China: Coal and other goods being transported on the Huangpu Jiang (Huangpu River) from the Yangzi (Yangtze) River, Shanghai. Shanghai began life as a fishing village, and later as a port receiving goods carried down the Yangzi River. From 1842 onwards, in the aftermath of the first Opium War, the British opened a concession in Shanghai where traders could operate undisturbed. French, Italians, Germans, Americans and Japanese all followed. By the 1920s and 1930s, Shanghai was a boom town. When the Communists won power in 1949, they transformed Shanghai into a model of the Revolution.