Something interesting about these three characters that I have never seen pointed out, ever, is that they all have one thing in common: they were all introduced at the thirty-minute mark in their respective films.
This is because Hercules (1997), Mulan (1998), and Tarzan (1999) are all coming of age stories, which have character arcs for Hercules, Mulan, and Tarzan to set up before they introduce their respective love interests. They are not fairy tales. Mulan is not a Disney Princess movie, it is a war movie. It is an adventure movie like Hercules and Tarzan. This is the real reason why Mulan should not be a Disney Princess at all. She should not be a Disney Princess for the same reason that Hercules and Tarzan are not Disney Princes: her story has no fairy tale tropes. (Well, that and she's not royalty to start with.)
Furthermore, this is storytelling-supported proof that Shang was in love with Mulan when she was Ping. He was introduced when she was Ping, and she is Ping for most of the film. He was introduced at exactly the same time as Megara and Jane were in their own films. The audience reaction to his introduction on June 19, 1998, the day Mulan was released in theaters all over America, would not have been "Oh, that's Mulan's captain and trainer!"
Instead, it would have been, "Oh, who's that handsome fellow? I bet he's going to be Mulan's husband!" For the same reason that the audience reaction to Megara would have been, "She's going to be Hercules' wife," and the audience reaction to Jane would have been, "She's going to be Tarzan's wife."
Also, please keep in mind that in traditional Chinese adaptations of Mulan, Mulan's love interest and commanding officer were two separate characters. There was nothing stopping the filmmakers from making Mulan's trainer General Li, and having Shang only show up at the end to be Mulan's love interest after she stopped pretending to be a boy, just like every other Chinese adaptation up to that point.
But they did not. Because Shang showed up at the beginning, and was an important character throughout the film just like Megara and Jane were in their own films. And that alone means that yes, he was attracted to Ping, because he was there from beginning to end.
