The esteemed Premier Zhou Enlai attended Nankai University, a significant comprehensive university directly under the Ministry of Education. The institution opened its doors in 1904 and was founded in 1919. Yan Xiu and Zhang Boling, two contemporary patriotic educators who believed that education might save the nation, formed it. The institution relocated to the south and established the National Changsha Temporary University with Peking University and Tsinghua University after the Japanese invaders devastated the site in 1937. National Southwest Associated University became its new name after it relocated to Kunming in 1938. It returned to Tianjin in 1946 to renovate the school and hand it up to the federal government.
