It was set up to commemorate those Chinese people who died in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894. Upon their invasion of Lushun and for four whole days Japanese forces slaughtered nearly 20,000 unarmed civilians of the city! Only 36 persons remained alive. To hide all evidence of their guilt, the Japanese ordered local peasants to collect the bodies for cremation. The ashes of the victims were buried at the eastern foot of White Jade Hill. In 1896, after the Japanese retreat, corps of the Qing Dynasty built the Stele of Myriad Loyalists.