On 27 July, as the Japanese laid siege to Chinese forces in Tongzhou, one Chinese battalion broke out and fell back to Nanyuan.
Leaving Beijing, it first runs as part of South Zhongzhou Road and is also known as Nanyuan Road (for being close to the Nanyuan area).
Fu Xingpei (傅兴沛) and Feng Yuxiang met at Nanyuan, where Feng informed Fu that it was unsafe for the diplomat to stay in Beijing too long, and asked him to immediately leave.
On July 27, 1937, during the Battle of Beiping-Tianjin, Zhao led an advance regiment to arrive at the headquarters of the 29th Army in Nanyuan, Beijing.
The PLA's first organized air unit, the Nanyuan Flying Group, was formed only in the summer of 1949 from about 40 ex-Nationalist aircraft; its task was to defend Beijing, the nation's new capital.