Historical background of Hutou fortress site

Hutou fortress was at the end of World War II.

During the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period, it was a big project for the Japanese to build the Tiger Head Fortress, which took a long time and required a lot of labor. They used 654.38 million laborers, all from China, some from Shanhaiguan and Northeast China, and some from captured officers and men of China Army. These people engaged in inhuman labor under the threat of Japanese swords and guns, and the final result was either exhaustion, starvation or collective slaughter. After the completion of the construction of the fort, the Japanese army held a celebration banquet, concentrated hundreds of captured workers in the Tiger Valley depression, and cheated the workers with wine and food as a reward. At the climax, heavy machine guns spewed flames, and the venue instantly turned into a bloody slaughterhouse, and the bodies piled up and filled the depressions. Moreover, poisonous needles, thrown into the river, are everywhere.

The front width of Hutou Youbao is 12km, and the depth is 30km. It consists of five hilltop positions, and the underground traffic trench of each fortress winds for dozens of kilometers, and all positions can be connected. In order to build it into a fortress that can fight independently for half a year without being broken, the Japanese army invested hundreds of millions of yuan, and the whole project lasted about 6 years. There are command room, soldiers' lounge, kitchen, toilet, grain depot, ammunition depot, power station and telephone switchboard room in the tunnel. On the periphery of the fortress project, there are field fortifications and airports, each of which can form an independent offensive and defensive operation facility.

1987 Hulin County People's Government partially restored the underground project of Hudong Mountain, and held exhibitions of pictures and objects for tourists to visit. The fortress is large in scale, complex in structure and well-equipped. It is divided into two parts: above ground and underground. The existing military facilities on the ground mainly include the Firestone Mountain train gun position, 40 cm caliber gun position, cannon, howitzer and field gun position. , and battle bunkers, as well as winding 10 kilometers of traffic trenches to communicate with various important fortifications. The remains of underground military facilities include command posts, power stations, ammunition depots, grain depots, fuel depots, barracks, ordinary school camps, hospitals, kitchens, baths, toilets, sewers and wells. From underground facilities to the ground, observation posts, bunkers, fortified wells, counterattack ports, chimneys and vents are set up, and traps and shooting holes are set up at key points of access roads.

The Japanese Kwantung Army once boasted that Tiger Head Fortress was the largest underground military facility in East Asia at that time, and it was not afraid of any besieged permanent fortress, "maginot line of the East". 1945 was conquered by the Red Army of the former Soviet Union in August. At present, there are parks and monuments donated by the National Tiger Head Association of Japan in cooperation with the Hulin County People's Government on the bank of the Wusuli River on the east side of the Hutou fortress site to commemorate that painful war history.