[show]Transcriptions
Russian name
Russian
Romanization Dalian or Dalny
The settlement of Qingniwa was occupied by the British in 1858,returned to the Chinese in the 1880s, and then occupied by Japan in 1895 during the first Sino-Japanese War. Nearby Port Arthur took its name from a Royal Navy Lieutenant named William C. Arthur, but was known to the Chinese as Lüshun.
While Japan's intention to lease Port Arthur and its surrounding areas, based on the Treaty of Shimonoseki, met with the Tripartite Intervention by France, Germany and Russia, the Russian Empire in 1898 succeeded in leasing the peninsula from the Qing Dynasty, and a modern city was laid out with the name of Dalny.Linked to the Trans-Siberian Railway's branch line, Dalny became Russia's primary port-city in Asia. The Russian government contributed more than 10 million golden rubles (equivalent to 11.5 billion of today's[clarification needed] rubles) into the city foundation and building.
Both Dalny (Qingniwaqiao of Zhongshan District, Dalian) and Port Arthur (Lüshunkou) were developed and heavily fortified by the Russians in the period prior to 1904. Dalny was the main[citation needed] battlefield of the Russo-Japanese War (1905). Consequently, some historians blame Admiral Eugene Alexeyeff for the fall of Port Arthur during the siege of Port Arthur on 2 January 1905 due to his failure to concentrate on the naval base and its fortifications, instead splitting precious resources shipped 5,000 miles across the single tracked Trans-Siberian Railway and Manchurian railways.
After the Russo-Japanese war, Port Arthur was yielded to Japan (Treaty of Portsmouth), who set up the Kwantung Leased Territory or Guandongzhou, which was roughly the southern half (Jinzhou District and south) of the present-day Dalian. After the foundation of Manchukuo in 1932, the sovereignty of the
