[1] Shen Yunying took command after his death, and managed to both defend the city and retrieve her father's body.
In a move that was highly unusual for the time, the court formally appointed her to be her father's successor.
[3] She displayed great military skill in her fight to protect the Ming dynasty from the armies of both the Manchu Qing dynasty and Gao Guiying, the other great female commander of the time, on whose opposite side she was, but she could not prevent the capture of Beijing in 1644 and the death of the last Ming emperor.
[citation needed] When her husband Jia Jian was himself killed in battle at Jingzhou, she resigned her post and withdrew to private life.
Dong Rong [zh] (d. 1760) published a play about Shen Yuying and another notable female military figure, Qin Liangyu.