Liaoning Province, 868km (538 miles) NE of Beijing, 544km (337 miles) SW of Harbin
Shenyang is the largest city in Dongbei and the region's unlovely gateway. A sprawling chaos of dirt and noise where historical buildings stand bathed in the neon of new consumerism, it is the epitome of China's propensity for criminally negligent urban planning. It was the birthplace of the Qing dynasty in the 15th century and is now the capital of Liaoning, Dongbei's southernmost and wealthiest province. Many travelers spend only enough time here to switch trains, but it is worthwhile to linger. The city may be ugly but it is also home to several of Dongbei's most fascinating historical attractions.
Shenyang has existed under various names since the Tang dynasty (618-907) and has been the region's most strategically important city since 1625, when Jürchen founders of the Qing dynasty (1626-1912) made it their capital (Shenjing). The Qing's leaders stayed in the city for 19 years, perfecting a system of government modeled on the Chinese and plotting an attack on the weakened Ming from inside their palace, which still stands in the city center. With the decline of the Qing at the start of the 20th century, the city (renamed Fengtian) fell under the influence of legendary warlord Zhang Zuolin. Zhang ruled Manchuria from his downtown residence courtyard complex just south of the Qing palace, until his assassination by Japanese soldiers in 1928. The city drifted without obvious leadership until the fall of 1931, when Japan's Kwantung Army (in Japanese:Kantogun;in Mandarin:Guandong Jun) used the "discovery" of a small hole blasted in their railway line north of the city (known to them as Mukden) as a pretense to invade. The attack, referred to in China as the September 18th (or Mukden) Incident and immortalized in a museum in the north part of the city, eventually led to the establishment of Manchukuo (Mandarin:Manzhou Guo), the puppet state Japan used to mask its territorial ambitions during World War II.
The mayor who transformed Dalian into the shimmering pride of northern China, now the governor of Liaoning Province, has vowed to work his magic on the capital. Shenyang has never been pretty, but perhaps it doesn't need to be. "[Mukden] is ancient and dusty, with nothing especially attractive," one visiting Catholic missionary wrote in 1919. "I found it very interesting." The same holds true today