, but then the US succeeded in testing the atomic bomb on 16 July 1945 and it didn't matter so much whether the Soviet Union sent troops or not, but of course, the Soviet Union didn't miss the opportunity to seize the North East when the Japanese had decided to surrender, taking the maximum benefit with the minimum loss.

In fact, although the Kwantung Army in the north-east appeared to be large in number, it was basically an empty shell, with the main force having been transferred to the Pacific and wiped out, and three quarters of the army having been improvised, some only 10 days before the Soviet attack.

The Soviet towers of victory and friendship still stand all over the northeast, there is no such thing as friendship between nations, there are no eternal friends, only eternal interests, and backwardness will be bullied.

Both the Japanese and Soviet Victory Towers are in fact an unpleasant part of China's history, but history can no longer be changed and the best way to commemorate it is not to forget or tamper with it.
In terms of historical significance and age, the Baiyu Mountain Pagoda is fully qualified to be a national key cultural relic protection unit, but it is still only a cultural relic protection unit in Dalian, which shows that it is highly controversial. Personally, I think that this tower, although it is very harsh and represents humiliation, should really be preserved because it is real history, but while preserving it, it should also be well publicised and guided by adding more detailed explanatory signs to let tourists understand this history. And now, many tourist groups come to the Baiyu Mountain Tower and just take pictures, not knowing the history of the tower at all. ...