As attested by a number of travelers in the region in the first decade of the 20th century, the trenches were mostly gone, and only remainders of the dikes remained, mostly in the western section of the system. According to the Japanese traveler Inaba Iwakichi, who went through Weiyuanbao gate (in the eastern section of the system, near its junction with the other two sections near Kaiyuan) in 1907, and then again several years later through a gate in the Outer Palisade near Shibeiling (south of Changchun), there was nothing for him to see but a few old tree stumps. As he was told by an old gate guard, the willows had been cut by Russian and Japanese troops during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. The remaining gates were falling apart, even if still staffed with tax collectors. The last troops were removed from the gates of the Palisades in 1920.