![]() ![]() The Imperial libraries already owned vast collections of literature to draw from, yet the emperor asked for contributions from private libraries. It was an exodus unlike any other, yet it remains a chapter in history virtually unknown outside China. When universities were ordered to evacuate west, toward the relative safety of China’s interior, 77 abandoned their home campuses. In 1937, China’s population stood at 500 million but only 43,000 were university students, a brain trust the Chinese government was desperate to protect. Japan and China had entered the Second Sino-Japanese war, and cities in eastern China were in danger of attack. ![]() Some even brought along valuable imported livestock from animal husbandry programs. They packed up supplies, books, lab equipment and machinery. Across China, students, professors and staff crammed as much as they could into carts, wheelbarrows and their own backpacks. He didn’t do this on his own, but rather with staff and students from the evacuated Nanjing University-and his school wasn’t unique in doing this, either. My father was not quite 20 years old in the fall of 1937 when he set out on a thousand-mile trek across China. ![]()
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