Eyewitness Travel. Beijing & Shanghai PDF, is guides that show you what others only tell you. It wasn’t until 1403 when the Emperor Yongle moved the Ming dynasty capital from Nanjing (Nanking) to the newly renamed Beijing (Peking), that the “northern capital” moved from the fringes of China proper to a role of central importance. Shanghai, on the other hand, is an altogether more modern city, which, since its founding, has been of vital economic and political importance thanks to a strategically commanding site controlling the mouth of the great Yangzi River.